Qur'an, Hadith and Scholars:Rape of Slaves, Prisoners, and Wives: Difference between revisions

Rape, or az-[[zina]] bil jabr (الزنا بالجبر), is a crime under Islamic law, and the perpetrator is subject to the [[w:hudud|hudud]], that is, capital punishments such as lashing and execution. The Islamic understanding of rape, though, differs markedly from the understanding of rape present in modern codes of law. "Maa malakat aymaanakum"ما ملكت أيمانكم" or "what your right hand possess", that is, [[Slavery in Islamic Law|slaves]], do not have the right to refuse the sexual advances of their owners, and likewise for women taken as booty by victorious Muslim warriors. Wives, similarly, are obliged to accept the sexual advances of their husbands except in certain circumstances such as menstruation or fasting and the Hanafi school of jurisprudence expressly permitted a husband to otherwise force himself on his wife (see [[Rape in Islamic Law]]). As such, the concept of rape was not recognised in [[Islamic law]] for slaves and wives. Rape of another man's slave was treated as property damage for which compensation to her owner was due, and the rapist would receive the [[w:hadd|hadd]] penalty for illegal intercourse. Mainly due to pressure from colonial powers, during the 19th and 20th centuries slavery was abolished across the Muslim world (though persists illegally in a few places such as Mauritania). In many Muslim majority countries marital rape is also now illegal, though is not recognised as a crime in others (especially in the Arab world), which is true also of some non-Muslim countries.