Al-Azhar Professor Suad Saleh: In a Legitimate War, Muslims Can Capture Slavegirls and Have Sex with Them (Archival)

In a September 12, 2014 Fatwa show, Al-Azhar Professor of Theology Suad Saleh discussed the Islamic concept of "those whom you own." Speaking on Hayat TV, Professor Saleh said that Muslims who capture women in a legitimate war against their enemies may own them and have sex with them as slavegirls. "In order to humiliate them," Prof. Saleh said, "they become the property of the army commander, or of a Muslim, and he can have sex with them just like he has sex with his wives." The video has been circulating in social media in recent days.

Suad Saleh: "'Those whom you own' (slavery) existed before Islam. It existed among all nations and countries, not just among pre-Islam Arabs. Anyone could trade in freeborn men and women. This is called the selling of freeborn people. It's like the selling of human organs and trafficking in freeborn humans today. But when Islam emerged, it put (slavery) into order, by limiting it to legitimate wars between Muslims and their enemies. If we fought Israel, which is plundering land, and is an aggressor against people and their faith... Obviously, it is impossible that we will fight Israel, even though Surat Al-Isra in the Quran foretells this, and nothing is beyond the power of Allah... The female prisoners of wars are 'those whom you own.' In order to humiliate them, they become the property of the army commander, or of a Muslim, and he can have sex with them just like he has sex with his wives.

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"Some opportunists and extremists, who only harm Islam, say: 'I will bring a woman from East Asia, as (a slavegirl) under the status of "those whom you own," and with the consent of my wife, I will allocate this woman a room in the house, and will have sex with her as a slavegirl.' This is nonsense. This is not prescribed by Islam at all. Islam says that a woman is either a wife or a slavegirl. Legitimately-owned slaves come from among prisoners from a war, which is waged against the Muslims, a war to plunder land, a war against our faith, and so on. What some people are doing now is an aggression against Allah and against Allah's legal texts in the Quran, and we must not be influenced by this at all."