Women Being “Spoils of War”?
February 19, 2008 at 7:34 pm | In Gender Issues, Islam, Muslims, Patriarchy, Society, Women | 22 CommentsWhat does Islam say about women being part of “war booty”? Are they treated as commodities, like wealth, ornaments and other valuable objects?
Are they treated as such if the enemy are defeated? Do they automatically go from a free person to a slave? Are they only taken as spoils of war if not Muslim?
Anyone know? I do remember this cropped up quite briefly (though off topic!) at Sonia’s blog but its not really something I’ve actively read or researched into.
So Islamically are women of the opposition following defeat treated as “spoils of war”?
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Yeh…..i’ve read this as well in the Quran. Always presumed it was so….that women taken after the enemy is defeated are ‘taken’ nd to be used. Maybe it’s because they’re the spoils of war and the conquering army can do what they want with them so to speak. Dont know the actual ‘ruling’ on this matter and the legality of it in islamic sharia.
Maybe someone might know.
Comment by Abdul. — February 19, 2008 #
Thank you for asking,
no its not like tha at all. Muslims wouldnt kill innocent women or children… they DEFINITLY wouldnt inslave women. In the Quran Muslim cannot kill anyone who wants to stop the fighting..if the other people want peace, by islamic law we HAVE to stop,,, ALSO we cant cut down trees, burn crops and other things that make it hard or impossible to live.
Seriously if you so curious then read the Quran. EVERYTHING you want to know about islam/muslims will be in there.
Mind you it would be alot more accurate if you could read it in the origional text but you could always have a muslim friend around to help you.
Salam,(peace)
Aishah
Comment by Aishah — February 19, 2008 #
Good questions! and very much intertwined with the sex slavery issue..
Comment by sonia — February 19, 2008 #
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! What did you do?? You know you shouldn’t bring this up!
There is so much in my head on this topic I could go on forever.
Oh and I just noticed that little something on the right hand upper corner
Love you!
Comment by Achelois — February 20, 2008 #
As far as I know…men and women captured by muslims in the war against non-muslims were considered slaves. They were made prisoners so as not to aid the other armies anymore. At the end they were distributed among the warriors who were bound to treat them in caring ways. However they were freed when they accepted Islam or if the ruler had ordered to free them.
This view is much different from the view of other victorious nations in the war as the defeated people were treated badly to harm them in every possible way .
Comment by Zios — February 20, 2008 #
As-Salamu Alaykum
Just browsing around and I somehow ended up here. I just went through you blog very interesting to say the least. On the topic I agree with abdul.. I have read these things to.That spoilage of war…I wonder what is accurate in the way we interpete things.
A woman is mule to the world. She carries the weight of the world on her back and never complains..
Comment by TheAngryMuslimah — February 20, 2008 #
Islam did not approve the haphazard taking of slaves. Only those taken in wars which they had fought against Muslims were allowed to be enslaved.
It was for both men and women to be slaved. Also if there was no slavery, it would create a large number of unemployed people in the nascent Muslim society, with no one to take care of their plight.
On the other hand, women who would remain from wars, didnt have any supporter. It was system of Arab society that a man used to carry the resposibility of feeding family and there was no job for women to do. Esp those women from war who they didnt have property or something to support themtheslves.
You can see that even muslim women didnt have that safety and security to live alone without any husband. And polygamy in Islam was bcs of them and supporting their orphans.
Imagine what would happen to women from enemy. If they would not be slave, they would go through prostitution and treating many men. And it was much more worse than having one master.
The slave girls were to be treated like other wives and their children like other children as seen in verses like 4:24-5. And they could buy their freedom, and it could be meant they are able to pay for their life too.
My idea..
Comment by Shahrzad — February 20, 2008 #
Well, we all know the answers. The thing is we will walk around the answers because slavery, war booty and sex with slaves is taboo in today’s time. We can’t talk about those issues because they were barbaric and even if they were not (Islam actively preaching treating slaves with kindness) it was still SLAVERY.
Moreover, with so much hype that Islam brought about reformation, modern people have formed this notion that Islam ‘should’ have banned slavery and women and children should not have been taken as prisoners because after all what kind of rebellion and retaliation can men expect from women and children?! Perhaps Islam meant to abolish slavery but it took another 1300 years for slavery to be abolished from Muslim countries upon UN’s insistence. Abolishing slavery is something ‘we’ should have done, you know, but that’s another thing altogether.
Kindness or not, women were part of war booty. They were distributed amongst soldiers just like ornaments and other objects. Once they were captured their freedom ended and they automatically became slaves even if they belonged to noble families. Of course they were enslaved only if they were non-Muslim (unlike in Pakistan-Bangladesh war when even Muslim Bengali women were taken prisoner, tortured and raped). Do we call such women “spoils of war”? Well…
I have given up writing on this topic. My modern mind just doesn’t understand the concept which is not saying that it is not my fault. Two posts on this topic on Achelois are:
Concubines in Islam (http://achelois.wordpress.com/2007/01/28/concubines-in-islam/)
Possessions of the right hand (http://achelois.wordpress.com/2007/03/18/possessions-of-the-right-hand/)
Comment by Achelois — February 20, 2008 #
You know, the issue of slavery is something like polygamy which related to 1400 years ago and the conditions of that time.The reasons also belongs to that era and not our era.
Anyway i never think that slavery will be ended someday. Nowadays misusing women and using them as sexual objects has other name which is pornography.
I read that brothels in Israel are filed with East Europian women who were cheated to immigrate for a good job. But they ended up being prostitude.
If brothels or kind of pornography which is going to be very common are not slavery, what we can name them?
(here is an article related to it:
http://dillsnapcogitation.wordpress.com/2008/02/19/pornography-slavery/ )
Why we dont write about them?
Comment by Shahrzad — February 20, 2008 #
Afraid not Aishah, women (and men and children ) were part of the war booty and were taken as slaves, as was everything else belonging to the defeated opposition. Cutting down tree’s and damaging crops refers to the actual state and place where the battle commenced.
I had always thought that regardless of how we dress it up, that yes women were treated like other objects and took to be “war booty”.
Some of the reasons for such I always assumed were those pointed out by you Shahrzad – so they don’t have to resort to ill gotten means to earn a living.
And I see your point too Zios. Something about your comment makes me think that those who engaged in the battles, must’ve known that if they were successful they would probably end up with women/men/children as war booty and so would need to provide for them as appropriate. But would the material items they gathered be the main method of maintenance? Who had a greater right over the goods – the people captured or those who won the battle?
Although your suggestion was interesting Zios, there is something in that explanation that doesn’t seem right – after all if the opposition had been defeated, why round up the remaining people (men, women and children) and take them on as slaves? Surely leaving them to their devices or better still offering them something for ruining their community through battles and wars would’ve been a better option.
Thanks for your comment AngryMuslimah – the distribution of people as part of war booty (rather than keeping them as POWs) alongside material goods always makes me think about the real *value* of human life. Perhaps there is none when it comes to war.
Shahrzad – people trafficking (usually women and children) is a rampant trade; probably secondary to the drugs trade here in Scotland according to recent research data. Some of these women are brought over with the promise of work, a better future – they don’t knowingly go into the sex trade. Yes people trafficking is a form of slavery, some say so is domestic labour – but the difference is that it is condemned and not condoned, it is not religously sanctioned whereas the slave trade was recognised by Islam and Muslims alike.
Comment by Sumera — February 20, 2008 #
As for what you say Sumera, i can see yr point.
I think slavery, polygamy, etc are considered as social norm. As long as i believe Hijab is kind of social norm. You can see various wearing of hijabs is still hijab, even in some tribes in Iran, they use kind of thin scarves, but it is acceptable as hijab and if they wear for example Abaya, they will be more noticable.
Islam didnt condemn slavery, but on the other hand, Islam attacked against it.
(here is a good article on it: http://www.al-islam.org/slavery/3.htm )
Every change needs time to come true. And Islam recognises social norms of every era.
From the point i mentioned in Tia’s blog, Islam is an elastic religion. Something which comes to our eyes as barbaric, didnt have same meaning for people of 1400 years ago.
Human’s mind has been growing up little by little. Even our generation is different from previous generation.
If we accept the idea that islam goes forward by time, so the tradition of war booty, is not recognised anymore by islamic aspects. It was eradicated years ago little by little. In the Iran-Iraq, Iranian women got raped by Iraqis, but this raping was not considered as “booty”. It was considered as Zinaa.
Brothels are working legally under protected shield of governments. So can we still say it is really condemned?
Comment by Shahrzad — February 20, 2008 #
I like to take a pragmatic view on things. Just hope that people don’t no longer take such stance on women these days, that would be totally uncool. I sometimes ask myself why did they have some of these practices back then? May be they made sense back then and not now? Does this make sense?
Comment by Amina Ae Sook — February 21, 2008 #
interesting debate gurls
but are these issues really bothering us today? The reality is very ugly in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine.
Comment by عمار - aMmAr — February 21, 2008 #
Ammar, if we’re following something, we must completely be aware of it and have answer for questions we face.
All problems in the muslim world is by blind followers.
Your interest toward reality of Iraq, Afqanistan and Palestine is respectable and what we also believe in.
But the matter of discussing the deen is as parallel as other issues.
Comment by Shahrzad — February 21, 2008 #
Brothels and prostitution although seen as “services” Shahrzad are viewed by those not liberal loving hippies as immoral. But why governments don’t do anything about it, I have no idea.
Comment by Sumera — February 22, 2008 #
Shahrzad: I like your idea of Islam being ”elastic” very much.
Prostitution is a result of societies who make women to be secondrate human beings. Tis ‘Trafficing’ of women and children happens all over the world, and the women are beaten and made dependend on drugs to make them sybmissive. And the men who are their customers don’t give a damn. As long as they can have their ‘fun’.
So it is a subject that is related to the modern world: men still sthink they can rape women as ‘’spoils of war” Or on the streets, just because they are men. I cannot understand what goes on in a men’s mind, and when I think too much about stuff like this and the unfeeling callousness of ‘men’ then I feel like we’d be better off if we just kill all the men, get our babies from a test-tube and just forget about them alltogether.
Sorry, just got very depressed thinking about all the suffering of women…
I know all men are not bad. But then so many are…
Comment by Aafke — February 27, 2008 #
well, as far as I understand, when a muslim is engaged with an enemy, he can enslave a woman, man or child. for the woman, that usually means sexual and domestic service. what is intriguing about this is the following:
1. most likely scenerio is the woman will be raped. (by rape I mean the woman will be coerced to have sex, whether this take a little time or long time is irrelevant. I mean in all probability the woman will NOT be very happy about sleeping with the enemy. There is an expectation that she provide the owner sexual relief (maybe not immediately, but eventually).
2. if the woman has children prior to the enslavement, the children will also be enslaved and expected to provide services
3. slaveowner could decide he does not want to impregnate his slave so he will ensure that the necessary precautions are taken; for if the slave becomes pregnant, the child is considered muslim and free
4. the slaveowner could instead arrange a marriage between slaves; usually the slaveowner does so to encourage the propogation of additional slaves
5. the slave would certainly benefit the muslim family in a variety of ways;
6. slavery could be benificial for the muslim community if it was suffering from the effects of war (labor shortage)
These are facts I have collected (rightly or wrongly) from various Islamic websites. (by religious muslims, not anti-Islam websites by the way)
Slavery has always existed. It still exists today, albeit in different forms. Many people in many places around the world work in slavelike conditions. Which makes me think it is part of human nature. Maybe it is a necessary strategy in difficult times to ensure survival of the fittest.
Slavery has not been forbidden by Allah, although He encourages the good treatment and freedom of slaves.
It also makes me think about what Allah determines the role women in general should play in this life.
Comment by FooBah — March 5, 2008 #
Thank you for your interesting comment FooBah. You are right that slavery today does exist, although in a remotely different form to the shackled ankles image we are usually presented.
With the state of Muslim women these days, you would think they were just unfortunately born the wrong sex.
Comment by Sumera — March 5, 2008 #
Women and children
Muslim scholars hold that women and children prisoners of war cannot be killed under any circumstances, regardless of their faith, but that they may be enslaved, freed or ransomed. Women who are neither freed nor ransomed by their people were to be kept in bondage and referred to as ma malakat aymanukum (slaves).
O Prophet! We have made lawful to thee thy wives to whom thou hast paid their dowers; and those whom thy right hand possesses out of the prisoners of war whom Allah has assigned to thee; and daughters of thy paternal uncles and aunts, and daughters of thy maternal uncles and aunts, who migrated (from Makka) with thee; and any believing woman who dedicates her soul to the Prophet if the Prophet wishes to wed her;- this only for thee, and not for the Believers (at large); We know what We have appointed for them as to their wives and the captives whom their right hands possess;- in order that there should be no difficulty for thee. And Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful. [Qur'an 33:50]
Comment by Moh'd Saharaz — April 21, 2008 #
as salam alekum islam is always right bcoz it is constrtution of allah and we can not say any word against allah’s rule so we just obey all the islamic constrituion and try to establish the islamic rule in whole world this is our work. and clean the earth . so if problem any pepole to understand the islamic terminology so contect islamic resarch foundation.
my message for every pure pios men & women.
Comment by naved — March 27, 2009 #
Ah!
Comment by Achelois — March 29, 2009 #
Oh I missed this post. Very interesting topic…one that most people wouldnt want to discuss because it can get a lil controversial but thanks for bringing it up.
Comment by Leena S. — March 30, 2009 #