Carolina QuotesA surprising assertion about consent also appears in a recent monograph by a scholar of Islamic legal history who declares in passing that the Quran forbids nonconsensual relationships between owners and their female slaves, claiming that “the master–slave relationship creates a status through which sexual relations may become licit, provided both parties consent.” She contends that “the sources” treat a master’s nonconsensual sex with his female slave as “tantamount to the crime of zina [illicit sex] and/or rape.” Though I believe in the strongest possible terms that meaningful consent is a prerequisite for ethical sexual relationships, I am at a loss to find this stance mirrored in the premodern Muslim legal tradition, which accepted and regulated slavery, including sex between male masters and their female slaves.
Kecia Ali Connected to the Carolinas
Source
Kecia Ali(2017). "Concubinage and Consent". International Journal of Media Studies. 49. doi:10.1017/S0020743816001203
- year
- 2017
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“A surprising assertion about consent also appears in a recen…” Kecia Ali. Carolina Quotes, record CQ-CD3E56E588. https://carolinaquotes.com/quote/cd3e56e588
More from Kecia Ali
For premodern Muslim jurists, as well as for those marginal figures who believe that the permission still holds, the category "rape" doesn't apply: ownership makes sex lawful; consent is irrelevant.
They agreed unanimously that an enslaved female’s consent was never required for a marriage contracted by her owner. Al Shafii (d. 820) is typical: “He may marry off his female slave without her permission whether she is a virgin or non-virgin.”7 It strains logic to suggest that an enslaved woman is subject to being married off without her consent or against her will to whomever her owner chooses but that he cannot have sex with her himself without her consent... All accepted—sometimes tacitly, sometimes explicitly—that a man could practice withdrawal with his own female slave without seeking her permission
The silence of the Hanafis can be explained easily: a wife's sexual refusal is irrelevant if not accompanied by her deartre from the conjugal hime, because the hsband is permitted to have sex with her without her consent. Non-Hanafis do not penalize a husband for forcing sex on his wife, but neither do they explicitly authorize it in the way that al-Khassaf does. For all, marital rape is an oxymoron; rape (ightisab) is a property crime that by definition cannot be committed by a husband.