Sheikh Awn telling his concubine-bride what to say during their "nuptial vows," which included her "enslavement" to the self-proclaimed Sharia expert.
Egypt's First "Sex-Slave" Marriage
by Raymond Ibrahim
Originally published by the Gatestone Institute
July 5, 2012
Originally published by the Gatestone Institute
July 5, 2012
What is being dubbed as Egypt's "first sex-slave marriage"
took place mere days after the Muslim Brotherhood's Muhammad Morsi was made
president.
Last Monday, on the Egyptian TV show Al Haqiqa ("the
Truth"), journalist Wael al-Ibrashi began the program by airing a
video-clip of a man, Abd al-Rauf Awn, "marrying"
his "slave." Before making the woman, who had a non-Egyptian
accent, repeat the Koran's Surat al-Ikhlas after him, instead of saying
the customary "I marry myself to you," the woman said "I enslave myself to you," and kissed him in front of an
applauding audience.
Then, even
though she was wearing a hijab, her owner-husband declared her forbidden from
such trappings, commanding her to be stripped of them, so as "not to break Allah's laws." She took her veil
and abaya off, revealing, certainly by Muslim standards, a promiscuous red
dress (all the other women present were veiled). The man claps for her as the video-clip
(which can be viewed here) ends.
The owner-husband, Abd al-Rauf Awn, then appeared on the
show, identifying himself as an Islamic scholar and expert at Islamic
jurisprudence who studied at Al Azhar. He gave several Islamic explanations to
justify his "marriage," from Islamic prophet Muhammad's "sunna" or practice of
"marrying" enslaved captive women, to Koran 4:3, which commands Muslim men to "Marry such women as seem good to you, two and three
and four… or what your right
hands possess."
For all practical
purposes, and to avoid euphemisms, "what your right hands
possess"—also known in Arabic as a melk al-yamin—is, according
to Islamic doctrine and history, simply a sex-slave. Linguistic evidence further suggests that she is
seen more as a possession than a human.
Even stripping the sex-slave of her hijab, the way
Awn commanded his concubine-wife, has precedent. According to Islamic
jurisprudence, whereas the free (Muslim) woman is mandated to be veiled
behind a hijab, sex-slaves are mandated only to be covered from the navel to
the knees—with everything else exposed.
During the program Awn even explained how Caliph
Omar, one of the first "righteous caliphs," used to strip sex-slaves
of their garments, whenever he saw them overly dressed in the marketplace.
Awn further explained
that sex-slave marriage is ideal for today's Egyptian society. He based his
position onijtihad, a recognized form of jurisprudence, whereby a
Muslim scholar comes up with a new idea—one that is still rooted in the Koran
and example of Muhammad—yet one that better fits the circumstances of
contemporary society.
He argued that, when
it comes to marriage, "we Muslims have overly complicated
things," so that men are often forced to be single throughout their prime,
finally getting married between the ages of 30-40 (when they might be expected
to have a sufficient income to open a household). Similarly, many Egyptian
women do not want to wear the hijab in public.
The solution, according to Awn, is to reinstitute
sex-slavery—allowing men to marry and copulate much earlier in life, and women
who want to dress freely to do so, as technically they are sex-slaves and
mandated to go about loosely attired, anyway.
The other guest on
the show, Dr. Abdullah al-Naggar, a
professor of Islamic jurisprudence at Al Azhar, fiercely attacked Awn for
reviving this practice, calling on him and his slave-wife to "repent" and stop dishonoring
Islam, arguing that "there is no longer sex-slavery"—to which Awn
responded by sarcastically asking, "Who said sex-slavery is over? What—because
the UN said so?"
In many ways, this
exchange between Awn, who advocates sex-slave marriage, and the Al Azhar
professor symbolizes the clash between today's "Islamists" and "moderate
Muslims." For long, Al Azhar has been primarily engaged in the
delicate balancing act of affirming Islam while still advocating modernity
according to Western standards, whereas the Islamists—from the Muslim Brotherhood to the Salafis—bred with contempt and
disrespect for the West, are only too eager to revive distinctly Islamic
practices that defy Western sensibilities.
While this may be the first sex-slave marriage to take place in
Egypt's recent history, it is certainly not the first call to revive the
practice. Earlier, Egyptian Sheikh Huwaini, lamenting that the "good old days" of Islam are
over, declared that, in an ideal Muslim
society, "when I want a sex-slave [I should be able to
go] to the market and pick whichever female I desire and buy her."
Likewise, a Kuwaiti
female politician advocated for reviving the institute of sex-slavery,
suggesting that Muslims should
bring female captives of war—specifically Russian women from the Chechnya war—and sell them to Muslim men in the markets of Kuwait.
And so the "Arab Spring" continues to
blossom.
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