Recordings › Sex Slaves: Concubines and Collective Consciousness -Mufti Abu Layth · 28 Apr 2020 › Segment 2 of 3
How could men in early Islam have sex with their female slaves?
qiyas qiyaas muftis jahannam jahanam jahannumHow were men allowed to have sex with female slaves? Mindset, servitude and attitudes to sex
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This segment2:37 to 11:48 · 9 min 11 sGeneral teaching
The answer in brief
machinesummary, machine-writtenSexual relations with female slaves were condoned because the society Islam was revealed in had a very different mindset: its slavery resembled servitude rather than transatlantic slavery, and it drew no line between a slave's labour and sexual utility, so the practice could not be changed at once.
In more detail
Mufti Abu Layth poses the question that is asked in many places: how were men allowed to have sex with female slaves, pausing for jokes about men wishing the practice still existed. He calls it a very complicated question, hard to grasp from a twenty-first-century perspective after the world has been transformed. In his understanding slavery then was different: the picture that comes to mind is African transatlantic slavery, whereas slavery at the time resembled the servants of the East, with slaves put in charge of money, trade and travelling to buy stock, and hardly ever escaping, which shows a very different mindset. The second difference, he says, was the attitude to sex, which was not a taboo but so natural that it would make Muslims today uncomfortable and was far ahead of modern liberal standards, the only modern parallel he can find being the Viking lifestyle. He offers an analogy: a line manager asking an employee for coffee or a sandwich seems normal today, yet people fifty or five hundred years from now, with a different concept of free will and work ethic, might see it as forced labour against one's will. In the same way that culture drew no line between a slave's labour and sexual utility, and since whole mindsets could not be changed, this is one reason he thinks the practice was condoned.
Question as read aloud · questioner not identifiedHow were men allowed to have sex with female slaves, and how were they different from wives?
Position stated
Mufti Abu Layth says that, in his understanding, one reason sexual relations with female slaves were condoned is that the society in which Islam was revealed had a very different mindset: its slavery resembled servitude rather than transatlantic slavery, and it drew no line between a slave's labour and sexual utility, a mindset that could not be changed at once.
“you couldn't change entire mindsets so this is one of the reasons I think that that that was condoned because they saw that they didn't have a delineating kind of factor to sex”
Category: historical claim
Kind: general teachingTranscript
machine2:37 to 11:48 · click a time to seek · dotted terms open the glossary
of all how are they different two wives they weren't wives they were slaves I suppose the reason the question is being asked and it's asked in many of the places how were men allowed to have sex with them and this is at this point that all the guys call god damned if only we still have only we still had this still going on all of us
iced well on that thought all the guys just take five but to be fair life would just be so uncomplicated just had a countless supply of just to resort to just four people are like don't worry don't worry I'm coming yeah I'm yeah let's go into the gym boy have I done my cardio or for the day I've got five I've managed to buy five different ones that
I've kept within a strategic location and I just kind of visit these flats so the thing is now you see the question is what how were they how was this allowed right this is a very complicated question because you see first of all to understand it from our perspective is very difficult because we see this obviously from a 21st century perspective when the whole world has now been transformed and a lot of things have changed and obviously slavery no longer exists
so easy people how did Islam condone this you see the thing is in my understanding and this is my understanding and I don't know at this point how I understand these things is that back then slavery was different first of all our Patrol picture of slavery that comes to mind is is obviously the African transatlantic kind of slavery which is not how slavery was back then it was it was more like how you see certain kind of servants and things like this in in the east it was like that so and how we know this is
because it's it's abundantly found the kind of duties that slaves would do and they would do things like they were in charge of the money they were in charge of going and trade they were in charge of traveling to different cities buying stock and doing this so it wasn't and they wouldn't you see the fact that they wouldn't even escape it kind of I could never find them I mean we can't fathom that so I mean if somebody trapped me as a slave now right st.
no fantasy but so if somebody all of a sudden I'm like oh and now I'm there and somebody's like oh you got to do work come on goddamn it you gotta work and then they give me all this money and say hey look hey here's these credit cards why don't you go to this different City and buy me some stocks I'll be like hello yeah don't worry I got this to work but I'll see you I'll see you yeah yeah girls 400 on I'll see you mate I'll be out there chilling spending that money shooting back to wherever I came from saying people you won't believe it
but I've made a grand escape but that hardly ever happened in the past and you see so what I'm trying to say is we have to understand that their mindset was very different very different now the other thing that was very different which once again we can't understand exactly was the attitude toward sex it was very different it was entirely not a taboo in fact it was a bit too natural it was so natural that it would make muslims today way uncomfortable and it was so it
was so natural that it was far ahead of kind of modern liberal standards in the Western world and that sounds crazy but it's how it was and I give their reference a bit similar to how the kind of and this because the only reference I can seem to find that has been popularized again in the modern world is like the Viking lifestyle they had a very different attitude that's how the Arabs at the time worked with sex they were just very super casual about things like this and obvious I mean we just find it way too weird but they would like that so they were just like yeah oh
yeah sad sex it's just there was there so it was so different to them so what happens is everybody but they were all a part of that culture and to female slaves that was a part of that kind of understanding that oh it's a bit like saying like I give you an example this is it's maybe a I don't know but as an analogy to give an example well let's say today let's say you have a job so you work you go to the office and in your in your office you happen to be I
don't know you could be an assistant or you could be a I don't know let's say you've got some kind of whatever you could you could be even a solicitor you could be anything you could be doing something very official you're working away but you've got a senior to you and you know whether whoever is your kind of management line on you know your your your line manager so your line manager says to you are listen you can go make me a cup of coffee could you oh you're gonna get us coffee could you with get with two two sugars whatever better for now this would be seen as a normal for
most people that's just normal or let's say you work up until 5:30 and your boss comes just says listen hang about today after work and probably take another half an hour you promise go yeah alright no problem now this to you may be seen as yeah so that happens all the time that's just the nature of work all your boss say something like I listen you couldn't give me a favor you couldn't pop out and grab us a sandwich could you you say yeah sure no problem what would you like to eat now this labor that you see it seems so normal to us but imagine 50 years from
now people's attitude towards labor changes so they look back or in two hundred years or five hundred years from now and they look back at this and they say oh my god I can't believe that so you know oh my god like you were told to to make coffee like again that wasn't even pot like that was a part of your description your job description and you would just accept that how would you just accept that how would you just accept going and buying a sandwich for somebody how would you accept that because the concept of free will become
so different in the future and their work ethic changes so therefore they can't even imagine they can't even see that as what the hell you would go and but how would that even happen when you're doing this forced into this they are you being forced into this against your will because if you are given a happy choice in saying hey what would you love to do would you just love to sit on your chair would you love to run to the shop and buy me a sandwich so you'd naturally say hey I just love to sit on my chair so the point is also you are forced imposed against your will you see when you start calculating
things like that it sounds very different but today to us this sounds normal because it's part of our living culture like we don't see work ethics as we don't differentiate between these things now in a similar way back then labor like the presence of somebody or the utility of somebody they saw that as they didn't differentiate they didn't have this taboo about sex being a separate thing so they were way too natural about sex like oh it's just uh you know it's like oh if you doing something it's like well
you haven't takes it does so this is why it was in that culture that Islam was revealed and therefore it would you see you couldn't change entire mindsets so this is one of the reasons I think that that that was condoned because they saw that they didn't have a delineating kind of factor to sex and just general utility or general work or general and the other thing is as well I think there was that pragmatism to it as well that
Paragraphs overlapping 2:37 to 11:48. Full text on the recording page.
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Stable id, transcript version and tier are part of the citation. Every change to a transcript is logged.Mufti Abu Layth Archive, segment 2020-04-28-S02, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/5is8qpu5llu/s/2/ (accessed 1 November 2026)
- APA 7
Mufti Abu Layth. (2020, April 28). How could men in early Islam have sex with their female slaves? [Video, segment 2020-04-28-S02, auto-transcribed, may contain errors]. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Retrieved November 1, 2026, from https://muftiabulayth.org/r/5is8qpu5llu/s/2/
- Chicago author-date
Mufti Abu Layth. 2020. "How could men in early Islam have sex with their female slaves?" Video, segment 2020-04-28-S02, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Recorded April 28, 2020. Accessed November 1, 2026. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/5is8qpu5llu/s/2/
- BibTeX
@misc{abulayth-2020-04-28-S02, author = {Mufti Abu Layth}, title = {{How could men in early Islam have sex with their female slaves?}}, year = {2020}, month = {4}, date = {2020-04-28}, howpublished = {\url{https://muftiabulayth.org/r/5is8qpu5llu/s/2/}}, url = {https://muftiabulayth.org/r/5is8qpu5llu/s/2/}, organization = {Mufti Abu Layth Archive}, urldate = {2026-11-01}, note = {Segment 2020-04-28-S02, auto-transcribed, may contain errors} }
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