Summary
In Islamic history, slave markets were not merely an isolated social practice involving the buying and selling of human beings; classical Islamic jurisprudence transformed them into a systematically regulated legal and economic institution. Detailed rules were developed concerning the purchase and sale of slaves—especially female slaves—the inspection of their bodies, identification of defects, return of purchased slaves, calculation of depreciation, and assessment of their suitability for sexual use. Fiqh texts explicitly state that a female slave might be purchased for the purpose of sexual intercourse; even conditions such as foul odors from her mouth or armpits, virginity, and physical condition were treated as defects in purchased property and factors affecting market value.
Classical sources describe buyers touching and inspecting a female slave’s breasts, back, lower legs, buttocks, or the area between her thighs before purchase. Figures such as Ibn Umar are described touching women in slave markets and saying, “It is only merchandise.” Fiqhi rules also permitted adolescent slave girls to be displayed in markets with parts of their bodies uncovered. Likewise, when a slave woman was sold as a virgin, examination of her private parts was permitted in order to determine whether she was in fact a virgin. Even more significantly, classical jurisprudence treated virginity directly as a component of financial value and calculated how much a slave woman’s market price had diminished when intercourse resulted in the loss of her virginity. [1] [2]
This commodification did not end after sexual use. If a defect was discovered after intercourse with a slave woman, rules existed allowing her to be returned; if she had been a virgin, the amount by which intercourse had reduced her value was calculated. Reports concerning the Companions likewise mention slave women with whom owners had intercourse and practiced ‘azl before later selling them again. In the case of the captive women of Banu Mustaliq, Muslim warriors simultaneously wanted to use the women sexually while preserving their monetary value or prospects for ransom by preventing pregnancy. Early Islamic sources also preserve reports of slaves being sold on Muhammad’s instruction and of a captive woman being transferred in exchange for several other slaves.
Consequently, portraying the Islamic slave market as a system of “shelter,” “rehabilitation,” or humanitarian welfare is incompatible with the historical documentation. At the center of this legal system stood ownership and market value: a human being could be bought, sold, exchanged for other human beings, physically inspected before purchase, and assigned a monetary value on the basis of sexual and bodily characteristics. From the perspective of modern human rights, this constitutes a complete denial of human personhood and an institutional system that transformed the human body into a tradable asset. When ISIS captured Yazidi women and children in the twenty-first century and reduced them to sex slaves and marketable property, it did not invent an entirely new doctrine from nothing; it claimed to be reviving a classical legal framework of slavery whose rules remain preserved in authoritative works of Islamic jurisprudence today.
Map of the Article’s Evidence and Major Themes
The following table maps the principal dimensions of slavery examined in this article, the specific practices documented under each theme, and the major Islamic and historical sources on which the discussion is based.
| Theme | What the Evidence Shows | Major Sources and References |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Modern revival of the slave system | ISIS captured Yazidi women and children, reduced them to sexual slaves and marketable property, and explicitly claimed to be reviving classical rules of slavery. | Dabiq, Issue 4, “The Revival of Slavery Before the Hour”; UN reports on ISIS crimes against the Yazidis |
| 2. From female war captive to owned sexual property | Captivity created ownership over women; classical interpretation held that a captive woman’s previous marriage ceased to prevent intercourse with her new owner. | Qur’an 4:24; Tafsir Mazhari, vol. 3, pp. 16–17; reports concerning the female captives of Awtas |
| 3. Bodily inspection before purchasing a slave girl | Reports describe buyers exposing or touching a slave girl’s lower legs, back, abdomen, chest, the area between her breasts, and buttocks before purchase. | Musannaf ʿAbd al-Razzaq, reports 13,202–13,209 |
| 4. Sahih authentication of Ibn Umar’s inspection of slave girls | Ibn Umar is reported to have exposed a slave girl’s lower leg and placed his hand between her breasts and on her buttocks; al-Albani graded the chain Sahih. | al-Albani, Irwa al-Ghalil, report 1792; al-Bayhaqi, al-Sunan al-Kubra, 5/329 |
| 5. Enforced dress distinction between slave and free women | Umar prevented slave women from dressing like free women; one report states that he struck a slave woman on the head until she removed her jilbab. | al-Albani, Irwa al-Ghalil, report 1796; Musannaf Ibn Abi Shaybah; al-Bayhaqi, al-Sunan al-Kubra, 2/226 |
| 6. Uncovered hair and “their breasts swayed” | Anas reports that Umar’s slave women served the men with their hair uncovered and that تضطرب ثديهن—“their breasts swayed”; al-Albani graded the chain jayyid. | al-Albani, Irwa al-Ghalil, vol. 6, p. 204; report transmitted by al-Bayhaqi |
| 7. Touching and displaying slave women for prospective buyers | Early reports and later fiqh permitted prospective buyers to view or touch the chest, buttocks, the area between the thighs, lower legs, and other parts of slave women offered for sale. | Musannaf Ibn Abi Shaybah, section 2662; Ashraf al-Hidaya, vol. 9, pp. 618–619 |
| 8. Return of slave women as defective property and calculation of depreciation | A slave woman could be returned after a pre-existing defect was discovered even after intercourse; if she had been a virgin, the reduction in her market value caused by intercourse was calculated. | Malik, Al-Muwatta, Kitab al-Buyuʿ, Bab al-ʿAyb fi al-Riqaq; Mukhtasar al-Quduri and its commentaries |
| 9. Virginity as financial value | Classical jurisprudence explicitly treated virginity as a component of a slave woman’s financial value and stated that a virgin commanded a higher market price than a non-virgin. | al-Sarakhsi, Al-Mabsut, vol. 13, pp. 179–180; al-Nawawi, Al-Majmuʿ Sharh al-Muhadhdhab, vol. 11, p. 580 |
| 10. Genital examination to verify virginity | When a buyer disputed the virginity of a slave woman sold as a virgin, examination of her private parts was permitted in order to determine the matter. | Ashraf al-Hidaya, vol. 9, p. 596 |
| 11. Market display of underage slave girls | Fiqhi discussions allowed younger slave girls to be displayed with the breasts and back uncovered before puberty and developed separate clothing rules for girls considered sexually desirable or physically capable of intercourse. | Ashraf al-Hidaya, vol. 9, pp. 618–619; Hanafi rulings concerning the ʿawrah and sale of slave girls |
| 12. Sexual use, coitus interruptus, and preservation of resale value | Reports connect intercourse with captive slave women, prevention of pregnancy through ʿazl, and the economic desire to preserve the women’s future sale or ransom value. | Sahih al-Bukhari, reports concerning ʿazl with captive women; ʿAbd al-Muhsin al-ʿAbbad, Sharh Sunan Abi Dawud; Sahaj Nasrul Bari |
| 13. Sale, resale, and exchange of human beings for other human beings | Reports document the sale of umm walad slave women, the sale of a slave promised future emancipation, and Safiyya being acquired in exchange for seven slaves, demonstrating direct human exchange value. | Sunan Abi Dawud 3955–3956; Tafsir al-Qurtubi, vol. 5, pp. 146–150; Sahih Ibn Hibban, report 7212 |
Introduction: A Dark History Beneath the Cover of Religion
As citizens of the modern world, when we speak of “human rights” or “personal dignity,” the sovereignty of every individual lies at the foundation of our moral consciousness. The course of history, however, was not always so smooth or humane. In medieval social systems in particular, slavery functioned as a highly organized economic and social backbone. Standing in the twenty-first century, many theologians or historians now attempt to present the slavery of those periods under the language of “compassion” or “security.” It is claimed that unprotected women or families devastated by war were supposedly placed in bondage in order to provide them protection. Yet a documentary examination of classical sources and Islamic fiqh reveals an extraordinarily harsh and horrific reality.
That reality is this: the slave markets of antiquity and the medieval period were not humanitarian shelters but vast marketplaces of human flesh. A woman was not treated there as a human being, but merely as a “commodity” or item whose usefulness was assessed according to her beauty, age, and sexual capacity. When an educated person in the modern world learns that it was considered legally permissible in a public market to touch a woman’s breasts, abdomen, or thighs in order to assess her “quality,” it is entirely natural to feel a chill of horror. It is equally natural to be overwhelmed by profound disgust.
The purpose of this article is to expose that historical reality through classical Islamic legal works—such as Ashraf al-Hidaya and Mukhtasar al-Quduri—a reality that survived for centuries under the claim that it represented “Allah’s law.” We will examine how the personhood of a human being was defined as merchandise and how, beneath rhetoric about mercy or justice, a highly organized marketplace of sexual appetite was institutionalized. When a legal system declares that a buyer may return a woman as defective property if her hymen is not intact, the moral depth to which that society had descended becomes painfully clear.
Let us therefore enter this dark chamber of history without evasion and examine it critically—a world in which human beings themselves were reduced to commodities for purchase and sale.
The Modern Revival of Islamic Barbarity: ISIS and the Dark Chapter of Sexual Slavery
Many people assume that the history of medieval slavery or the buying and selling of women survives only in old books and ancient manuscripts. Yet in the twenty-first century the world watched in astonishment as the so-called “Islamic State,” or ISIS, emerged and literally revived these classical fiqhi rules. The devastation inflicted upon the Yazidi community in the Sinjar region of northern Iraq in 2014 became one of the most brutal modern examples of ethnic cleansing. ISIS did not merely kill Yazidi men; it captured thousands of women and subjected them to the legal category of sabāyā (female captives enslaved as a result of warfare).
1. ISIS’s Theological and Legal Basis: ISIS did not present these actions merely as criminal conduct; it claimed that it was restoring an abandoned “Sunnah” or religious institution. In its official magazine Dabiq, ISIS explicitly argued that enslaving non-Muslim women and exercising sexual domination over them constituted a divinely sanctioned reward. [3] [4] It argued that a ruling practiced by the Prophet’s Companions, accepted by the four imams of the Sunni madhhabs and by classical scholars generally, preserved throughout the books of Islamic jurisprudence, and recorded in authoritative works such as those of Imam al-Quduri and Al-Hidaya, could not suddenly become unlawful. This claim demonstrates with disturbing clarity how ancient fiqhi rulings can serve as a powerful “legal shield” for modern perpetrators.
2. The Scene of a Modern Slave Market: The auctioning of Yazidi women in markets under ISIS control in Raqqa and Mosul was a carbon copy of the medieval slave market. According to secretly recorded videos and testimonies from survivors, buyers inspected women’s faces, teeth, and bodies in the marketplace. A price list issued by ISIS assigned the highest prices to children aged nine or younger—approximately 200,000 Iraqi dinars, or around 170 US dollars. [5] This directly recalls the fiqh ruling that there was no objection to presenting a girl of seven or nine in the market if she had reached the threshold of sexual desirability.
3. Sexual Slavery and Systematic Abuse: ISIS produced a handbook or set of instructions for its fighters setting out rules for sexual intercourse with captive women. It explicitly stated that sexual intercourse with a prepubescent slave girl could be lawful if she was physically capable of enduring it. This ruling was essentially a modern application of classical fiqhi discussions found in works such as Ashraf al-Hidaya and Mukhtasar al-Quduri. In other words, legal doctrines that a thousand years ago permitted buyers to touch a slave woman’s breasts or abdomen in the name of inspecting merchandise were invoked by modern ISIS to justify the destruction of thousands of women’s lives.
4. The Moral Crisis and International Response: The brutality of ISIS demonstrates how religious texts or legal systems that are never subjected to humane reform can erupt again like a volcano and threaten modern civilization. When Yazidi women describe the mass rape, sexual enslavement, and buying and selling inflicted upon them, their testimony is not merely an accusation against ISIS; it also raises a profound question about the jurisprudential system that recognizes one human being as the property of another. Although the international community has classified such conduct as crimes against humanity, the theoretical roots invoked to justify these acts continue to be taught in many religious institutions as “immutable divine law.”
Musannaf ʿAbd al-Razzaq: The Companions’ Inspection of Slave Girls
The rules permitting the exposure and touching of a woman’s body in a slave market were not merely theoretical discussions by jurists of later periods. One of the earliest collections of hadiths and reports, Musannaf ʿAbd al-Razzaq, also preserves concrete scenes from the buying and selling of slave girls. Its compiler, ʿAbd al-Razzaq ibn Hammam al-Sanʿani (126–211 AH), recorded not only Prophetic hadiths but also statements by the Companions and the Tabiʿun, as well as early Islamic legal practice. Several consecutive reports in the work show that exposing a slave girl’s lower legs, abdomen, back, and buttocks before purchase, touching her breasts and buttocks, and shaking her for inspection were treated as ordinary market procedures. [6]
Hadiths 13,202–13,204 contain several mutually corroborating versions of the same incident. According to Mujahid’s report, a group of buyers were physically inspecting a slave girl. When they stopped after seeing Ibn Umar, Ibn Umar himself exposed the girl’s lower leg, touched her chest, and told the buyers to purchase her. Another version states that he placed his hand between the girl’s breasts and shook her.
Musannaf ʿAbd al-Razzaq
Regarding the inspection of a slave girl before purchase
Hadith 13,202
Original Arabic
عَنْ مَعْمَرٍ، عَنْ عَمْرِو بْنِ دِينَارٍ، عَنْ مُجَاهِدٍ قَالَ: مَرَّ ابْنُ عُمَرَ عَلَى قَوْمٍ يَبْتَاعُونَ جَارِيَةً، فَلَمَّا رَأَوْهُ وَهُمْ يُقَلِّبُونَهَا، أَمْسَكُوا عَنْ ذَلِكَ، فَجَاءَهُمُ ابْنُ عُمَرَ، فَكَشَفَ عَنْ سَاقِهَا، ثُمَّ دَفَعَ فِي صَدْرِهَا، وَقَالَ: «اشْتَرُوا». قَالَ مَعْمَرٌ، وَأَخْبَرَنِي ابْنُ أَبِي نَجِيحٍ، عَنْ مُجَاهِدٍ قَالَ: وَضَعَ ابْنُ عُمَرَ يَدَهُ بَيْنَ ثَدْيَيْهَا، ثُمَّ هَزَّهَا
English translation
Mujahid said: Ibn Umar passed by a group of people who were buying a slave girl. While they were physically inspecting her, they stopped when they saw Ibn Umar. Ibn Umar went to them, exposed the girl’s lower leg, then pushed her in the chest and said, “Buy her.” Maʿmar further said: Ibn Abi Najih informed me, from Mujahid: Ibn Umar placed his hand between the girl’s breasts and then shook her.
Musannaf ʿAbd al-Razzaq
Hadith 13,203
Original Arabic
عَنِ ابْنِ عُيَيْنَةَ، عَنْ عَمْرِو بْنِ دِينَارٍ، عَنْ مُجَاهِدٍ قَالَ: كُنْتُ مَعَ ابْنِ عُمَرَ فِي السُّوقِ، فَأَبْصَرَ بِجَارِيَةٍ تُبَاعُ، فَكَشَفَ عَنْ سَاقِهَا، وَصَكَّ فِي صَدْرِهَا، وَقَالَ: «اشْتَرُوا». يُرِيهِمْ أَنَّهُ لَا بَأْسَ بِذَلِكَ
English translation
Mujahid said: I was with Ibn Umar in the market. He saw a slave girl being sold. He then exposed her lower leg, struck her in the chest, and said, “Buy her.” He was showing them that there was nothing wrong with this.
The final sentence of the report is particularly important: Ibn Umar was showing the buyers that exposing the slave girl’s body and touching her chest involved “nothing wrong.” In other words, the incident is not described as an accidental touch or a personal exception; it is presented to the buyers as permissible market conduct. Hadith 13,204, a shorter version of the same incident, again states that Ibn Umar placed his hand between the girl’s breasts and shook her. [7]
Musannaf ʿAbd al-Razzaq
Hadith 13,205
Original Arabic
عَنِ ابْنِ جُرَيْجٍ، عَنْ نَافِعٍ، أَنَّ ابْنَ عُمَرَ: «كَانَ يَكْشِفُ عَنْ ظَهْرِهَا، وَبَطْنِهَا، وَسَاقِهَا، وَيَضَعُ يَدَهُ عَلَى عَجُزِهَا»
English translation
According to Nafiʿ, Ibn Umar would expose the girl’s back, abdomen, and lower leg, and place his hand on her buttocks.
The body parts listed here cannot be confined to the scope of an ordinary medical examination: the back, abdomen, lower leg, the area between the breasts, and the buttocks. The woman’s body was turned into an examinable commodity before the eyes and hands of prospective buyers. There is no mention of her permission, objection, or personal boundaries. The purchasing decision of the men present in the market was the only consideration; the woman being examined was granted no authority over her own body.
The next two reports express this practice in more general legal language. A report preserved from Ibn al-Musayyib permits looking at the slave girl’s entire body except her private parts. Al-Shaʿbi’s statement is even more direct: when a man goes to purchase a slave girl, he may look at her entire body except her private parts.
Musannaf ʿAbd al-Razzaq
Hadith 13,206
Original Arabic
عَنِ ابْنِ جُرَيْجٍ، عَنْ رَجُلٍ، عَنِ ابْنِ الْمُسَيِّبِ، أَنَّهُ قَالَ: «يَحِلُّ لَهُ أَنْ يَنْظُرَ إِلَى كُلِّ شَيْءٍ فِيهَا، مَا عَدَا فَرْجَهَا»
English translation
Ibn al-Musayyib said: It is lawful for him to look at every part of her except her private parts.
Hadith 13,207
Original Arabic
عَنِ الثَّوْرِيِّ، عَنْ جَابِرٍ، عَنِ الشَّعْبِيِّ قَالَ: «إِذَا كَانَ الرَّجُلُ يَبْتَاعُ الْأَمَةَ، فَإِنَّهُ يَنْظُرُ إِلَى كُلِّهَا إِلَّا الْفَرْجَ»
English translation
Al-Shaʿbi said: When a man purchases a slave girl, he may look at her entire body except her private parts.
It is false to describe this rule as a medical, safety-related, or welfare measure for women. The purpose is clear from the reports themselves—the man is buying the woman, and therefore examines her body before the purchase. The bodily privacy and covering treated as matters of religious dignity in the case of free women disappeared before market interests in the case of slave girls. With the exception of her private parts, the rest of her body was declared open to inspection by the buyer. The legal boundary between a person and a commodity was effectively erased here.
The next report, preserved in the name of Ali, expresses the mentality underlying this system in its most naked terms. In response to the question of whether one may look at the lower leg, buttocks, and abdomen of a slave girl standing up for sale, it states: “She has no sanctity; she has merely been made to stand so that we may bargain over her.”
Musannaf ʿAbd al-Razzaq
Hadith 13,208
Original Arabic
عَنِ ابْنِ جُرَيْجٍ قَالَ: أَخْبَرَنِي مَنْ أُصَدِّقُ عَمَّنْ، سَمِعَ عَلِيًّا، يُسْأَلُ عَنِ الْأَمَةِ تُبَاعُ أَيَنْظُرُ إِلَى سَاقِهَا، وَعَجُزِهَا، وَإِلَى بَطْنِهَا؟ قَالَ: «لَا بَأْسَ بِذَلِكَ، لَا حُرْمَةَ لَهَا، إِنَّمَا وَقَفَتْ لِنُسَاوِمَهَا»
English translation
Ali was asked about a slave girl being sold: May the buyer look at her lower leg, buttocks, and abdomen? He replied: “There is nothing wrong with that. She has no sanctity; she has merely been made to stand so that we may bargain over her.”
Musannaf ʿAbd al-Razzaq
Hadith 13,209
Original Arabic
عَنِ الثَّوْرِيِّ، عَنْ عُبَيْدِ الْمَكْتَبِ، عَنْ إِبْرَاهِيمَ، عَنْ بَعْضِ أَصْحَابِ عَبْدِ اللَّهِ، أَنَّهُ قَالَ فِي الْأَمَةِ: «تُبَاعُ مَا أُبَالِي إِيَّاهَا مَسَسْتُ، أَوِ الْحَائِطَ»
English translation
It is reported from some of Abdullah’s companions concerning a slave girl: “She is to be sold. I do not care whether I touched her or touched a wall.”
The final statement is the ultimate verbal expression of the erasure of the slave girl’s personhood. Touching a flesh-and-blood woman and touching an inanimate wall are reduced to the same level. The true morality of the slave market is revealed in this mentality: the slave girl’s feelings, consent, modesty, and bodily autonomy have no value; only her saleable body has value. The buyer will look at her, expose her, touch her, shake her for inspection, and then purchase her through bargaining.
From the perspective of source criticism, the chains of transmission of these reports are not all equally strong. In particular, the chain of report 13,208, attributed to Ali, contains an unidentified narrator; it is therefore not being used as conclusive evidence of Ali’s personal conduct. This does not, however, alter the central facts when the other lines of transmission are considered. The incident involving Ibn Umar is reported from Mujahid through several chains in reports 13,202–13,204; report 13,205, transmitted through Nafiʿ, also preserves the account of exposing the slave girl’s back, abdomen, and lower leg and touching her buttocks. In addition, the legal statements in reports 13,206–13,207 show that permission to look at a slave girl’s body at the time of purchase was not an isolated personal incident; it was a recognized matter of legal practice in the early Islamic period, among the Companions and the generations that followed them, and in later jurisprudence.
In light of these documents, portraying the slave market as “humanitarian rehabilitation,” “shelter,” or a system for protecting the dignity of slave girls is a shameless distortion of history. In a shelter, no one places a hand between a woman’s breasts and shakes her body to assess her value; her value is not determined by touching her buttocks, and her body is not exposed for bargaining. These are the features of an organized market in human beings—in which men were buyers and owners, while captive women were living commodities kept for inspection, use, and resale.
Irwa al-Ghalil: Al-Albani’s Authentication of Slave-Girl Body Inspection and Class Discrimination in Covering
The exposure and touching of a slave girl’s body during purchase, and the radically different standards of bodily privacy and covering imposed upon enslaved women compared with free women, do not rest merely on weak or isolated historical reports. The influential twentieth-century hadith scholar Muhammad Nasir al-Din al-Albani examined several relevant reports and their chains of transmission in his Irwa al-Ghalil fi Takhrij Ahadith Manar al-Sabil. Report 1792 concerns Ibn Umar’s physical inspection of a slave girl during purchase, while report 1796 concerns Umar ibn al-Khattab’s enforcement of a visible dress distinction between enslaved and free women. In both cases, the central reports are supported by chains that al-Albani himself authenticated.
Irwa al-Ghalil 1792: A Hand Between the Slave Girl’s Breasts and on Her Buttocks — Sahih Chain
In report 1792 of Irwa al-Ghalil, al-Albani quotes an account of Ibn Umar’s physical inspection of a slave girl before purchase and explicitly grades it Sahih. He cites al-Bayhaqi’s chain, which runs from Ubayd Allah ibn Umar through Nafiʿ to Ibn Umar. The report states that when Ibn Umar purchased a slave girl, he would uncover her lower leg, place his hand between her breasts, and place his hand on her buttocks. An additional sentence at the end mentions touching her over her clothing; al-Albani says that this addition may be an explanatory remark by al-Bayhaqi or one of the transmitters. His judgment on the principal chain, however, is unequivocal: “The chain is Sahih.”
Irwa al-Ghalil, Report 1792
Original Arabic:
1792 – (روى أبو حفص بإسناده: `أن ابن عمر كان يضع يده بين ثدييها (يعنى الجارية) وعلى عجزها من فوق الثياب ويكشف عن ساقها`.
تحقيق الشيخ ناصر الدين الألباني: صحيح.
أخرجه البيهقى (5/329) من طريق عبيد الله بن عمر عن نافع عن ابن عمر: `أنه كان إذا اشترى جارية كشف عن ساقها، ووضع يده بين ثدييها، وعلى عجزها`.
وفى آخره زيادة: `وكأنه كان يضعها عليها من وراء الثياب`.
ولعلها من البيهقى أو من بعض رواته. والسند صحيح.
English translation:
1792 — Abu Hafs narrated with his chain that Ibn Umar used to place his hand between her breasts—that is, the slave girl’s breasts—and on her buttocks over the clothing, and he would expose her lower leg.
Shaykh Nasir al-Din al-Albani’s authentication: Sahih.
Al-Bayhaqi transmitted it through Ubayd Allah ibn Umar, from Nafiʿ, from Ibn Umar: “Whenever he purchased a slave girl, he would expose her lower leg, place his hand between her breasts, and place his hand on her buttocks.”
At the end there is an additional wording: “It appeared that he placed his hand upon her from behind the clothing.”
Al-Albani said: Perhaps this addition came from al-Bayhaqi or from one of his transmitters. The chain is Sahih.
This authentication is particularly important to the present discussion. The account does not come through an unidentified intermediary: in al-Bayhaqi’s chain, Nafiʿ directly reports Ibn Umar’s conduct, and al-Albani grades the chain Sahih. Dorar al-Sunniyya likewise identifies al-Bayhaqi’s al-Sunan al-Kubra as the source and points to corresponding reports in Abd al-Razzaq and Ibn Abi Shaybah. Thus, the bodily inspection of slave women before or in connection with purchase, as described in the early Musannaf collections, is not an isolated reading. Similar accounts survive through several chains in separate hadith collections, and a later hadith scholar authenticated one of their principal chains. [8]
Irwa al-Ghalil 1796: The Sahih Report of Preventing a Slave Woman from Dressing Like a Free Woman
Report 1796 concerns not the touching of a slave woman’s body, but the forcible maintenance of a class distinction between enslaved and free women through their clothing and covering. Quoting Ibn al-Mundhir, al-Albani states that Umar saw a slave woman with her head covered, told her to uncover it and not resemble free women, and struck her with his whip. Al-Albani grades this principal report Sahih.
Al-Albani then examines several chains concerning the same incident. Citing Ibn Abi Shaybah’s chain through Wakiʿ, Shuʿbah, Qatadah, and Anas, he states directly: “This chain is Sahih.” He says that another chain, through Abd al-Aʿla, Maʿmar, al-Zuhri, and Anas, is also Sahih if al-Zuhri’s hearing from Anas is established. A further, more detailed chain through Ali ibn Mushir, al-Mukhtar ibn Fulful, and Anas ibn Malik describes a slave woman entering Umar’s presence wearing a jilbab. He asks whether she has been freed. When she says no, he orders her to remove the jilbab from her head, declaring that it is for free believing women. When she hesitates, he strikes her on the head with his whip until she removes it. Al-Albani’s judgment on this chain is stronger still: “Sahih according to the conditions of Muslim.”
Irwa al-Ghalil, Report 1796
Original Arabic:
1796 – (قال ابن المنذر ثبت: `أن عمر قال لأمة رآها متقنعة: اكشفى رأسك ولا تشبهى بالحرائر، وضربها بالدرة`.
تحقيق الشيخ ناصر الدين الألباني: صحيح.
أخرجه ابن أبى شيبة فى `المصنف` (2/28/1): حدثنا وكيع قال: حدثنا شعبة عن قتادة عن أنس قال: `رأى عمر أمة لنا مقنعة، فضربها وقال: لا تشبهين بالحرائر`.
قلت: وهذا إسناد صحيح.
ثم قال: حدثنا عبد الأعلى عن معمر عن الزهرى عن أنس به.
قلت: وهذا سند صحيح، إن كان الزهرى سمعه من أنس.
حدثنا على بن مسهر عن المختار بن فلفل عن أنس بن مالك قال: `دخلت على عمر بن الخطاب أمة قد كان يعرفها لبعض المهاجرين أو الأنصار، وعليها جلباب متقنعة به، فسألها: عتقت؟ قالت: لا. قال: فما بال الجلباب؟! ضعيه عن رأسك، إنما الجلباب على الحرائر من نساء المؤمنين، فتلكأت، فقام إليها بالدرة، فضرب بها رأسها حتى ألقته عن رأسها`.
قلت: وهذا سند صحيح على شرط مسلم.
وأخرج البيهقى (2/226) عن صفية بنت أبى عبيد قالت: `خرجت امرأة مختمرة متجلببة، فقال عمر رضى الله عنه: من هذه المرأة؟ فقيل: هذه جارية لفلان ـ رجل من بنيه ـ فأرسل إلى حفصة رضى الله عنها فقال: ما حملك على أن تخمرى هذه الأمة وتجلببيها وتشبهيها بالمحصنات حتى هممت أن أقع بها، لا أحسبها إلا من المحصنات؟! لا تشبهوا الإماء بالمحصنات`.
قلت: رجاله ثقات غير أحمد بن عبد الحميد فلم أجد له ترجمة.
ثم روى من طريق حماد بن سلمة قال: حدثنى ثمامة بن عبد الله بن أنس عن جده أنس بن مالك قال: `كن إماء عمر رضى الله عنه يخدمننا كاشفات عن شعورهن، تضطرب ثديهن`.
قلت: وإسناده جيد رجاله كلهم ثقات غير شيخ البيهقى أبى القاسم عبد الرحمن بن عبيد الله الحربى وهو صدوق كما قال الخطيب (10/303) وقال البيهقى عقبه: `والآثار عن عمر بن الخطاب رضى الله عنه فى ذلك صحيحة`.
English translation:
1796 — Ibn al-Mundhir said that it is established that Umar saw a slave woman covering her head and said to her: “Uncover your head and do not resemble free women,” and he struck her with his whip.
Shaykh Nasir al-Din al-Albani’s authentication: Sahih.
Ibn Abi Shaybah transmitted it in al-Musannaf: Wakiʿ narrated to us, saying: Shuʿbah narrated to us, from Qatadah, from Anas, who said: “Umar saw one of our slave women covering herself. He struck her and said: ‘Do not resemble free women.’”
Al-Albani said: This chain is Sahih.
Ibn Abi Shaybah then transmitted another route through Abd al-Aʿla, from Maʿmar, from al-Zuhri, from Anas, with the same report.
Al-Albani said: This chain is Sahih, if al-Zuhri heard it from Anas.
Ali ibn Mushir narrated from al-Mukhtar ibn Fulful, from Anas ibn Malik, who said: A slave woman whom Umar ibn al-Khattab recognized as belonging to one of the Muhajirun or Ansar entered before him. She was wearing a jilbab and covering herself with it. He asked her: “Have you been emancipated?” She replied: “No.” He said: “Then what is this jilbab? Remove it from your head. The jilbab is only for the free women among the believing women.” She hesitated. Umar then got up and approached her with his whip and struck her on the head with it until she threw the jilbab from her head.
Al-Albani said: This chain is Sahih according to the conditions of Muslim.
Al-Bayhaqi also transmitted from Safiyyah bint Abi Ubayd, who said: A woman came out wearing a khimar and jilbab. Umar asked: “Who is this woman?” He was told: “She is the slave woman of so-and-so”—one of his sons. Umar then sent word to Hafsah and said: “What made you put a khimar and jilbab on this slave woman and make her resemble free, chaste women, until I was about to approach her sexually, thinking that she was one of the free, chaste women? Do not make slave women resemble free, chaste women.”
Al-Albani said: Its transmitters are trustworthy except Ahmad ibn Abd al-Hamid, for whom I could not find a biographical entry.
Al-Bayhaqi then transmitted through Hammad ibn Salamah, who said: Thumamah ibn Abd Allah ibn Anas narrated to me, from his grandfather Anas ibn Malik, who said: “Umar’s slave women used to serve us with their hair uncovered, while their breasts swayed.”
Al-Albani said: “Its chain is jayyid.” All of its transmitters are trustworthy except al-Bayhaqi’s shaykh Abu al-Qasim Abd al-Rahman ibn Ubayd Allah al-Harbi, who is saduq, as al-Khatib stated. Al-Bayhaqi immediately afterward said: “The reports transmitted from Umar ibn al-Khattab concerning this matter are Sahih.”
Al-Albani’s Authentication: “Their Breasts Swayed” — The Chain Is Jayyid
At the end of this discussion, the Arabic text quoted by al-Albani is explicit: كن إماء عمر رضي الله عنه يخدمننا كاشفات عن شعورهن، تضطرب ثديهن—“Umar’s slave women used to serve us with their hair uncovered, while their breasts swayed.” Here, تضطرب directly denotes movement, agitation, or swaying, and ثديهن means “their breasts.” After quoting this wording, al-Albani states: وإسناده جيد—“Its chain is jayyid,” or good. He further explains that all the transmitters are trustworthy except al-Bayhaqi’s shaykh Abu al-Qasim Abd al-Rahman ibn Ubayd Allah al-Harbi, whom al-Khatib describes as saduq, or truthful, rather than thiqah. He then quotes al-Bayhaqi’s conclusion: والآثار عن عمر بن الخطاب رضي الله عنه في ذلك صحيحة—“The reports from Umar ibn al-Khattab concerning this matter are Sahih.” [9]
Some current editions of al-Bayhaqi give the reading تضرب ثديهن rather than تضطرب ثديهن. The two readings are not identical. The reading تضرب can be interpreted as “their hair struck their breasts,” whereas the wording quoted and assessed by al-Albani in Irwa al-Ghalil is تضطرب ثديهن, whose direct meaning is “their breasts swayed.” Substituting the meaning of the other reading when discussing al-Albani’s quotation does not constitute textual criticism; it replaces one reading with another. This article retains al-Albani’s quoted wording exactly and translates it according to its ordinary meaning.
Read alongside the preceding reports under the same entry, 1796, this account presents a clearer picture. Umar did not permit a slave woman to wear a khimar and jilbab like a free woman; when one slave woman hesitated to remove her covering, he struck her on the head until she removed the jilbab. Anas’s account describes Umar’s slave women serving men with their hair uncovered while their breasts swayed. The distinction between enslaved and free women was therefore more than a formal classification of ownership. It was directly enforced in matters of how much of a woman’s body would be covered, whether she could wear the clothing of free women, and how she had to appear while working before men.
Result of the Authentication: Two Separate Bodies of Evidence, One Ownership-Based Class System
The two reports demonstrate two different realities. Report 1792 shows that, in the process of purchasing a slave woman, parts of her body that would be regarded as private and intimate in the case of a free woman were open to the buyer’s touch and inspection. Report 1796 shows that a slave woman was not recognized as having the right to adopt the covering of free women; her head covering was forcibly removed to maintain a visible class distinction. In one case, the slave woman’s body was open to the buyer’s inspection; in the other, her attempt to adopt the clothing of free women was suppressed.
The distinction between enslaved and free women therefore extended beyond economic ownership. It also governed who could look at a woman’s body, who could touch her, how much she could cover, and how she would be identified socially. Al-Albani’s authentication is particularly significant here because these accounts of bodily inspection and unequal covering requirements cannot be dismissed as stories invented by modern critics. He himself recognized several chains supporting the principal incidents as Sahih or Sahih according to the conditions of Muslim.
Islamic Jurisprudence: The Stark Evidence in Fiqh Texts
In the preceding discussion, we saw how ISIS brought medieval slavery back into the modern era. We must now enter the legal chamber that defined a human being merely as a “commodity” or an “item.” In classical fiqh texts, slavery was not merely some “rescue operation”; it functioned as a systematically organized matter resembling consumer rights, in which the buyer’s sexual satisfaction was guaranteed.
Tafsir Mazhari: From War Captives to Owned Sexual Property
Before discussing the buying and selling of slaves in the market, the determination of their value, or the inspection of their bodies, it is essential to clarify a fundamental question: how did these women first become owned property that could later be bought, sold, given away, or used sexually? In its explanation of Qur’an 4:24 and the female captives taken at Awtas, Tafsir Mazhari presents this process with striking clarity. It did not regard the existence of a previous husband as an obstacle to the new owner’s intercourse even when the female captives were married. The ownership established over a woman through captivity invalidated her previous marital relationship and created the basis for the new owner’s sexual rights. [10]
Al-Tabarani presents Ibn Abbas’s statement as follows: This verse was revealed during the Battle of Hunayn. After the victory, some women from the People of the Book came under the authority of the Muslims. They were married. When the Muslims who had acquired them wanted to have intercourse with them, the women said, “We have husbands.” This was reported to the Messenger, peace be upon him, and this verse was then revealed.
This verse proves that the owners may have intercourse with female war captives. Even if they have husbands, they are deemed divorced from them; and this is obviously the case if they have no husbands.
The owners of the captives may also marry them off to others. They may do so because they are owned women (ownership means the captor’s comprehensive authority over the captive’s existence). Imam Malik, Imam al-Shafiʿi, and Imam Ahmad held this view.
The most significant part of this interpretation is the phrase “the captor’s comprehensive authority over the captive’s existence.” In other words, victory in war does not merely create a right over the woman’s labor or over some particular asset; the woman’s very existence is interpreted as subject to ownership. The direct legal consequences of this ownership are the dissolution of her previous marriage, the lawfulness of intercourse with her for the new owner, and the owner’s power to marry her off to someone else at will. When we later encounter rules concerning the same woman’s purchase and sale in the slave market, bodily inspection, assessment of sexual utility, or resale, they are no longer isolated legal details; they become the economic and sexual consequences of this foundational concept of ownership.
The Public Display of Women’s Bodies: The ‘Return Policy’ for Purchasing Sex Slaves
Imam al-Quduri directly treats a slave girl in his work as a “commodity” (Goods). Just as we return a defective product in the modern era, fiqh established the same rule for slave girls. If, after purchasing a slave girl, it is discovered that she has a foul odor in her mouth or armpits, the buyer may return that “product,” or woman, to the seller.
The reasoning offered for this is deeply degrading: it is stated that because a slave girl is purchased for the purpose of sexual intercourse, bodily odor constitutes a “defect” or obstacle to intercourse. By contrast, in the case of a male slave, such odor is not a major defect because his primary task is hard physical labor. Thus, a woman’s being is measured here solely by her fragrance or her ability to satisfy sexual desire. [11]
Discussion of والبخر والذفر عيب الخ -: In other words, if, after purchasing a slave girl, it is discovered that she has a foul odor in her mouth or armpits
or that she is proven to be an adulteress or illegitimate, she may be returned. This is because a slave girl is often purchased for sexual intercourse, and such physical and moral defects or weaknesses can become obstacles to intercourse. Therefore, these are considered defects in the case of a slave girl. By contrast, the purpose of a male slave is to perform household work, and these defects generally do not interfere with household labor. Moreover, if the odor is extreme or adultery has become her habitual behavior, it will be counted as a defect. This makes it clear that if a defect in a commodity is something from which commodities cannot ordinarily be entirely free—for example, a small amount of impurities or grain mixed into a measure of mustard seed—it is not considered blameworthy. But if the amount of dust or other impurities reaches one or two kilograms, it will certainly be counted as a defect.
That this “return policy” was not limited to foul odor or external defects is made even more explicit by a ruling in Imam Malik’s Al-Muwatta. It states that if a person purchases a slave girl, has intercourse with her, and then discovers a pre-existing defect that gives him the right to return her, he may return her to the seller even after intercourse has taken place. If the slave girl was a virgin, however, the buyer must pay the amount by which her market value was reduced because of his intercourse with her. If she was already non-virgin, the buyer owes no payment for having intercourse with her. Thus, after sexual intercourse with a woman, what is calculated is not her mental state, wishes, or the harm caused by humiliation; what is calculated is how much the market value of the purchased “property” declined as a result of sexual use. [12]
قال مالك الأمر المجتمع عليه عندنا أن من رد وليدة من عيب وجده بها وكان قد أصابها أنها إن كانت بكرا فعليه ما نقص من ثمنها وإن كانت ثيبا فليس عليه في إصابته إياها شيء لأنه كان ضامنا لها
English translation: Imam Malik said: The established ruling among us is that if a person returns a slave girl because of a defect he found in her after having intercourse with her, then, if she was a virgin, he must pay the amount by which her value was reduced because of the intercourse. If she was non-virgin, he owes nothing for having intercourse with her, because he was the one responsible for her as her owner.
The language of this ruling leaves the economic character of the slave market unmistakable. The same chapter contains detailed rules concerning defects in male and female slaves, the extent to which a defect reduces their value, the circumstances in which a purchase may be cancelled, and even how to calculate the ratio of their separate market values when two female slaves are exchanged for one slave girl. A human being is treated here as a complete legal commodity: she can be bought, used, financially depreciated according to changes in her body, and returned to the seller when necessary. It is difficult to find a structural difference between this and the calculation of depreciation for used products in a modern market; the only difference is that here the “product” is a flesh-and-blood human being. [13]
Al-Quduri (Arabic–Bengali edition), p. 230, Kitab al-Buyuʿ
Discussion: The reason for returning a purchased item after a defect appears, or for retaining it when the defect is absent, is that the basic requirement of an unrestricted contract is that the item be free of defects. This is subject to several conditions: (1) the defect already existed with the seller and was not created through the buyer’s intervention; (2) the buyer was unaware of the defect at the time of purchase; (3) the buyer was also unaware of it at the time of taking possession; (4) the buyer cannot remove the defect without difficulty; and (5) no condition was made that the item would be free from all defects, and it was not possible to remove the defect before the contract was annulled.
Discussion: No defect in a commodity may be arbitrarily designated a “defect”; only what is recognized as a defect according to the customs and practices of merchants counts as one. This is because a defect reduces the quality and price of a commodity, and the merchants are responsible for judging whether its value has been reduced. It should be remembered that this explanation concerning defects is essentially a foundational principle, from which many further legal cases can be derived. The author himself presents several cases compiled on the basis of this principle.
Discussion: If a male slave had bad habits such as running away in childhood, but these habits did not reappear before the owner after he reached maturity, then a recurrence after the buyer acquired him is not considered a defect attributable to the seller. It is instead treated as a newly arising defect, and the slave cannot be returned. On the other hand, if these childhood habits became apparent to the buyer while the slave was still a minor, or if they appeared to the seller after maturity and then recurred after the buyer acquired him, they are considered returnable defects. The source of the defect in childhood and its source in adulthood are not the same but entirely different: in childhood he runs away out of an attraction to play, whereas after reaching adulthood he does so to steal or out of recklessness. Because the sources differ, the defects also differ. Therefore, a defect that appears to the buyer cannot be claimed to be the earlier defect.
Discussion: In other words, if, after purchasing a slave girl, a foul odor is detected in her mouth or armpits, or she is proven to be an adulteress or illegitimate, she may be returned. This is because a slave girl is often purchased for sexual intercourse, and these physical and moral defects and weaknesses can obstruct intercourse. Therefore, they are defects in the case of a slave girl. By contrast, the purpose of a male slave is to perform household work, and these defects generally do not interfere with household labor. Moreover, if the odor is excessive or adultery has become habitual, it counts as a defect. It is therefore clear that if a defect in a commodity is something from which commodities ordinarily cannot be free—for example, a small amount of mustard seed mixed with impurities or a small amount of grain or pulse—it is not blameworthy. But if the quantity of dust or impurities reaches one or two kilograms, it is certainly counted as a defect.
Touching and Display: The Erasure of All Boundaries of Modesty
Although Islamic ethics describes haya, or modesty, as part of faith, the question of where that modesty or covering disappeared in the slave market is unavoidable. According to a ruling in Ashraf al-Hidaya, if a buyer intends to purchase a slave girl, he may touch those parts of her body that he is permitted to look at. These include her chest, back, and lower legs. Even if touching her produces intense sexual arousal or desire in the buyer, classical law still described it as permissible.
The brutality of this display is most evident in the case of adolescent slave girls. Until they reached puberty, the upper parts of adolescent slave girls—the breasts and back—could be displayed in the market uncovered. Even young children considered physically suitable for intercourse, who might be seven or nine years old, were displayed in the market with only their lower bodies covered. This is not merely a historical description; it demonstrates that human dignity was sacrificed here to the profits of buying and selling. [14] –
Imam al-Quduri (may Allah have mercy on him) says in his Mukhtasar al-Quduri: If someone intends to purchase a slave girl, he may touch all those parts of her that he is permitted to look at—even if touching her causes sexual desire to arise in the buyer.
The compiler says: Imam Muhammad described the same legal issue in his Jamiʿ al-Saghir. The wording of Jamiʿ al-Saghir is as follows: “Imam Muhammad and Imam Abu Yusuf report from Abu Hanifa that a person who intends to purchase a slave girl may touch her lower legs, chest, and hands; there is no harm or defect in doing so, and there is no problem with looking at these parts while they are uncovered.” “Touching remains permissible even if sexual desire arises.”
“Touching is permissible even when there is a fear that it may arouse sexual desire. According to them, looking at a slave girl for the purpose of purchasing her is permissible even if there is a risk of arousal.”
“The earlier imams considered it permissible to touch a slave girl while purchasing her in order to assess the nature of her skin, because people in those times were generally righteous.”
“Later scholars permitted touching when there was no sexual desire, and this is the ruling currently followed.”
“Once a young slave girl begins menstruating, she may no longer be taken to the market for sale wearing only a garment that covers the lower part of her body. This is because menstruation means that she has reached puberty. The abdomen and back of a pubescent slave girl are part of her awrah, as discussed earlier. Therefore, if she is dressed only in a lower garment, her breasts and back will remain exposed, so she must wear an upper garment, known as a qamis. An izar is a garment that covers only the area below the navel.”
“This discussion makes clear that there is no harm in taking younger slave girls to the market with their breasts and backs uncovered.”
“A young slave girl who has reached the stage of sexual desirability (that is, become physically suitable for intercourse; no condition of being seven or nine years old is stipulated) may not be presented for sale wearing only one garment.”
Buying a Slave Girl After Examining Her Vagina
The Companions of the Prophet Muhammad—presented as a guide for all humanity— purchased beautiful virgin slave girls from the slave market for sexual use. Virgin slave girls also commanded higher prices in the market. Yet sometimes, after purchasing a slave girl, they discovered that she was not actually a virgin. Because the Prophet’s Companions greatly preferred virgin vaginas (and, according to Islamic teaching, virginal houris are even offered as an enticement in Paradise), they would become enraged if, after bringing a slave girl to bed, they found insufficient bleeding from a torn hymen or failed to enjoy intercourse because her vagina was not tight enough. They had paid for a virgin girl, after all. In other words, they thought that the entire payment had gone to waste.
On this subject, the legal ruling given in Ashraf al-Hidaya states that, in such a case, the owner may examine the slave girl’s private parts or vagina for verification. These fiqh rulings make clear that virgin slave girls were in extremely high demand and commanded extremely high prices among the Companions in the slave market. Around this demand, another diabolical legal rule was developed. If an owner purchased a woman as a virgin and then claimed that she was not a virgin, it was made permissible to examine the woman’s private parts or vagina in order to verify the claim. The question is: how was this examination carried out? A two-finger test?
The fact that virgin slave girls had a higher market value is not merely the speculation of a modern critic. Shams al-Aʾimma al-Sarakhsi, one of the leading jurists of the Hanafi school, writes directly about a slave girl’s virginity in his famous work Al-Mabsut: “البكارة في حكم جزء من المالية”—that is, “Virginity is treated as a component of financial value.” He explains that if a virgin slave girl loses her virginity through intercourse with the buyer, a portion of her maliyya, or financial value, is considered to have been lost, and the corresponding portion of the purchase price must be calculated. Thus, the slave girl’s virginity is not treated here as a personal physical condition or as part of her own sexual history; it is a valuable characteristic of purchased property whose loss can be measured in money. [15]
وإن كانت بكرا أو كان الوطء نقصها … لأنه فات جزء من ماليتها بفعل المشتري … وهذا لأن البكارة في حكم جزء من المالية
English translation: If she is a virgin, or if intercourse reduces her value, then the corresponding portion of the purchase price is chargeable to the buyer because intercourse caused part of her financial value to be lost. This is because virginity is treated as a component of financial value.
The same economic valuation appears even more explicitly in Shafiʿi fiqh. In Imam al-Nawawi’s Al-Majmuʿ Sharh al-Muhadhdhab, discussing such a slave girl, it is stated that if a person purchases a slave girl as non-virgin but later finds her to be a virgin, the buyer may not return her on that account. In the language of fiqh, “البكر أفضل من الثيب في الثمن”—“A virgin is more valuable than a non-virgin in terms of price.” It is further stated that personal preference is not the criterion; the criterion is which characteristic increases the market price. Thus, virginity testing, selling a girl as a virgin, returning the property when virginity is lost, and calculating the reduction in value are interconnected parts of the same commercial structure. The condition of a woman’s vagina is not treated there as a matter of her personal privacy, but as a “characteristic” used to determine market value. [16]
وَإِنْ اشْتَرَاهَا عَلَى أَنَّهَا ثَيِّبٌ فَوَجَدَهَا بِكْرًا لَمْ يَثْبُتْ لَهُ الرَّدُّ … وَإِنَّمَا الِاعْتِبَارُ بِمَا يَزِيدُ فِي الثَّمَنِ، وَالْبِكْرُ أَفْضَلُ مِنْ الثَّيِّبِ فِي الثَّمَنِ
English translation: If someone purchases her as a non-virgin and later finds her to be a virgin, he does not acquire the right to return her… because personal preference is not considered here; what matters is which characteristic increases the price. And a virgin is more valuable than a non-virgin in terms of price.
Consider this: a woman who lost her family in war is now required to expose her genitals for examination before an unfamiliar man merely so that her “commodity value” can be assessed. Modern ethics would directly classify this as sexual assault or sexual abuse, yet fiqh legitimized it as “commercial fairness.” A woman’s virginity is not treated here as a matter of dignity; it is merely a “standard” used to determine her market price. [17] –
6. Similarly, if a person purchases a slave girl as a virgin and then discovers that the girl’s virginity has been lost, while the seller denies that her virginity was lost, then, in such a situation, in order to verify the matter, it is permissible at one stage to examine the slave girl’s private parts.
Musannaf Ibn Abi Shaybah: Reports of Touching Slave Girls Before Purchase
In section 2662 (29) of his al-Musannaf, Ibn Abi Shaybah compiled eight reports concerning the touching and examination of enslaved women before purchase. The original Arabic text is also preserved in the Islamweb online library, [18]
المصنف
ابن أبي شيبة – عبد الله بن محمد بن أبي شيبة
جزء
5
صفحة
33
إظهار / إخفاء التشكيل بحث في الكتاب
2662 ( 29 ) الرجل يريد أن يشتري الجارية فيمسها
( 1 ) حدثنا جرير عن منصور عن مجاهد قال : كنت مع ابن عمر أمشي في السوق فإذا نحن بناس من النخاسين قد اجتمعوا على جارية يقلبونها ، فلما رأوا ابن عمر تنحوا وقالوا : ابن عمر قد جاء ، فدنا منها ابن عمر فلمس شيئا من جسدها وقال : أين أصحاب هذه الجارية ، إنما هي سلعة .
( 2 ) نا علي بن مسهر عن عبيد الله عن نافع عن ابن عمر أنه كان إذا أراد أن يشتري الجارية وضع يده على أليتيها أو بين فخذها وربما كشف عن ساقيها [ ص: 33 ]
( 3 ) حدثنا وكيع عن سفيان عن عبيد المكتب عن إبراهيم عن رجل من أصحاب عبد الله أنه قال : ما أبالي مسستها أو مسست هذا الحائط .
( 4 ) حدثنا وكيع عن عبد الله بن حبيب عن أبي جعفر أنه ساوم بجارية فوضع يده على ثدييها وصدرها .
( 5 ) حدثنا ابن مبارك عن الأوزاعي قال : سمعت عطاء وسئل عن الجواري اللاتي يبعن بمكة فكره النظر إليهن إلا لمن يريد أن يشتري .
( 6 ) حدثنا أزهر السمان عن ابن عون قال : كان محمد إذا بعث إليه بالجارية ينظر إليها كشف بين ساقيها وذراعيها .
( 7 ) حدثنا هشيم عن مغيرة عن إبراهيم أن صديقا له أسود كتب إليه أن يشتري له جارية ، ففعل فعاب شيئا من ساق الجارية ، قال : فبلغ ذلك الأسود من قوله فقال : ما أحب أني نظرت إلى ساقيها ولا إلى كذا وكذا .
( 8 ) حدثنا وكيع عن حماد بن سلمة عن حكيم الأثرم عن أبي تميمة عن أبي موسى أنه خطبهم فقال : لا أعلم رجلا اشترى جارية فنظر إلى ما دون الجارية وإلى ما فوق الركبة إلا عاقبته .
English translation: Musannaf Ibn Abi Shaybah
Section no. 2662 (29) — Regarding touching a slave girl when a person intends to purchase her
1. Reported from Mujahid: He said, I was walking through the market with Ibn Umar. Suddenly, we saw a group of slave dealers (nakhkhasin) gathered around a slave girl and physically inspecting her. When they saw Ibn Umar, they stepped aside and said, “Ibn Umar has arrived.” Ibn Umar then approached the slave girl and touched some part of her body. He said, “Where are the owners of this slave girl? She is merely a commodity.” ( Musannaf Ibn Abi Shaybah, Section 2662 (29), report 1 )
2. Reported from Ali ibn Mushir through Nafiʿ: When Ibn Umar intended to purchase a slave girl, he would place his hand on her buttocks or between her thighs and would sometimes expose her lower legs. ( Musannaf Ibn Abi Shaybah, Section 2662 (29), report 2 )
3. Reported from Wakiʿ through Ibrahim: One of Abdullah ibn Masʿud’s companions said, “I do not care whether I touched her, the slave girl, or touched this wall.” ( Musannaf Ibn Abi Shaybah, Section 2662 (29), report 3 )
4. Reported from Wakiʿ through Abu Jaʿfar: While bargaining over the price of a slave girl, Abu Jaʿfar placed his hands on her breasts and chest. ( Musannaf Ibn Abi Shaybah, Section 2662 (29), report 4 )
5. Reported from Ibn al-Mubarak through ʿAtaʾ: When he was asked about slave girls offered for sale in Mecca, he said that he disapproved of looking at them for anyone who did not intend to purchase them—that is, looking was permissible for a prospective buyer. ( Musannaf Ibn Abi Shaybah, Section 2662 (29), report 5 )
6. Reported from Azhar al-Samman through Ibn ʿAwn: When a slave girl was sent to Muhammad ibn Sirin, he would examine her by exposing her lower legs and arms. ( Musannaf Ibn Abi Shaybah, Section 2662 (29), report 6 )
7. Reported from Hushaym through Ibrahim: A black man wrote to Ibrahim asking him to purchase a slave girl for him. Ibrahim did so and criticized one of the girl’s lower legs for a defect. When this reached the black man, he said, “I would rather not have looked at her lower leg or at such-and-such other parts.” ( Musannaf Ibn Abi Shaybah, Section 2662 (29), report 7 )
8. Reported from Wakiʿ through Abu Musa al-Ashʿari: Abu Musa addressed the people and said, “If I learn that a man looked, while purchasing a slave girl, at the area below her navel or the area above her knee, I will punish him.” ( Musannaf Ibn Abi Shaybah, Section 2662 (29), report 8 )
Summary: These reports clearly show that at that time it was customary for buyers or inspectors in the buying and selling of slave girls to directly touch or expose various sensitive parts of their bodies—the breasts, buttocks, and thighs. The statements attributed to figures such as Ibn Umar make clear that slave girls were treated not as human beings but as mere purchasable “commodities” or “goods.”
Uncovered Display of Underage Slave Girls and Bodily Inspection in Slave Markets: Juristic Rules and Historical Accounts
In Islamic jurisprudence, questions about how much of an enslaved woman’s body must be covered, how she may be presented to a prospective buyer, and which parts of her body may be viewed or touched were determined not by her freedom or bodily dignity but by her legal status as property, age, and the requirements of buying and selling. The rules concerning younger slave girls in al-Hidaya and Radd al-Muhtar are particularly revealing. These works acknowledge the practice of offering a slave girl for sale wearing only an izar, a cloth covering the area between the navel and knees, and discuss when her abdomen and back must additionally be covered. Thus, the public exposure of the bodies of children and adolescents in slave markets was not merely a legend or conjecture; it was an explicit subject of juristic discussion. [19] [20]
Al-Marghinani’s al-Hidaya: Displaying a Slave Girl for Sale Wearing Only an Izar
In al-Hidaya, one of the central works of Hanafi jurisprudence, Burhan al-Din al-Marghinani addresses menstruation and the clothing in which an enslaved girl may be presented for sale. His discussion provides the basis for permitting girls who have not yet reached puberty to be displayed wearing only an izar. He also cites a further opinion attributed to Imam Muhammad: a girl who has not yet menstruated is nevertheless treated as an adult slave woman for these purposes if she is considered sexually desirable and physically capable of intercourse. In neither case is the girl’s own choice the deciding factor. The question is how much of her body may remain uncovered when she is offered for sale before men. [21]
Original Arabic:
قال: (وإذا حاضَتِ الأمةُ لم تُعْرَضْ في إزارٍ واحدٍ)، ومعناه: بَلَغَتْ، وهذا لِمَا بَيَّنَّا أنَّ الظهرَ والبطنَ منها عورةٌ. وعن محمدٍ رحمه الله: أنها إذا كانت تُشتَهى، ويُجامَعُ مثلُها: فهي كالبالغة، لا تُعرَضُ في إزارٍ واحدٍ؛ لوجود الاشتهاء.
English translation: The author says: “When a slave woman has menstruated, she must not be displayed for sale wearing only one izar.” That means she has reached puberty, because, as explained earlier, her back and abdomen count as parts of the body that must be covered. It is also reported from Imam Muhammad that if a slave girl is considered sexually desirable and intercourse with girls of her physical condition is considered possible, she is subject to the ruling applicable to a pubescent woman. Because she is deemed sexually desirable, she too may not be displayed for sale wearing only one izar.
The social meaning of this rule is plain. Younger slave girls could be brought to market wearing a garment that covered only a specified portion of the lower body, leaving the abdomen and back exposed. Whether a girl’s upper body could be displayed was not decided on the basis of her consent or a right to privacy. Instead, a different covering requirement was imposed once she was deemed sexually desirable or physically capable of intercourse. The child’s body was treated as merchandise within the market, and the question of covering it became a rule internal to that commercial system.
Ibn Abidin: The Ages of Seven or Nine and the Legal Threshold of Sexual Desirability
In Radd al-Muhtar ala al-Durr al-Mukhtar, Ibn Abidin links this same rule to discussion of the parts of young children’s bodies that must be covered. His commentary expressly mentions differing opinions that set the threshold of sexual desirability at seven or nine years of age. It also records an alternative criterion based not on a fixed age but on the girl’s bodily development and whether intercourse with someone of her physical condition was considered possible. This provides a direct connection between the limits on displaying young girls’ bodies in slave markets and classical jurists’ assessment of children’s sexual suitability. [22]
Original Arabic:
وفي النهر: كان ينبغي اعتبار السبع لأمرهما بالصلاة إذا بلغا هذا السن. ا هـ. ط. أقول: سيأتي في الحظر أن الأمة إذا بلغت حد الشهوة لا تعرض على البيع في إزار واحد يستر ما بين السرة والركبة لأن ظهرها وبطنها عورة ا هـ فقد أعطوها حكم البالغة من حين بلوغ حد الشهوة. واختلفوا في تقدير حد الشهوة، فقيل سبع، وقيل تسع وسيأتي في باب الإمامة تصحيح عدم اعتباره بالسن بل المعتبر أن تصلح للجماع، بأن تكون عبلة ضخمة، وهذا هو المناسب اعتباره هنا فتدبر.
English translation: In al-Nahr, it is stated that consideration should have been given to the age of seven, since boys and girls are instructed to pray when they reach that age. I [Ibn Abidin] say: in the later chapter on prohibitions and permissions, it will be explained that when a slave girl reaches the threshold of sexual desirability, she may not be offered for sale wearing a single izar that covers only the area between her navel and knees, because her back and abdomen are parts of the body that must be covered. She is therefore treated as subject to the rules for a pubescent woman from the moment she reaches that threshold. There is disagreement over the age at which this threshold is reached: some say seven, others nine. However, the opinion declared correct in the chapter on leading prayer does not use age as the criterion; instead, it asks whether she is considered physically capable of intercourse, meaning that the girl is full-bodied and physically developed. This appears to be the appropriate criterion here as well. Consider this carefully.
Seven or nine was not established here as a universal and mandatory age threshold. The significant point is that such young ages were included in the discussion at all, and that the criterion of perceived physical suitability for intercourse could take precedence over whether the girl had begun menstruating. The reasoning assumes that a girl who had not reached that threshold could be displayed for sale wearing only a covering from navel to knee. Whether the breasts, abdomen, and back of a young slave girl could be exposed to prospective buyers was therefore expressly addressed by juristic rules.
Radd al-Muhtar on Sales: Touching the Body, Assessing the Skin, and Clothing
Ibn Abidin’s Radd al-Muhtar, in its chapter on looking and touching, discusses more than rules of dress. It also records earlier jurists’ positions on whether a buyer may touch an enslaved woman’s body. Assessing the softness of her skin for the purpose of purchase was treated as a legitimate need. Citing Abu Hanifa’s opinion, the text states that he saw no objection to such touching when necessary to ascertain the condition of her skin. The same discussion then returns to the clothing in which a girl who has not menstruated may be offered for sale, citing al-Hidaya and the opinion attributed to Imam Muhammad. [23]
Original Arabic:
(قوله للضرورة) وهي معرفة لين بشرتها وذلك غرض صحيح فحل اللمس إتقاني. (قوله في زماننا) لعل وجه التقييد به أنه لغلبة الشر في زماننا ربما يؤدي المس إلى ما فوقه، بخلافه في زمن السلف. قال في الاختيار: وإنما حرم المس لإفضائه إلى الاستمتاع وهو الوطء. (قوله وبه جزم في الاختيار) وكذا في الخانية والمبتغى وعزاه في الهداية وغيرها لمشايخه در منتقى، ونقل الأتقاني عن شرح الجامع الصغير لفخر الإسلام، عن محمد أنه كره للشاب المس، لأن بالنظر كفاية، ولم ير أبو حنيفة بذلك بأسا لضرورة العلم ببشرتها. (قوله وأمة بلغت حد الشهوة) بأن تصلح للجماع، ولا اعتبار للسن من سبع أو تسع كما صححه الزيلعي وغيره في باب الإمامة، ثم إن ما مشى عليه المصنف تبعا للدرر هو رواية عن محمد، وهو خلاف ما مشى عليه في الكنز والملتقى ومختصر القدوري وغيرها. قال في الهداية: وإذا حاضت الأمة لم تعرض في إزار واحد، ومعناه بلغت. وعن محمد إذا كانت تشتهى، ويجامع مثلها فهي كالبالغة لا تعرض في إزار واحد لوجود الاشتهاء. تأمل.
English translation: The phrase “because of necessity” means determining the softness of her skin. This is a legitimate purpose, and touching is therefore permissible, as al-Itqani explained. The qualification “in our time” may refer to the prevalence of wrongdoing in the present age, when touching might lead to something further, unlike in the time of earlier generations. Al-Ikhtiyar explains that touching was prohibited because it could lead to sexual enjoyment, namely intercourse. This position is also affirmed in al-Ikhtiyar, al-Khaniyya, and al-Mubtagha, and attributed in al-Hidaya and other works to earlier Hanafi scholars. Al-Itqani transmitted from Fakhr al-Islam’s commentary on al-Jami al-Saghir an opinion attributed to Imam Muhammad that a young man’s touching an enslaved woman is disapproved of, since looking is sufficient. Abu Hanifa, however, saw no objection to touching when necessary to ascertain the condition of her skin. The expression “a slave girl who has reached the threshold of sexual desirability” means one whose physical condition is considered suitable for intercourse. A fixed age of seven or nine is not the deciding factor, as al-Zaylai and others held in the chapter on leading prayer. The position followed by the author, in keeping with al-Durar, is one report from Imam Muhammad, whereas al-Kanz, al-Multaqa, Mukhtasar al-Quduri, and other works adopt a different position. Al-Hidaya states: “When a slave woman menstruates, she must not be displayed for sale wearing only one izar,” meaning that she has reached puberty. According to Imam Muhammad, if a slave girl is deemed sexually desirable and physically capable of intercourse, she falls under the ruling applicable to an adult woman and likewise must not be displayed wearing only one izar. Reflect on this.
These rulings place the purchaser’s ability to inspect the body of an enslaved girl alongside the determination of how much of a younger girl must be covered. Touching the skin to assess its softness was recognized as a legitimate buyer’s need. Meanwhile, the point at which the abdomen and back of an underage girl came to be treated as parts requiring concealment was assessed through sexual desirability and supposed suitability for intercourse. Nowhere in this legal discussion does the enslaved girl appear as the person who decides whether her body will be exposed or touched. What appears instead is the buyer, the seller, and the law governing the inspection of a person treated as property.
Ibn al-Mujawir’s Historical Account: Stripping and Genital Inspection in the Slave Market of Aden
Independent historical evidence that these practices were not merely rules on paper appears in the seventh-century AH historian Ibn al-Mujawir’s Tarikh al-Mustabṣir. Under the heading “Description of the Sale of Slave Girls” (صفة بيع الجواري), he describes how a slave girl in Aden was perfumed and dressed, given an izar around her waist, led through the marketplace by an auctioneer, and examined by prospective buyers. The account goes as far as describing the removal of her clothing and direct inspection of her genitals and anus. This specific account does not state the girl’s age; it is historical evidence of bodily exposure and inspection in the slave market, not evidence that the particular person described was underage. [24] [25]
Original Arabic:
صفة بيع الجواري
تبخر الجارية وتطيب وتعدل ويشد وسطها بمئزر ويأخذ المنادى بيدها ويدور بها في السوق وينادى عليها ويحضر التجار الفجار يقلبون يدها ورجلها وساقها وأفخاذها وسرتها وصدرها ونهدها، ويقلب ظهرها ويشمر عجزها ويقلب لسانها وأسنانها وشعرها ويبذل المجهود، وإن كان عليها ثياب خلعها وقلب وأبصر، وفي آخر الأمر يقلب فرجها وجحرها معاينة من غير ستر ولا حجاب، فإذا قلب ورضى واشترى الجارية تبقى عنده مدة عشرة أيام زائد وناقص، فإذا رعى وشبع ومل وتعب وقضى وطره وانقطع وطره يقول زيد المشترى لعمرو البائع: باسم الله يا خواجا، بيني وبينك شرع محمد بن عبد الله، فيحضرا عند الحاكم فيدعى عليه العيب.
English translation: Description of the Sale of Slave Girls: The slave girl is fumigated with perfume, scented, and made presentable. An izar is tied around her waist. The auctioneer then takes her by the hand, leads her around the marketplace, and announces her for sale. Merchants arrive and examine her hands, feet, lower legs, thighs, navel, chest, and breasts. They turn her around to inspect her back and raise the covering to examine her buttocks; they inspect her tongue, teeth, and hair, exhausting their efforts in the examination. If she is wearing other clothing, they remove it and turn her around to inspect her. Finally, they directly examine her genitals and anus, without any covering or screen. When the buyer has inspected her, is satisfied, and purchases her, she remains with him for approximately ten days, more or less. After satisfying his desires, becoming satiated, weary, and bored, the buyer Zayd tells the seller Amr: “In the name of God, master, the law of Muhammad ibn Abdullah will decide between us.” They then go before a judge, and the buyer alleges a defect.
In this account, Ibn al-Mujawir describes the entire commercial process in a single sequence: the woman is first prepared and taken around the market for sale; her body, from hands and feet to breasts and genitals, is inspected; she is purchased and sexually used; and the buyer subsequently brings a complaint before a judge alleging that the purchased property has a defect. Her consent does not appear anywhere as a requirement. The buyer exercises nearly unrestricted power of bodily inspection and then turns his experience of sexual use into the basis for a financial dispute.
Immediately afterward, in a section titled “Sale and Defects” (ذكر البيع والعيب), Ibn al-Mujawir records a particular incident in Aden that he heard from Hasan ibn Ali Hazur al-Firuzkuhi. Seven days after selling an Indian slave woman, the seller was brought before a judge when the buyer complained about the shape of her genitals. The dispute before the judge involved public discussion of the woman’s genital anatomy and the buyer’s sexual capacity. This is not a hypothetical moral scenario: the source preserves an account of a specific sale and the ensuing complaint, narrated to Ibn al-Mujawir by the seller. [26]
Original Arabic:
ذكر البيع والعيب
حدثني الحسن بن علي حزور الفيروز كوهى قال: إني بعت جارية هندية بعدن على رجل اسكندرانى بقيت عنده مدة سبعة أيام فلما شبع استعيب فيها وأحضرنى إلى الحاكم وادعى علىّ بالعيب، فقال الحاكم: وما عيبها؟ قال: هي واسعة الرحم رهلة الفرج، فقلت له: إذا كان أيرك صغيرا وأنت تتباخل على الجارية بشرى الماء فما يصنع فرجها السمين الأبيض المنتوف الطيب، فلما سمعها الحاكم قال لمن حضر: أخرجوهم، فخرجنا ورحت إلى شغلى وبقيت الجارية في كيسه ولم أدر ما فعل الدهر بهما.
English translation: Sale and Defects: Hasan ibn Ali Hazur al-Firuzkuhi told me: “In Aden, I sold an Indian slave woman to a man from Alexandria. She remained with him for seven days. After satisfying himself sexually, he claimed that she had a defect, summoned me before a judge, and filed a complaint. The judge asked, ‘What is her defect?’ The buyer replied, ‘Her womb is wide and her vaginal opening is loose.’ I said to him, ‘If your penis is small, and you are too miserly even to buy water for the slave woman, what fault lies in her fleshy, white, hairless, beautiful genitals?’ On hearing this, the judge told those present: ‘Remove them.’ We went out; I returned to my business, and the slave woman remained in the buyer’s possession. I do not know what subsequently happened to the two of them.”
This incident is particularly revealing of the sexual and economic character of the buying and selling of enslaved women. Before a sale, a woman’s body could be exposed and examined by buyers; after purchase, the owner could use her sexually; afterward, he might allege that the anatomy of her vagina constituted a “defect” and bring a claim against the seller. Neither party’s argument incorporates the woman’s wishes: the description of her genitals becomes a dispute about the quality of purchased property. Ibn al-Mujawir’s account thus provides historical testimony concerning bodily inspection in the slave market of Aden, sexual use, and judicial disputes over alleged defects alongside the legal rulings of classical jurisprudence. The woman is neither a free participant in the sale nor a person recognized as exercising control over her own body, but rather property owned by another person, subject to inspection and use, and at issue in a commercial dispute.
From Sexual Use to Resale: Women as Both Sex Slaves and Market Commodities
The horror of the slave market was not limited to the fact that a woman was made to stand in the market while her breasts, buttocks, thighs, or other body parts were examined. An even more horrifying truth is that even after the buyer purchased and sexually used her, she remained a market commodity. A report from Sahih al-Bukhari preserved in the Shongshoy Islamic Archive expresses this economic and sexual relationship in a single statement. According to Abu Saʿid al-Khudri, the Companions said to Muhammad, “We have intercourse with captive slave girls, but we want to obtain their price by selling them.” They then immediately asked about ʿazl, or coitus interruptus. In other words, the same woman was being used sexually while her pregnancy was being prevented in order to preserve the possibility of selling her later for money. She was not an independent sexual partner; she was simultaneously a body for sexual use and an economic asset available for resale. [27]
Sahih al-Bukhari (Islamic Foundation edition)
2088. It is narrated from Abu Saʿid al-Khudri that he was once sitting with the Noble Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, when he said, “O Messenger of Allah! We have intercourse with captive slave girls, but we want to obtain their price by selling them. What do you say about ʿazl (coitus interruptus) in this situation?” He said, “Do you actually do this? If you do not do it, that will cause you no harm. For whatever child Allah Most High has decreed to be born will certainly be born.”
Hadith grading: Sahih
The economic relationship between ʿazl and the sale of slave girls is particularly important in this hadith. The Companions’ objective was not merely to have intercourse with captive women; they also wanted to profit by selling the same women later. But if a slave girl became pregnant and gave birth as a result of intercourse, she could become an umm walad, and the opportunity to sell her would then be closed. Thus, ʿazl was a way to use the same woman sexually while preventing pregnancy and preserving her future market value and saleability. In other words, the woman was simultaneously an object of sexual use and property convertible into cash in the future—these two economic and sexual interests are brought together in the same hadith. Islamic commentaries on hadith also state this reason explicitly. [28] [29]
Explanation in Sahaj Nasrul Bari:
If we do not practice ʿazl with the slave girl, there is a risk that she will become an umm walad. Yet we love our property. We want to sell her and benefit from her price. But once she becomes an umm walad, we will not be able to sell her. Therefore, we want to practice ʿazl with the slave girl so that she does not become pregnant.
This is no longer a matter of inference. First, intercourse is taking place with the slave girl; at the same time, efforts are being made to prevent her from becoming pregnant; and the declared economic purpose behind this contraception is to sell her later and profit from the price. Sexual use and commodification were therefore not opposites—ʿazl was a method for sexually using the same slave girl while preserving her resale value. A woman’s pregnancy is considered here not as a question of her own life or motherhood, but as a question of the future marketability of the owner’s property.
This status of human beings as resalable property was not an isolated market practice from Muhammad’s time. In a sound report from Sunan Abi Dawud preserved in the Shongshoy Islamic Archive, Jabir ibn Abdullah says, “We sold umm walad slave women during the time of the Messenger of Allah and Abu Bakr. Later, during Umar’s time, we stopped when he prohibited us from doing so.” A sound report later in the same chapter states that a man had made his only slave a mudabbar—that is, he had declared that the slave would be freed after the owner’s death. But because the man had no other property, Muhammad ordered that slave to be sold, and he was sold for seven hundred or nine hundred Arab coins. Thus, even a person who had been promised future emancipation was placed back on the market as property convertible into cash because of financial necessity. [30]
Sunan Abi Dawud, Hadith 3955:
“We sold umm walad slave women during the time of the Messenger of Allah and Abu Bakr. Later, during Umar’s time, we stopped when he prohibited us from doing so.”
Sunan Abi Dawud, Hadith 3956:
“A man declared that his slave would be free when he died, while he owned no property other than that slave. The Prophet ordered him to sell the slave, and he was then sold for seven hundred or nine hundred Arab coins.”
The statement of Tafsir al-Qurtubi exposes this property-based reasoning even more starkly. While discussing the Prophetic instruction to sell a slave girl who repeatedly committed adultery, al-Qurtubi asks: if the seller must inform the buyer of this “defect” in the slave girl, why would anyone buy her? He answers, “She is property”—فَإِنَّهَا مَالٌ—and therefore she cannot simply be abandoned, because destroying property is prohibited; even if the owner keeps her permanently, he will be deprived of her utility. Consequently, “there remains no option except to sell her.” The fiqh solution for the life of a woman here is to find her a new owner so that the property’s financial and practical utility will not be lost. [31]
The fact that people were exchangeable assets not only for money but also for other people is directly illustrated by the incident of Safiyya at Khaybar. A report from Sahih Ibn Hibban preserved in the Shongshoy Islamic Archive states that a beautiful slave girl fell to the share of Dihya al-Kalbi, and Muhammad took her from Dihya “in exchange for seven slaves”—فَاشْتَرَاهَا رَسُولُ اللَّهِ ... بِسَبْعَةِ أَرْؤُسٍ. He then sent Safiyya to Umm Sulaym to prepare her. The value of a female war captive is thus expressed directly as the exchange value of seven other human beings. Money, male slaves, and female slaves were all interchangeable within the same property transaction. [32]
Hadith 7,212
Original Arabic
أَخْبَرَنَا الْحَسَنُ بْنُ سُفْيَانَ، قَالَ: حَدَّثَنَا هُدْبَةُ بْنُ خَالِدٍ، قَالَ: حَدَّثَنَا حَمَّادُ بْنُ سَلَمَةَ، عَنْ ثَابِتٍ، عَنْ أَنَسٍ، قَالَ: كُنْتُ رَدِيفَ أَبِي طَلْحَةَ يَوْمَ خَيْبَرَ، وَإِنَّ قَدَمِي لَتَمَسُّ قَدَمَ رَسُولِ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ، فَأَتَيْنَا خَيْبَرَ وَقَدْ خَرَجُوا بِمَسَاحِيهِمْ وَفُؤُوسِهِمْ وَمَكَاتِلِهِمْ، وَقَالُوا: مُحَمَّدٌ وَالْخَمِيسُ، فَقَالَ رَسُولُ [ص:195] اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ: «اللَّهُ أَكْبَرُ خَرِبَتْ خَيْبَرُ، إِنَّا إِذَا نَزَلْنَا بِسَاحَةِ قَوْمٍ فَسَاءَ صَبَاحُ الْمُنْذَرِينَ»، فَقَاتَلَهُمْ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ فَهَزَمَهُمْ، فَلَمَّا قُسِمَتِ الْمَغَانِمُ قِيلَ لِرَسُولِ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ: إِنَّهُ وَقَعَ فِي سَهْمِ دَحِيَّةَ الْكَلْبِيِّ جَارِيَةٌ جَمِيلَةٌ، فَاشْتَرَاهَا رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ بِسَبْعَةِ أَرْؤُسٍ، ثُمَّ دَفَعَهَا رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ إِلَى أُمِّ سُلَيْمٍ تُهَيِّئُهَا، وَكَانَتْ أُمُّ سُلَيْمٍ تَغْزُو مَعَ رَسُولِ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ، فَدَعَا بِالْأَنْطَاعِ، فَأُحْضِرَتْ، فَوَضَعَ الْأَنْطَاعَ وَجِيءَ بِالتَّمْرِ وَالسَّمْنِ، فَأَوْسَعَهُمْ حَيْسًا، فَأَكَلَ النَّاسُ حَتَّى شَبِعُوا، فَقَالَ النَّاسُ: تَزَوَّجَهَا أَمِ اتَّخَذَهَا أُمَّ وَلَدٍ؟ فَقَالُوا: إِنْ حَجَبَهَا فَهِيَ امْرَأَتُهُ، وَإِنْ لَمْ يَحْجُبْهَا فَهِيَ أُمُّ وَلَدٍ، فَلَمَّا أَرَادَتْ أَنْ تَرْكَبَ حَجَبَهَا حَتَّى قَعَدَتْ عَلَى عَجُزِ الْبَعِيرِ خَلْفَهُ، ثُمَّ رَكِبَتْ، فَلَمَّا دَنَوْا مِنَ الْمَدِينَةِ أَوْضَعَ، وَأَوْضَعَ النَّاسُ، وَأَشْرَفَتِ النِّسَاءُ يَنْظُرْنَ، فَعَثَرَتْ بِرَسُولِ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ رَاحِلَتُهُ، فَوَقَعَ وَوَقَعَتْ صَفِيَّةُ، فَقَامَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ فَحَجَبَهَا، فَقَالَتِ النِّسَاءُ: أَبْعَدَ اللَّهُ الْيَهُودِيَّةَ، وَشَمِتْنَ بِهَا، قَالَ ثَابِتٌ: فَقُلْتُ لِأَنَسٍ: يَا أَبَا حَمْزَةَ أَوَقَعَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ مِنْ رَاحِلَتِهِ؟ فَقَالَ: إِي وَاللَّهِ وَقَعَ مِنْ رَاحِلَتِهِ يَا أَبَا مُحَمَّدِ
رقم طبعة با وزير = (7168)
تحقيق الشيخ ناصر الدين الألباني: صحيح – مضى (7425 و 7426). تنبيه!! رقم (7425) = (7468) من «طبعة المؤسسة». رقم (7426) = (7469) من «طبعة المؤسسة» لكن الحديث ليس موجود بالرقمين المشار إليهما وإنما موجود بالأرقام التالية. رقم (4725) = (4745) من «طبعة المؤسسة». رقم (4726) = (4746) من «طبعة المؤسسة» – مدخل بيانات الشاملة -.
تحقيق الشيخ شعيب الأرناؤوط: إسناده صحيح على شرط مسلم
English translation
Anas (may Allah be pleased with him) reported: On the day of Khaybar, I was riding behind Abu Talha (may Allah be pleased with him), and my foot was touching the foot of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him). When we reached Khaybar, its people came out carrying their spades, axes, and baskets, saying, “Muhammad and the army.” The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said: “Allah is the Greatest! Khaybar is destroyed. When we descend upon the territory of a people, evil is the morning of those who were warned.”
The Messenger of Allah then fought them and defeated them.
When the spoils were distributed, the Messenger of Allah was told: “A beautiful slave girl has fallen to the share of Dihya al-Kalbi (may Allah be pleased with him).” The Messenger of Allah purchased her in exchange for seven slaves. He then handed her over to Umm Sulaym (may Allah be pleased with her) so that she could prepare her. Umm Sulaym used to campaign with the Messenger of Allah. He then ordered leather mats to be brought.
They were brought, and he spread them out. Dates and ghee were brought, and he prepared a generous amount of hais for them—a dish made from dates, ghee, and cheese. The people ate until they were full. They said: “Did he marry her, or did he take her as an umm walad?” They said: “If he veils her, she is his wife; if he does not veil her, she is an umm walad.” When she wanted to mount, he veiled her until she sat behind him on the rear of the camel, and then she mounted.
When they came near Medina, he proceeded rapidly, and the people proceeded rapidly as well. The women looked out to see her. Suddenly, the Prophet’s mount stumbled, and he fell, as did Safiyya. The Messenger of Allah stood up and veiled her. The women said: “May Allah keep the Jewess away,” and they rejoiced at her misfortune. Thabit said: I said to Anas: “O Abu Hamza, did the Messenger of Allah fall from his mount?” He replied: “Yes, by Allah, he fell from his mount, O Abu Muhammad.”
When these documents are read together, the complete economic cycle of the slave market becomes clear: a woman could come under ownership through captivity or purchase; the buyer could examine her body; he could use her sexually; her market price could rise or fall based on virginity or physical defects; pregnancy could damage the possibility of future resale; and she could again be sold, returned, given away, or transferred in exchange for another human being. This was not a “shelter system,” but a systematically organized institution that brought the human body, labor, sexuality, and reproductive capacity under the same ownership-based market system.
The Anatomy of the Slave Market: The Uncovered Display of Women’s Bodies and the Legal Validity of Touching
The picture of the medieval slave market presented to us by the classical legal texts is not merely that of a marketplace; rather, it is a horrifyingly inhumane spectacle. Here, a woman’s body was viewed not simply as a ‘person,’ but as a ‘commodity’ or ‘property’ (mal). In modern ethics, where ‘consent’ and ‘privacy’ are fundamental conditions, the fiqh rulings granted a buyer the right to tear apart the privacy of a woman being offered for sale.
1. The Right to Touch Under the Pretext of Buying and Selling: A highly authoritative work such as Ashraf al-Hidaya states in remarkably direct language that if a person intends to purchase a slave girl, he is permitted to touch certain parts of her body. What is astonishing and horrifying is that this permission to touch was granted even when the buyer knew that touching her might arouse sexual desire in him [33]. According to influential jurists such as Imam Muhammad and Imam Abu Yusuf, a buyer could, if he wished, view and touch the slave girl’s chest, back, wrists, and even her shins while they were uncovered. In the mirror of modern ethics, this is not merely indecent assault; it is organized sexual abuse—legitimized under the guise of law.
2. Humiliation in the Name of Inspecting the Commodity: The justification offered for this ruling is even more degrading. It was said that since the buyer was paying money for the commodity, he had the right to ascertain the ‘skin’ or qualities of the commodity. Here, a woman’s body was treated exactly like livestock at a cattle market. Human dignity was reduced below the ‘quality of the product.’ Although scholars of later periods spoke of touching only in the absence of sexual desire, the original classical right nevertheless gave the buyer an opportunity to indulge in that primitive savagery.
3. The Public Display of Adolescent Slave Girls: This brutality of the slave market became even more horrific in the case of adolescent slave girls. According to al-Hidaya, younger slave girls could be displayed for sale wearing only an izar, leaving their abdomen and back exposed. However, if a girl had reached puberty, or was deemed sexually desirable and physically capable of intercourse even before menstruation, she could no longer be displayed wearing only that garment. The extent to which a child’s body would be covered was determined not by her consent but by juristic assessments of age, bodily development, and male sexual desire. [34]. In the present age, this constitutes institutionalized child sexual exploitation. Displaying children’s bodies in this way before buyers under the cover of religion is an ultimate example of moral bankruptcy.
4. The Double Standard Regarding the ʿAwrah or Covering: While Islam prescribed strict veiling for free women (azad women), the rule concerning the ‘awrah’ or covering of enslaved women was made extremely lax. According to Hanafi fiqh, the ʿawrah of a female slave was essentially the same as that of a man (from the navel to the knees). This discriminatory law created the opportunity to keep women standing half-naked in the marketplace. Through this, society was given the message that—nobility and honor were reserved only for free women, while slave women were merely objects of gratification with no right to modesty or dignity.
Ibn Butlan’s Risala fi Shira al-Raqiq wa Taqlib al-Abid: Historical Evidence of Slave Purchases, Bodily Examination, Sexual Utility, and Market Fraud
In the medieval Islamic empires, the slave market was not merely a place where human beings were bought and sold for money. A specialized body of knowledge also developed around this trade, devoted to examining enslaved people’s physical characteristics, health, sexual capacity, reproductive capacity, ethnic origins, labor skills, and market value. One of the most direct historical records of this system is Risala fi Shira al-Raqiq wa Taqlib al-Abid—a treatise on purchasing and inspecting slaves—by the eleventh-century Baghdad-based physician Ibn Butlan. Its expanded Arabic title is رسالة جامعة لفنون نافعة في شرى الرقيق وتقليب العبيد. The work offers detailed instructions on how to inspect enslaved people before purchase, which women from which regions were considered suitable for particular tasks, whom to select for sexual pleasure or childbearing, how buyers might be deceived, and how slave traders attempted to increase prices by altering the physical appearance of the people they sold. [35]
Ibn Butlan’s full name was Abu al-Hasan al-Mukhtar ibn al-Hasan ibn Abdun ibn Sadun. He was a Christian physician and philosopher from Baghdad. Alongside medicine, he worked in several fields of medieval Arabic scholarship and traveled through Baghdad, Egypt, Syria, and parts of Anatolia. He died in Antioch in 458 AH, or 1066 CE. His treatise is therefore not a collection of Sharia rulings; it is a practical manual about the slave trade written by a physician living in a medieval society under Islamic rule. This distinction is central to its historical significance. Whereas jurisprudential works discuss the legal rules governing the ownership and sale of enslaved people, Ibn Butlan describes what buyers sought in the market, how they examined the people offered for sale, and how slave traders exploited those demands. [36] [37]
Edited by Abd al-Salam Muhammad Harun, the treatise was published in Cairo in 1954 as part of the collection Nawadir al-Makhtutat. The editor identified the manuscript he used as a copy of Berlin manuscript no. 4979, held at Cairo University, and stated that he had found no other manuscript. The published text contains distinct discussions of purchasing advice, bodily examination, character assessment based on facial and physical features, regional classification, and traders’ deceptive practices. The latter part of the work also addresses selecting enslaved people for cooking, music, child-rearing, safeguarding property, and other tasks. The commodification documented here was thus not confined to sexuality: people’s labor, skills, reproductive capacities, and physical conditions were all classified according to the purchaser’s intended use. [38] [39]
The Purposes of Purchasing an Enslaved Woman: Sexual Pleasure, Childbearing, Wet Nursing, and Household Management
At the very beginning of the treatise, Ibn Butlan explains which enslaved woman a purchaser should select for a given purpose. The woman is not assessed according to her personality, wishes, or independent decisions. Instead, she is evaluated according to the benefits the buyer hopes to obtain from her. Different regional origins are recommended for women bought for sexual pleasure, guarding possessions, bearing children, nursing infants, or singing. This classification is among the most significant pieces of direct evidence in the treatise. [40]
من أراد الجارية للذة فليتخذها بربرية، ومن أرادها خازنة وحافظة فرومية، ومن أرادها للولد ففارسية.
English translation: Whoever wants an enslaved woman for sexual pleasure should acquire a Berber woman. Whoever wants one to manage and safeguard possessions should acquire a Byzantine woman. Whoever wants one for bearing children should acquire a Persian woman.
The same sentence goes on to recommend a Zanj woman for nursing and a woman from Mecca for singing. The treatise then assigns region-specific roles to enslaved men as well: Indian and Nubian men are recommended for protecting property and lives, Zanj and Armenian men for hard labor, and Turkish and Saqaliba men for warfare. Both women and men are thus divided into commercial categories according to their origins and supposedly specialized uses. For women, sexual pleasure, reproduction, childcare, and household management receive particular emphasis. These classifications do not establish actual or scientifically grounded characteristics of the populations concerned; they are historical evidence of ethnic stereotypes and buyer preferences surrounding the slave trade. [41]
These statements have a direct relationship to the rules on sexual access to enslaved women in classical Islamic jurisprudence. The legal literature recognized an owner’s sexual rights over an enslaved woman; a purchasing manual such as Ibn Butlan’s reveals the commercial application of that framework. Which region’s women were supposedly best for sexual pleasure, which were preferable for bearing children, and which could be used for household service were treated as ordinary commercial considerations for buyers. In this framework, an enslaved woman’s sexuality and reproductive capacity were not matters of her personal autonomy, but characteristics of a commodity selected to serve its owner’s purposes.
Examining the Body Before Purchasing a Slave: Medicine as an Instrument of Commodity Inspection
Another major part of the treatise concerns the physical examination of enslaved people. Drawing on his medical expertise, Ibn Butlan instructs buyers on how to identify illness, weakness, and possible bodily defects by inspecting different organs and parts of the body. His discussion covers the head, hair, eyes, ears, nose, mouth, teeth, gums, chest, hands, abdomen, kidneys, bladder, genitals, legs, and even conditions affecting women’s wombs. The purpose of this medical scrutiny was not to secure treatment for a patient. It was to determine whether a person being purchased had any condition that might reduce their usefulness for labor, sexual access, reproduction, or resale. [42]
Particularly striking among these instructions are the recommendations to examine an enslaved person’s abdomen by moving one’s hand from top to bottom, compare the length and shape of different body parts, observe the condition of the genitals during urination, and consider disorders affecting women’s wombs and menstruation. The book also contains medical ideas prevalent at the time that have no basis in modern science. It does not therefore demonstrate the accuracy of medieval medicine; rather, it shows how contemporary medical knowledge was put to work inspecting human bodies and determining their commercial value. [43]
A further noteworthy feature is the attempt to infer character from physical appearance. Following ancient philosophers, Ibn Butlan describes methods of assessing courage, obedience, intelligence, sexual desire, or dishonesty from the face, eyes, hair, forehead, ears, nose, bodily proportions, and gait. This purported science of character-reading, known as firasa or physiognomy, is not a reliable psychological method by modern scientific standards. Nevertheless, it reveals that buyers were encouraged to treat the enslaved person’s body not only as a measure of labor or sexual capacity, but also as evidence of character and obedience. The body, behavior, and personality of a person held as property were all turned into features to be examined before purchase. [44]
Assessing Pregnancy and Reproductive Capacity: The Purchaser’s Property Interests
The importance of pregnancy when purchasing an enslaved woman is also clearly documented in Ibn Butlan’s work. The buyer is advised to verify before purchase whether the woman is pregnant. The recommended checks include examining her breasts and lower abdomen and investigating information about menstruation. The book also alleges that, in some cases, blood from another person was used to create the appearance of menstruation and conceal pregnancy. From the buyer’s perspective, this was not merely a medical concern: pregnancy could raise questions about the paternity of the unborn child, the legal status of ownership, and the future sexual and reproductive use of the purchased woman. [45]
وليكن من يستبرى ذلك منها امرأة تكره أن تلصق بك ولد غيرك، ومرها بتفقّد ثدييها وجس حشاها.
English translation: Let the woman who examines her condition be someone who would dislike having another man’s child attributed to you. Instruct her to inspect the enslaved woman’s breasts and palpate her abdomen.
In the same discussion, Ibn Butlan warns buyers that a girl may be underage when purchased but later reach puberty in the owner’s household without the owner noticing. He also warns that an enslaved woman might mislead a purchaser by making a false claim concerning her infertility. These statements connect menstruation, pregnancy, and reproductive capacity to the owner’s financial and sexual interests. Whether the woman herself wishes to bear children is not treated as a matter for her independent decision. Instead, pregnancy without the owner’s knowledge, or the possibility of a child fathered by another man being attributed to the owner, is presented as a risk to the buyer. [46]
Classifying Enslaved Women by Region: Indian, Berber, Turkish, Byzantine, and African Women
In the fourth part of the treatise, Ibn Butlan offers an extensive classification of enslaved people according to regional and ethnic origins. He separately describes the physical features, character, obedience, reproductive capacities, and occupational suitability of Indian, Sindhi, Medinan, Ta’ifi, Berber, Yemeni, Zanj, Abyssinian, Nubian, Turkish, Byzantine, Armenian, and other populations from regions adjoining Persia. Indian women are associated with childbearing; Medinan women with beauty and music; Berber women with sexual pleasure and fertility; Turkish women with beauty and reproduction; and Byzantine women with trustworthiness in safeguarding property. Such descriptions combine ethnic preferences and prejudices prevalent in the market with assessments of women’s sexual, reproductive, and labor-related value. [47] [48]
Another distinctive aspect of this ethnic classification is the way it links social status and freedom to supposed innate characteristics. The treatise presents numerous degrading and racist notions about enslaved Africans. Some populations are described as naturally obedient, others as suited to arduous labor, and still others as susceptible to control by whipping. In discussing Nubian women’s obedience, it even conveys the notion that they were created for slavery. These claims are not evidence of the actual character of the populations concerned. They document the use of ethnic identity as a commercial category for labor, obedience, and sexual exploitation within the slave trade of the period. [49]
Particularly noteworthy is the statement attributed to a slave trader named Abu Uthman about Berber women. According to his idealized scheme, a Berber girl would be brought at nine years old, kept for three years in Medina and three years in Mecca, and then taken to Iraq at fifteen to receive training in manners and skills. By twenty-five, she would supposedly become an enslaved woman combining the desirable beauty and behavioral qualities associated with several regions. This is not an account proving that a particular girl actually underwent this itinerary; it is a slave trader’s description of an ideal preparation process. Its social implications are nonetheless substantial. The idea of acquiring a girl at nine and training her across different regions to meet buyer preferences demonstrates that the commercial development of a woman’s future marketability could be envisaged from childhood. [50]
Deception by Slave Traders: Cosmetics, Concealed Physical Defects, and Artificial Beauty
Among the most revealing discussions in Ibn Butlan’s work is the deception practiced by slave traders. According to his account, sellers sometimes presented sick enslaved people as healthy, weak bodies as strong, or altered skin color, hair, facial appearance, and bodily shape before presenting a person to prospective buyers. He describes techniques for masking bad breath with perfume, darkening hair or making it appear thicker, coloring the cheeks, concealing marks on the skin, and making particular body parts look more attractive. The objective was to increase the perceived quality and desirability of the human commodity and thereby obtain a higher price. [51]
The book even records a specific financial example of how minor cosmetic treatment might substantially increase a woman’s sale price. Ibn Butlan reports hearing slave traders say that henna costing only one-quarter of a dirham could raise an enslaved woman’s price by one hundred dirhams. This is a claim attributed to traders, not a statistically verified average market price. Nevertheless, it demonstrates how altering or enhancing a woman’s appearance was perceived as a profitable means of increasing her commercial value. [52]
سمعنا بعض النخاسين يقول: ربع درهم حناء يزيد في ثمن الجارية مائة درهم فضة.
English translation: We heard some slave traders say: Henna worth a quarter of a dirham increases the price of an enslaved woman by one hundred silver dirhams.
This commercial deception went beyond cosmetics. The treatise discusses techniques for concealing illness, skin conditions, hair color, bodily scars, and even a possible pregnancy. It also mentions traders’ instructions on how an enslaved woman should be dressed up and when and how she should be presented attractively to a buyer. Together, these details reveal a developed commercial process: the seller makes a human body marketable, the buyer inspects its supposed quality, and the price is determined according to outward appearance, health, utility, and anticipated profit. [53]
Techniques for Presenting a Non-Virgin Enslaved Woman as a Virgin
Ibn Butlan’s treatise also contains direct evidence of the commercial importance attached to an enslaved woman’s virginity. In his discussion of how to recognize traders’ deception, he mentions a technique intended to make the genitals of a woman who had previously had intercourse appear as though she were a virgin. The text describes a preparation made from certain plant-derived substances and other ingredients for vaginal application. The heading introducing this technique itself makes clear that presenting a non-virgin enslaved woman as a virgin was a recognized issue within slave trading. [54]
ما يستعمل في الثيب لتصير كالبكر: قلوب الرمان الحامض وعفص أخضر يعجن بمرارة البقر ويتحمل فرزجة.
English translation: What is used on a non-virgin woman to make her like a virgin: the inner parts of sour pomegranates and green galls are mixed with ox bile to prepare a substance to be applied vaginally.
This account is especially important because it directly links the monetary value of virginity with deceptive practices in the slave trade. Classical jurisprudence treated a virgin enslaved woman as more valuable than a non-virgin, while Ibn Butlan’s commercial manual describes a technique for presenting a non-virgin as a virgin. Virginity was thus treated as a valuable characteristic of the commodity, and persuading a buyer that this characteristic was present could create an opportunity to obtain a higher price. There is no medical evidence that the preparation described in the book could actually restore virginity. The historical point is that deceptive bodily treatments centered on the perceived value of virginity were discussed and circulated in the slave market.
Selecting Enslaved People by Occupational Skill: Music, Cooking, Childcare, and Safeguarding Property
The closing sections of Ibn Butlan’s treatise also address the selection of enslaved people with specialized skills. They provide instructions for assessing an enslaved singer’s voice, rhythm, musical training, and quality of performance. When evaluating a woman for cooking, the buyer is advised to consider the taste of the food, its method of preparation, and the speed with which she works. The book separately discusses evaluating the reliability of an enslaved woman entrusted with property and selecting a suitable enslaved caregiver or wet nurse for children. It also considers the nursing woman’s health, age, milk, and various characteristics related to infant nutrition. These discussions show that an enslaved woman was assessed not only as an object of sexual use but also as a skilled labor resource. [55]
This reveals another aspect of the slave market’s economic structure. The criteria used to assess an enslaved singer, cook, wet nurse, property custodian, or woman purchased for sexual pleasure were not identical. Each person’s body, abilities, age, training, and practical utility were evaluated in relation to the buyer’s intended purpose. Human beings were therefore not simply treated as interchangeable commodities, but classified as specialized commercial assets for different kinds of work. Under this system, even an enslaved woman’s personal skills became part of her owner’s purchase price and anticipated returns, rather than a means by which she could earn an independent living.
Historical Significance: An Integrated System of Ownership, Sexuality, Medicine, and Commerce
Ibn Butlan’s Risala fi Shira al-Raqiq wa Taqlib al-Abid is an important primary source on slave markets in medieval Islamic societies. It does not provide comprehensive statistics on average prices across every region or on the actual conduct of every purchaser. Its contents combine medical observations, reported trading practices, ethnic stereotypes, ancient physiognomy, and advice about ideal purchasing methods. Yet this combination provides valuable evidence of the market’s social and economic framework. The book’s central concern is how to examine an enslaved person before buying them: their body, origin, sexual and reproductive capacity, character, skills, and possible defects. For the purchaser, it was a manual for reducing commercial risk; for the person being sold, it represented a system in which someone else’s market decisions governed their body and life.
Classical Islamic jurisprudence contains rules on examining enslaved women’s bodies, owners’ sexual access, the monetary value of virginity, and returning enslaved women on grounds of defects. Ibn Butlan’s account connects this legal framework with medieval commercial practice. Before a person is purchased, different parts of their body are examined; their geographical origin is considered in selecting them for sexual pleasure or childbearing; the buyer’s economic interests shape assessments of pregnancy and virginity; techniques for altering bodily appearance to obtain a higher price are described; and training and skills are used to classify a person as a particular kind of asset. Taken together, these records show that the slave market was an extensive economic institution founded on ownership of human beings, in which bodies, sexuality, reproduction, labor, and skills were all transformed into marketable characteristics.
Slave Markets under the Islamic Caliphates: Transactions by the Companions, Caliphal Acquisitions, Market Prices, and State Regulation
From the earliest period of Islam through the medieval caliphates, the purchase and sale of enslaved people were not merely matters of private ownership. They formed an institutional trade connected to the distribution of war booty, urban economies, judicial proceedings, and government revenue. Biographical accounts of the Companions and early reports preserve examples of enslaved women purchased for specific sums of money. Histories of the Abbasid caliphs record substantial expenditures on acquiring enslaved women. Muslim geographers described separate slave-market premises with shops and rooms; judicial histories record cases in which purchasers sought to return enslaved people; and market-inspection manuals prescribed specific rules for slave traders. Together, these sources directly document the economic framework through which enslaved men and women were bought, sold, appraised, examined, and transferred as property.
The Companions’ Purchases and Sales of Enslaved Women and an Abbasid Caliph’s Acquisition
A specific account of how enslaved women taken as war booty were assigned to private owners during the period of the Companions and later sold for money is preserved in al-Bayhaqi’s al-Sunan al-Kubra. It states that Caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab gave an enslaved woman to the wife of Abd Allah ibn Masud from the one-fifth share of war booty, known as the khums. She subsequently sold the woman to her husband, Abd Allah ibn Masud, for one thousand dirhams, on the condition that the enslaved woman would continue serving her. When Umar learned of this conditional transaction, he objected. Another version of the same incident states that Umar prohibited Ibn Masud from having sexual intercourse with the enslaved woman while another person’s conditional right over her remained in force. [56]
أَنَّ عُمَرَ بْنَ الْخَطَّابِ أَعْطَى امْرَأَةَ عَبْدِ اللَّهِ بْنِ مَسْعُودٍ جَارِيَةً مِنَ الْخُمُسِ، فَبَاعَتْهَا مِنْ عَبْدِ اللَّهِ بْنِ مَسْعُودٍ بِأَلْفِ دِرْهَمٍ.
English translation: Umar ibn al-Khattab gave an enslaved woman to the wife of Abd Allah ibn Masud from the khums share. She then sold the enslaved woman to Abd Allah ibn Masud for one thousand dirhams.
The economic significance of this event is unmistakable. An enslaved woman was transferred into private ownership from a share of war booty, and subsequently passed into another person’s ownership in exchange for one thousand dirhams. Although the buyer and seller were husband and wife, the object of their transaction was another human being. Umar did not object to a woman being bought and sold for money; his objection concerned the condition that the former owner would continue receiving the woman’s services after the sale. The account thus reveals both the recognized framework for buying and selling a woman as property and a dispute over the rights of multiple people in that property.
Imam Malik’s al-Muwatta also records Ibn Masud asking Umar about the legal status of a condition attached to his purchase of an enslaved woman from his wife Zaynab. That version gives no price; al-Bayhaqi’s account provides the figure of one thousand dirhams. These are versions of the same transaction, not evidence of two separate purchases. Significantly, Malik’s account is followed by a statement of Ibn Umar that a man should have intercourse only with an enslaved woman whom he has the power to sell, give away, or retain. Sexual access and the power of sale or transfer were thus located within the same proprietary right. [57]
A notable example of a caliph acquiring an enslaved woman during the later Abbasid period is preserved in Ibn al-Jawzi’s al-Muntazam fi Tarikh al-Muluk wa al-Umam. In the events recorded for 223 AH, an account transmitted from al-Jahiz relates that the Abbasid caliph al-Mutasim wanted to purchase a woman owned by a slave trader named Mahmud al-Warraq. He offered seven thousand dinars, but the trader refused to sell her. After the trader died, the woman was acquired for the caliph from the deceased man’s estate for seven hundred dinars. The same historical narrative therefore records both the extraordinarily high initial offer and the much lower price at which the woman was subsequently purchased. [58]
طَلَبَ الْمُعْتَصِمُ جَارِيَةً كَانَتْ لِمَحْمُودٍ الْوَرَّاقِ، وَكَانَ نَخَّاسًا، بِسَبْعَةِ آلَافِ دِينَارٍ، فَامْتَنَعَ مَحْمُودٌ مِنْ بَيْعِهَا.
English translation: Al-Mutasim sought to purchase an enslaved woman belonging to Mahmud al-Warraq for seven thousand dinars. Mahmud was a slave trader, but he refused to sell her.
Ibn al-Jawzi’s narrative further states that after the woman was brought to the caliph, al-Mutasim asked how she felt about his having acquired her for seven hundred dinars rather than seven thousand. She replied that if a caliph waited for someone’s death to satisfy his own desires, then even seventy dinars would be too high a price for someone like her. The narrative says that al-Mutasim felt ashamed at her response. This is a historical anecdote preserved through al-Jahiz, not a measure of average prices for women purchased across the caliphate. Nevertheless, it directly depicts the caliph’s personal sexual interest, the slave trader’s ownership, the woman’s subsequent sale from an inherited estate, and the monetary valuation of her person. Seven thousand dinars was the proposed price, whereas seven hundred dinars was the price paid in the later transaction. [59]
The Architecture of the Slave Market and Organized Commerce in the Abbasid Capital of Samarra
Direct evidence that slave markets formed a permanent part of urban economic life appears in Kitab al-Buldan by the ninth-century Muslim geographer and historian al-Yaqubi. In describing the streets, administrative buildings, military quarters, and markets of Samarra, the capital founded by the Abbasid caliph al-Mutasim, he identifies a distinct slave market. According to his description, it occupied a designated quadrangular area containing branching passageways, rooms, chambers, and shops for enslaved people. The market is described alongside other commercial and administrative facilities as part of the city’s urban layout. [60]
وسوق الرقيق في مربعة فيها طرق متشعّبة فيها الحجر، والغرف، والحوانيت للرقيق.
English translation: The slave market was situated in a quadrangular area with branching passageways, chambers, rooms, and shops for enslaved people.
This description places the slave market far beyond the context of a temporary military encampment or an isolated private transaction. Dedicated facilities existed for buying and selling human beings within the capital itself. The presence of chambers and shops shows that a permanent commercial infrastructure served buyers and sellers. Al-Yaqubi also describes designated areas for other occupations and trades within the same city’s market system. The slave market appears as another established commercial sector within that structure. Shops and rooms devoted to selling human beings in the capital of a caliphate provide significant historical evidence of slavery’s institutional character.
Slave Prices from the Seventh to the Tenth Centuries and the Enslaved Woman Valued at 500 Dinars
To understand the economic character of the slave market, legal permission to buy slaves and examine their bodies is not sufficient; the sums actually paid for human beings are also important. Economic historian Maya Shatzmiller collected documented slave prices from the seventh through tenth centuries in her study The Role of Money in the Economic Growth of the Early Islamic Period (650–1000). Table 6 on page 290 presents prices from different periods and regions, drawing on the historical price data assembled by Eliyahu Ashtor. Some entries relate to enslaved people generally, others to young enslaved women, and others to beautiful women selected for harems. The figures must therefore not all be treated as average market prices for an identical class of persons: they are recorded prices associated with particular periods, places, and transactions. [61]
| Period and Region | Type of Enslaved Person | Documented Price |
|---|---|---|
| Second half of the seventh century, Kufa | Sex unspecified | 50 dinars or 600 dirhams |
| Umayyad period | Beautiful enslaved woman for a harem | 400 dinars or 5,000 dirhams |
| Mid-eighth century, Jundishapur | Young enslaved woman | 66 dinars or 800 dirhams |
| Second half of the eighth century, Baghdad | Sex unspecified | 17 dinars or 200 dirhams |
| Late eighth century, Baghdad | Sex unspecified | 50 dinars |
| First half of the ninth century, Basra | Enslaved man | 30 dinars |
| First half of the ninth century, Iraq | Sex unspecified | 20–30 dinars |
| Tenth century, region unspecified | Sex unspecified | Various prices from 300 to 1,000 dinars |
These prices illuminate several features of the market. First, enslaved people did not all have the same price: age, sex, beauty, training, type of work, and the demands of a particular buyer could influence valuation. Second, people purchased for specialized purposes could command considerably higher prices. The four-hundred-dinar price of a beautiful enslaved woman selected for a harem in the Umayyad period and the sixty-six-dinar price of a young enslaved woman in Jundishapur illustrate this distinction. Third, different prices appear even within the same region at different times. These records cannot establish a universal, fixed market rate, but they directly demonstrate how human age, appearance, and practical utility were converted into monetary value. [62]
A report also survives of bidding for a particular woman reaching five hundred dinars in a slave market. In Akhbar al-Qudat, the historian Waki discusses an enslaved woman named al-Qutayliyya in connection with the Medinan judge Muhammad ibn Imran al-Talhi. Narrators describe a large gathering of prominent men when she was offered in the market and say her price reached five hundred dinars. A man named al-Mughira ibn Abd al-Rahman then advised the owner to emancipate and marry her, which he did. When the matter subsequently came before Judge Ibn Imran, he ordered a fresh assessment of the woman’s value: if the valuation exceeded five hundred dinars, the higher figure was to apply; otherwise, five hundred dinars would be used. [63]
ما رأيت بريق صلع الأشراف في سوق الرقيق أكثر منها حيث بيعت القتيلية وبلغت خمسمائة دينار.
English translation: I had never seen such a crowd of prominent men, their bald heads gleaming, in the slave market as when al-Qutayliyya was offered for sale; her bidding price reached five hundred dinars.
Here five hundred dinars was the price reached in bidding for a particular woman. The subsequent narrative describes her emancipation and marriage rather than the completion of a sale at that price. The figure can therefore be cited as a documented market bid, but not as the confirmed price of a completed sale. More significantly, even after the woman had been emancipated and married, her earlier market value remained relevant to the judge’s financial decision. Her transition to freedom and marriage did not entirely detach the legal and financial proceedings from her prior valuation as property. The sum determined for her in the market continued to matter in a later judicial decision.
A Case Concerning the Return of an Enslaved Woman in Basra during the Reign of Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz
An important example of the practical judicial enforcement of rules allowing enslaved people to be returned for alleged physical or mental defects appears in Waki’s Akhbar al-Qudat. Iyas ibn Muawiya served as judge in Basra during the reign of Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz. Among the accounts of his judgments is a statement by a slave trader named Sallam. After purchasing an enslaved woman, Sallam complained that she suffered from a serious intellectual deficiency. He brought the matter before Judge Iyas and sought to annul the sale. The judge initially replied that he knew of no rule allowing an enslaved woman to be returned simply for foolishness. The trader insisted that the condition was far more serious than ordinary foolishness. The judge then summoned the woman, asked her several questions, and ultimately ruled that she should be returned. [64]
عن سلام بياع الرقيق قال: اشتريت جارية فوجدتها حمقاء، فخاصمت فيها إلى إياس بن معاوية، وهو على قضاء البصرة.
English translation: Sallam, a slave trader, said: I purchased an enslaved woman and found her foolish, so I brought a dispute about her before Iyas ibn Muawiya, who was serving as judge in Basra.
Waki preserves a second version of the same event. In this account, Judge Iyas asked the enslaved woman whether she remembered what had happened at the time of her birth. She answered affirmatively. He then asked which of her legs was longer, and she pointed to one. The narrative explicitly states that Iyas conducted the questioning in Persian. He subsequently ruled that the woman should be returned. Such an examination is not a reliable psychological or medical assessment by modern standards. Its historical importance lies in the fact that an enslaved woman’s intellectual capacity was treated as a possible defect in purchased property, examined before a judge, and used as the basis for reversing a sale. [65]
This episode establishes a direct connection between the classical jurisprudential rules on returning defective enslaved women and actual judicial practice. A slave trader purchased a woman, complained about her mental capacity, and obtained a ruling after the judge examined his allegation. The woman’s wishes, future, and right to choose an independent life were not matters under consideration. The central question was whether the person bought with the purchaser’s money met the expected standard of quality. The case is therefore further evidence of an organized legal framework for buying and selling women as property and returning them on grounds of alleged defects.
The Slave Market in Fatimid Cairo: Separate Trading Days and State Revenue from the Slave Trade
Another important account of administrative control over slave markets under a caliphate appears in the historian al-Maqrizi’s Itti’az al-Hunafa bi Akhbar al-A’imma al-Fatimiyyin al-Khulafa. In the events of 399 AH, or 1008–1009 CE, he describes particular regulations for the slave market in Fatimid Cairo. Entry was prohibited to anyone other than buyers and sellers. Enslaved women and boys or male slaves were also separated, and a different market day was assigned to each group. Thus, administrative orders governed who could enter the market, on which days enslaved women would be offered for sale, and on which days male slaves could be sold. [66]
ومنع أن يدخل أحد إلى سوق الرقيق إلا أن يكون بائعا أو مشتريا؛ وأفرد الجواري من الغلمان، وجعل لكل منهم يوم.
English translation: No one was permitted to enter the slave market unless they were a buyer or seller. Female slaves were separated from the boys or male slaves, and each group was assigned its own day.
These regulations reveal two important characteristics of the slave market. First, the slave trade constituted a defined administrative sphere in which entry and market operations were regulated. Second, authorities saw fit to designate separate trading days for enslaved women and men. The presentation and sale of enslaved women were therefore not isolated private transactions; they belonged to an organized commercial activity with a prescribed schedule. The purpose of these measures was not to secure women’s freedom, but to establish procedures for operating an existing trade in enslaved people.
The economic significance of slave markets extended beyond the private profits of buyers and sellers: markets also generated revenue. Another work by al-Maqrizi, al-Mawa’iz wa al-I’tibar bi Dhikr al-Khitat wa al-Athar, generally known as al-Khitat, contains a list of sums collected from different markets, productive sectors, and businesses in Egypt. Alongside entries for sugar, fish, animals, cloth, candles, transport, and other commercial activities, the list includes five hundred dinars for the slave market. This sum is not the purchase price of a particular enslaved person. It is a figure recorded under slave-market revenue. The cited passage does not separately specify the exact period over which this amount was collected. [67]
سوق الرقيق : خمسمائة دينار.
English translation: Slave market: five hundred dinars.
This revenue list establishes another economic dimension of the slave trade. Not only did private merchants profit by buying and selling people; an administrative system also collected revenue from the market. The slave market was treated as a source of revenue alongside other commodity markets. Its inclusion in the same fiscal accounting as fish markets, livestock markets, and the cloth trade shows that commerce in human beings formed an acknowledged economic sector within the government’s financial system. The proprietary character of slavery therefore extended beyond private ownership and jurisprudential rules to the mechanisms of public revenue collection.
State Supervision of Slave Markets: Registration of Traders, Examination of Defects, and Rules of Sale
More detailed evidence of the slave market’s administrative framework appears in medieval hisba manuals dealing with market supervision. Chapter 67 of Ibn Bassam’s Nihayat al-Rutba fi Talab al-Hisba is explicitly entitled Concerning Slave Traders. It calls for the appointment of a trustworthy and knowledgeable supervisor over slave traders, forbids concealment of defects in enslaved people offered for sale, instructs that a seller’s identity and occupation be recorded, and requires inquiries when there is doubt about ownership of the person being sold. In other words, distinct occupational and administrative rules were developed for merchants who bought and sold enslaved men and women. [68]
الباب السابع والستون في النخاسين باعة العبيد ينبغي أن يعرف عليهم عريفاً ثقة عارفاً.
English translation: Chapter Sixty-Seven: Concerning the dealers who sell slaves. A trustworthy and knowledgeable overseer should be appointed over them.
Ibn Bassam’s discussion provides extensive instructions on examining enslaved people’s bodies, identifying symptoms of illness, and checking eyesight, hearing, bodily proportions, teeth, skin, and limbs. The supervisor is also told to ensure that traders do not deceive buyers by concealing known defects. Examination by a trusted woman is mentioned in connection with an enslaved woman’s menstruation. The text further specifies conditions for buyers who wish to take an enslaved woman into their own homes for examination. These rules bring the assessment of a person’s body, health, and reproductive condition before sale under administrative supervision. The market-inspection manual treats enslaved men and women as property offered to buyers and, on that basis, establishes procedures for examining their bodies and determining their defects. [69]
Similar administrative rules appear in Abd al-Rahman al-Shayzari’s Nihayat al-Rutba al-Zarifa fi Talab al-Hisba al-Sharifa. Its thirty-fourth chapter concerns the supervision of dealers in slaves and animals. It instructs slave traders to be trustworthy and reliable and requires that a seller’s identity be checked and recorded before a sale, to prevent a free person from being sold as a slave or a kidnapped person from being presented as legitimately owned property. The chapter also addresses viewing an enslaved woman’s face and hands before purchase, conditions for examining her in a private setting, and rights of bodily inspection after the sale. The limits al-Shayzari places on examinations before purchase are not identical to every opinion presented in other works of jurisprudence. Yet throughout these discussions, the basic framework remains: slave markets continue to operate through buyers, sellers, verification of ownership, and rules for bodily examination. [70]
وَيَنْبَغِي أَلَّا يَبِيعَ النَّخَّاسُ لِأَحَدٍ جَارِيَةً وَلَا عَبْدًا حَتَّى يَعْرِفَ الْبَائِعَ، أَوْ يَأْتِيَ بِمَنْ يَعْرِفُهُ.
English translation: A slave trader should not sell an enslaved woman or man to anyone until he knows the seller or the seller brings someone who can identify him.
The social and legal implications of these market-supervision rules are clear. Slave traders formed a distinct occupational class, with supervisors, identity verification, registration, purchasing conditions, assessment of physical defects, and controls against commercial deception. Whether a trader was selling a stolen slave, concealing an illness from the purchaser, or giving accurate information about the body of a person being bought became a matter for administrative oversight. Yet the system’s central premise—the right to buy and sell a human being as another person’s property—remained in force. Government supervision did not abolish the slave trade; it organized the existing commerce within a framework for regulation, management, and resolution of disputes between buyers and sellers.
The Companions’ purchases and sales of enslaved women for specified sums, the acquisition of an enslaved woman for an Abbasid caliph, the separate slave market at Samarra, bids of up to five hundred dinars for a woman, judicial disputes over returning enslaved women, designated trading days for women and men under the Fatimids, administrative supervision of slave traders, and revenue collected from slave markets all illuminate different aspects of the same economic system. Slavery in these societies was not merely a private domestic relationship or an arrangement for sheltering prisoners after war. Human bodies, labor, sexuality, reproductive capacity, and individual skills were transformed into marketable assets. Around these assets operated buyers, sellers, merchants, judges, market inspectors, and systems of state revenue. The institutional structure of slave markets under Islamic caliphates is documented directly in the primary historical sources themselves.
Modern Human Rights versus Medieval Fiqh: An Ideological and Moral Analysis
The fundamental conflict between medieval fiqh rulings and modern human rights is not merely a conflict over law; rather, it is a conflict over the very definition of the human being. The modern world order regards every person as ‘born free and endowed with dignity.’ By contrast, in the legal documents we have examined, human beings are viewed merely as a ‘utility’ or a ‘commodity.’ The fault lines between these two philosophies are analyzed below:
1. Personhood versus Commodification: Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) declares that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity. Yet works such as Mukhtasar al-Quduri and Hidaya classify human beings as ‘mal’ or property. When a law says that a woman may be returned to the seller if she has a ‘bad smell from her mouth or armpits’ because this is an ‘obstacle to sexual intercourse’ [71], that woman’s personhood is completely erased. In modern ethics, this is called ‘dehumanization’, in which a person’s value depends not on their intellect or identity, but on the smell of their body or the perfect condition of their limbs.
2. Sexual Autonomy versus Ownership: In modern law and ethics, ‘sexual autonomy’ is an inviolable right. In other words, only the individual has authority over their own body, and any physical touch without ‘consent’ is considered sexual abuse. Yet in fiqh rulings, we find that a buyer could touch a woman’s chest, back, or shins merely by intending to purchase her—even if this aroused sexual desire in the buyer, it was still considered lawful [33]. From the perspective of modern ethics, this is a form of structural rape culture, in which a woman’s bodily privacy or consent has no place; instead, the man’s ‘buyer’s right’ or ‘ownership right’ is given priority.
3. The Commercialization of Virginity and Gender-Based Violence: The legal permission granted by Hidaya to examining the hymen is extremely degrading and invasive from the perspective of modern medicine and human rights [72]. In the modern era, this is called ‘virginity testing,’ which the World Health Organization (WHO) identifies as a violation of human rights and a form of gender-based violence. This medieval ruling proves that a woman’s chastity or virginity was not regarded as a matter of dignity; rather, it was a ‘quality check’ on the commodity, and if that quality was found lacking, the buyer could raise the issue of financial loss. Subjecting a person’s body to such a ‘mechanical examination’ is nothing but primitive barbarism.
4. Child Protection versus Childhood Abuse: In the present world, protecting children and safeguarding their physical integrity is a sacred responsibility of the state. Yet fiqh rulings permitted younger slave girls to be displayed in the marketplace wearing only an izar, with their abdomen and back exposed. Once a girl was considered sexually desirable, additional covering was required, but her enslavement and commercial sale remained lawful within that system [34]. These juristic discussions even assessed the sexual suitability of children as young as seven or nine—a form of child sexual exploitation. Auctioning off childhood in this way under the pretext of religion is a profound moral challenge for any person with a healthy conscience.
5. The Double Standard of Veiling and Social Inequality: In Islam, the rule of veiling is often promoted as a ‘protective shield for women.’ But why was that same rule so lax in the case of slave women? Why was it lawful for a slave woman’s stomach and back to remain exposed in the marketplace? The answer lies in their ‘classification’. According to fiqh law, honor and privacy were reserved only for ‘free’ women, while slave women were ordinary objects of gratification. This double standard proves that the rule of veiling was not actually spiritual; rather, it was a symbol of social rank. Islamic jurisprudence did not recognize any right to protect the modesty or privacy of a woman who had no money or who had become enslaved after losing a war.
Conclusion: The Dialectic Between ‘Universal Compassion’ and the Documentary Reality
In this lengthy discussion, we have traversed the dark alleys of classical Islamic jurisprudence. We have seen how the flesh-and-blood existence of a human being was reduced to the level of a mere ‘commodity’ or ‘inanimate object.’ In the modern era, many Muslim preachers claim that slavery in Islam was a ‘system of compassion’ and that it bestowed dignity upon slaves. But when we read the rulings in authoritative legal works such as Ashraf al-Hidaya and Mukhtasar al-Quduri without bias, that claim of ‘compassion’ turns into a colossal farce.
This dispassionate examination of history can be the first step toward building a new, humane world free from fanaticism—a world in which no person owns another and no one’s body becomes an object of auction in any marketplace.
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- Ibn Butlan, Parts One and Five, Deception by Slave Traders ↩︎
- Ibn Butlan, Nawadir al-Makhtutat, p. 356, Raising an Enslaved Woman’s Price with Henna ↩︎
- Ibn Butlan, Part Five, Fraud and Cosmetic Preparation by Slave Traders ↩︎
- Ibn Butlan, Nawadir al-Makhtutat, p. 382, Presenting a Non-Virgin as a Virgin ↩︎
- Ibn Butlan, Closing Sections, Occupational Skills and Utility of Enslaved People ↩︎
- Al-Bayhaqi, al-Sunan al-Kubra, Hadith 10026, Sale of an Enslaved Woman with a Condition ↩︎
- Ibn Abd al-Barr, al-Istidhkar, vol. 19, Ibn Masud’s Purchase and Ibn Umar’s Statement ↩︎
- Ibn al-Jawzi, al-Muntazam, vol. 11, Events of 223 AH, Mahmud al-Warraq’s Enslaved Woman ↩︎
- Islamweb, Events of 223 AH, Account Preserved in al-Muntazam ↩︎
- Al-Yaqubi, Kitab al-Buldan, Markets and Administrative Buildings of Samarra ↩︎
- Maya Shatzmiller, The Role of Money in the Economic Growth of the Early Islamic Period, p. 290, Table 6: Prices of Slaves ↩︎
- Shatzmiller, Table 6, Historical Price Data Compiled from Ashtor ↩︎
- Waki, Akhbar al-Qudat, vol. 1, p. 189, The Case of al-Qutayliyya ↩︎
- Waki, Akhbar al-Qudat, Judicial Accounts of Iyas ibn Muawiya, Sallam the Slave Trader ↩︎
- Waki, Akhbar al-Qudat, Judicial Accounts of Iyas ibn Muawiya, Second Version of the Case ↩︎
- Al-Maqrizi, Itti’az al-Hunafa, Events of 399 AH, Slave-Market Regulations ↩︎
- Al-Maqrizi, al-Khitat, vol. 1, p. 196, Revenue from Various Markets ↩︎
- Ibn Bassam, Nihayat al-Rutba fi Talab al-Hisba, Ch. 67, Regulations for Slave Traders ↩︎
- Ibn Bassam, Ch. 67, Physical Examination and Identification of Defects Before Purchase ↩︎
- Al-Shayzari, Nihayat al-Rutba al-Zarifa, Ch. 34, Supervision of Slave Traders ↩︎
- Al-Misbahun Nuri Sharh Mukhtasar al-Quduri, vol. 1, p. 230 ↩︎
- Ashraf al-Hidaya, vol. 9, p. 596 ↩︎