Quran (4:24) (Marrying Slave Women)?

𝐐𝐮𝐫𝐚𝐧 (𝟒:𝟐𝟒) (𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐒𝐥𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐖𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐧)?

Mohamad Mostafa Nassar
Twitter:@NassarMohamadMR

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐐𝐮𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐜 𝐕𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐞 𝟒:𝟐𝟒 𝐦𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐛𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐱𝐭:

𝐄𝐱𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧

One must read all the adjoining Quranic verses in conjunction. Quranic Verses 4:23 to 4:25 are about women whom a man is forbidden to MARRY. Quranic Verse 4:24 is about married slave women who had been captured at the battlefield itself and whose previous marriages were made null.

And void because they were unable to go back or had converted to Islam in captivity and didn’t want to go back to their non-Muslim husbands. Muslim women suffered the same fate when they were captured by their enemies.

In fact, history had proven that enemies of Islam have been brutal in treating both Muslim men and women prisoners of war. Such brutality was and still is demonstrated when enemies of Islam killed Muslim men or most of them through mass killing and keeping Muslim women.

The modern history of Muslim countries such as Iraq, and Afghanistan, which were invaded by non-Muslim countries such as the USA, the UK, and the Western allies, demonstrate very clearly via authentic documented cases that lots of Muslim women were raped, and mass graves were discovered in Iraq and other Muslim countries.

The History of American military brutality in Japan, the Philippines, Vietnam, and South-Eastern Asia remains, untill today in the memory of the people of those countries. In fact, there are some legal cases asking the USA to financially compensate the victims or their children that remain in court untill today.

That is why Quran hints at this and says that Muslims should not grieve over what they have lost. If there was a treaty, the prisoners of war were always exchanged. It is only when there was none, that prisoners of war were taken as slaves.

Even so, one month had to pass before a slave woman could marry another man, allowing sufficient time for her family to seek her freedom if they wanted to. These women were either freed, released on payment of ransom, or exchanged with other Muslim prisoners held by the enemy.

Here, Quran is allowing a Muslim man to MARRY from among these women. Quranic Verse 4:25 clearly explains this and creates an additional condition that besides the consent of the woman, the consent of her master/guardian should also be obtained.

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫/𝐠𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐚𝐥𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐰𝐡𝐨 𝐬𝐥𝐞𝐩𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐡𝐞𝐫. 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐬 𝐜𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐥𝐲 𝐞𝐱𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐇𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐭𝐡:

“There are three people for whom there is a double reward; a person belonging to the Ahl al-Kitab “People of the Book=Jews and Christians” who believes in his own prophet and believes in Muhammad.

And the slave owned by another when he performs his obligations towards Allah and his obligations towards his master, and the man who has a slave girl with him, that he teaches her good manners and instructs her well in polite accomplishment.

And he educates her and gives her a good education, then he sets her free and marries her off.” This tradition is repeated in Bukhari at least six times.

𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐝𝐢𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐬𝐞 𝐒𝐥𝐚𝐯𝐞𝐬 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐞?

Allah Exalted He has revealed the last and final divine Universal message of Islam to our Beloved Prophet Muhammed peace be upon him, in a time when Slavery was rife in the Arabic peninsula, so Islam had to deal with an existing chronic massive Problem of Slavery.

In saying that, Islam prohibited the enslavement of anyone- the only time Islam still allows slavery is for the enemy fighters who attacked Islam and Muslims. In other words, the enemy prisoners of war are to be kept as slaves and servants as DETERRENT to aggressors who attacked Islam and Muslims.

Islam came to find various types of slavery that ranged from tribes raiding other free people and enslaving them, buy, selling, and swapping them. And obviously, mistreat them beside take their women.

Islam prohibited any form of enslavement to any peaceful free people regardless of their race, religion, or ethnicity.

The Only type of slavery that Islam allows is when the hostile enemy of Islam and Muslims takes aggressive offensive measures by starting to attack Islam and Muslims in way, shape, or form.

It is a well-known fact to anyone with common sense that victims reserve the absolute right to defend themselves. Therefore, if enemies of Islam fall in the hands of Muslims as prisoners of war.

How and why, there is a certain type of Slavery that is still allowed in Islam?

In Islam usually, slaves are the non-Muslim enemy fighters and aggressors who started wars against Muslims and their children. Once they are captured in become prisoners of war at the hands of the Muslim army. The Muslims have four choices in dealing with those fighters and prisoners of war regardless of their gender.

Generally speaking, Muslim Slaves who accepted Islam without any pressure and would have been the children of non-Muslim prisoners of war

1. Return them without a price and peacefully to their place of origin and that is illogical and will encourage them to fight Muslims again.

2. Kill all of them and that would be harsh.

3. Enslave them to work for Muslims and emotionally humiliate them to make them regret fighting Muslims.

Yet treat them well in terms of food, shelter, and medication and show them the true teachings of Islam which they were opposing due to the brainwashing Islamophobic black propaganda they grow up with.

4. Exchange the non-Muslim prisoners of war at the hands of the Muslim army with the Muslim prisoners at the hands of the non-Muslim army. Or exchange certain benefits, lands, equipment, or any other beneficial things with prisoners of war.

Reiterating again that Islam came to and found various types of Slavery that were unjustified, that is why Islam start to prohibit those types and dry out the main sources of those types of Slavery.

The fact remained that there were slaves and as per the above-mentioned Hadith, our beloved Prophet Muhammed peace be upon, received a slave who wanted to accept Islam.

While the Prophet did not realise that this person was a slave owned by his master and he did not seek his master’s permission. That is why when his master came to the Prophet seeking to retrieve his slave, the Prophet did the swap which in some views gave those two black slaves to the master of the slave and kept the slave since he accepted Islam and had an agreement with the Prophet.

The Prophet was NOT buying or selling slaves as a business nor he was a slave trader but as part of trying to alleviate the existing bad situations. The Prophet had to resolve that situation to the best possible working solution, by keeping the slave who accepted Islam and obviously later freed him.

And the two black slaves were given in exchange to the master and owner of the slave that the Prophet kept and Freed later since he accepted Islam.

Many non-Muslims will misquote the attached Hadith to this article, using it to try to prove that Prophet Muhammed’s peace be upon him bought, sold, and traded in “Slaves”. Obviously, The Glorious Qur’an told us on numerous occasions for certain sins to be forgiven the solution was to free a neck=free Slave.

Slaves mentioned in the attached Hadith have the meaning of employees=assistants=workers= helpers for the Prophet who he swapped with others.

It is one of the modern-day practices in companies, like employee transfer from a certain workplace to another including changing employers. Make sure to read about the modern-day treatment of employees by multinational non-Muslim companies across the world, including the Western world.

Additionally, make sure you read the following important note, to be able to understand it within its proper context.

Important Note:

First, we must understand that words such as slave, slavery, and alike were used to have meanings such as employee working for his employee or helper.

Words such as Master had the meaning of an employer with modern-day terminology, these meanings did NOT only apply within Islam but ALSO to almost for everyone including Pagans, Christians, and Jews at the time when they bought, sold, traded, or swapped a “Slave”.

This previous statement demonstrates that we as Muslims if are going to claim that these terminologies were used as part of Islamic sources reflecting the good treatment of slaves.

So, we as Muslims are fair enough to use the same standard with other religions and faiths and not automatically claim that only Islam treated slaves well and others treated them badly.

Our claim as Muslims against Christianity is based on an accurate account reflected in Biblical verses that promote slavery in its worst forms and have enabled Medieval Christians, Crusaders, and modern-era Western colonialists to practice horrendous mass crimes in the name of the Bible that encouraged them to do.

The Problem here is not about what are we calling or naming them, The CRITICAL problem is HOW is each religion and how is the follower of each religion is dealing with, and how “Slaves” were treated as per the holy text of the Glorious Qur’an and Authentic Statements of Prophet Muhammed peace be upon him. Or how other religions and their followers treated them.

Let us NOT forget that there are HUGE GLOBAL problems called Modern-day Slavery, real slavery where humans including minors are being trafficked for sexual exploitation across the whole world and in particular the Judeo-Christian Western World and under the sight of every “leader of the free world” the United States.

In fact, it is happening as we speak across the Southern US borders. In Europe, women are trafficked from former Soviet Union countries, Eastern Europe and Russia into Europe for sexual exploitation, prostitution, and human body parts trade all those huge crimes are happening while there are a lot of law enforcement agencies such as Europol, Interpol, etc.

Allah knows Best.