Sex Slavery and the Middle East

During my studies of war in the Middle East, I've noticed a disturbing trend, a trend of sex slavery.  In numerous conflicts I've examined a long-standing practice of women being abducted and sold into sex slavery.  Why is this?  It's clearly a violation of Just War Principles.  It's a violation of UN Law.  Frankly, it's a violation of any decent-minded person as any such person would conclude that rape and sex slavery is wrong.  So why is this such a widespread phenomenon in this region?  To understand this, we must look at the history and the scriptures of the region.  

In pre-Islamic pagan Arabia, tribal warfare was a common theme of the region.  In this tribal society, taking women as "spoils of war" was a long-standing practice.  When the Islamic faith began, the founder, being a tribal Arab himself, mandated that this practice continue.  As such, it is mandated in the Qur'an in the following Surah's:

Surah 70:30-"(Worshipers guard their private parts) except from their wives from those whom their right hand possesses; such indeed, are not to blame."  

Surah 23:5-6-"Successful indeed are those believers who guard their private parts, except from their wives or those their right hands possess."

Surah 4:24-"Forbidden for you are women already married, except such as your right hand possess.  Allah has enjoined this to you."  

The general idea is that the first two verses encouraged the sex slavery of captive women taken as "spoils of war."  The final verse says that married women may also be taken as war booty.  Now some might think that there is no way to determine that these verses endorse sex-slavery unless you have proper context to explain these verses.  However, the Hadith provides this context we need.  Firstly, Sahih Muslim 8.3432 describes that after the Battle of Hunain the armies of Muhammad defeated the pagan armies in battle and took several women as war booty.  The Muslim soldiers refrained from having intercourse with the women, fearing it would constitute adultery as they were already married.  That's when Surah 4:24 was revealed.  Sunan Abu Daud 11.2150 elaborated on this even further and said that the Muslim warriors were reluctant to engage in intercourse with the women because their husbands were also being held captive and were in their presence.  Sahih Bukhari 5.59.459 also stated that the Muslim soldiers did not want to have intercourse with these women out of fear of getting them pregnant.  Muhammad assured them that it was Allah's will if the women become pregnant.  Sahih Muslim 8.3371 further stated that the Muslim soldiers did not want to get the women pregnant because they planned on selling them later.  

So, as you can see, Arab cultural traditions which influenced the development of Islamic scripture to the point that the two are intertwined creates a practice that today would be frowned upon by the Western World; but is considered the norm in Middle East Islamic/Arabic customs.  More to the point the Honor/Shame custom of the Arab world plays a key role in all of this.  A family’s respect and position within the Islamic community is dependent on the family’s honor.  The honor is the sole responsibility of the women of the family who are taught from childhood the consequences of their behavior.   The woman is the property of the man, whether her father, brother, or husband.  Shame is linked to every aspect of the woman’s behavior: her dress code, social behavior, her proper head covering, etc.  If a woman is raped, the entire family is dishonored. Therefore, Jihadists target the women of other Muslims that they consider to be their enemies.  Not only do they obtain the long-standing "spoils of war," they can inflict a deep stigma onto her family (their enemies).  

Taking into account all of these cultural practices and scriptural decrees, one begins to understand the long, tragic history of sex slavery in the Middle East.  The Hamidian massacres of Armenian and Assyrian Christians by the Ottoman Turks which ultimately proved to be a prelude to the 1915 Armenian Genocide saw countless reports of Christian women being taken and sold off as sex slaves to harems throughout the region.  This practice continues today, to the Coptic Christian Sex Slave Trade in Egypt, to ISIS taking Yazidi and Christian women as sex slaves, to Boko Haram's abduction of the Chibok girls, the rape epidemic of Pakistani Christian women, even Kuwaiti female activist Salwa al-Mutairi's encouragement of Chechen Rebels to abduct Russian women so they could be sold as "Spoils of War" in the Middle East all can be traced to the longstanding Arab/Islamic custom of seizing and selling of women as "war booty."  

Now that we understand the origin of this atrocity, the question that must now be asked is "How can we end it?"  To end it would mean to not only challenge a long-standing regional practice, but to openly challenge the teachings of a faith followed by over 1.5 billion people!  To say we have an uphill battle is an understatement!  How are we to challenge a teaching and practice, especially when Surah 4:65 dictates that a true follower of the faith must submit to all of Muhammad's decrees and teachings without question.  The simple answer is this, have to start encouraging the people in this area of the world to think for themselves.  One cannot simply blindly obey without question, too often that has led a road to disaster.  Long-standing cultural norms need to be called into question, and if that also means that we need to take faith-based teachings into question, then that is what we must do, regardless of how much we may base our lives and beliefs around such teachings.  This is the only way we can ever hope to bring this long-standing inhuman practice to an end, once and for all.  

Sources

Balakian, Peter.  The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America's Response.  New York: Perennial, 2003.  

Daily Mail Reporter.  "Men should be allowed sex slaves and female prisoners could do the job - and all this from a Woman politician from Kuwait."  DailyMail.com.  June 7, 2011.  Accessed from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2000292/Men-allowed-sex-slaves-female-prisoners-job--WOMAN-politician-Kuwait.html

Darwish, Nonie.  Cruel and Unusual Punishment: The Terrifying Global Implications of Islamic Law.  Nashville: Thomas Nelson, Inc., 2008.

Ibrahim, Raymond.  Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians.  Washington D.C.: Regency Publishing Company, 2013.

Qureshi, Nabeel.  Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus.  Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2014.

Mardiganian, Aurora.  Ravished Armenia: The Christian Girl Who Survived the Great Massacres.  New York, 1918.  

Saada, Tass and Dean Merrill.  The Mind of Terror.  Carol Stream IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2016.