Rape in Islamic Law: Difference between revisions

The male rapist may be punished with a hadd penalty - [[stoning]] (if he is [[Marriage|married]]) or lashings (if he is unmarried) - just as he would receive for ordinary [[Zina]] (fornication, or unlawful intercourse). There is no punishment for the rape victim if she is able to prove that she was raped. Four witnesses are required to prove that she was raped.<ref>{{Cite book|first=R. |last= Peters | year= 2012 | title=Encyclopaedia of Islam | edition= 2nd|publisher=Brill |editor=P. Bearman |editor2=Th. Bianquis |editor3=C.E. Bosworth |editor4=E. van Donzel |editor5=W.P. Heinrichs|chapter=Zinā or Zināʾ}}</ref><ref>{{Quran|24|4}}</ref> Jurists disagree on whether the rapist must also pay a dowry as compensation to the victim. A controversial position of some modern jurists is that the hadd penalty for outlaws should apply to rapists (hadd ''Hirabah''), described in {{Quran|5|33}}. Others say that rape can be treated by the judge as an offence that receives Tazir (discretionary) punishment (as in Pakistan, for example). These approaches avoid the impractical four witnesses requirement for applying a zina hadd penalty in absence of a confession from a rapist. In some other modern courts a woman risks being accused of zina if she cannot prove to this standard that she has been raped and [[Stoning in Islamic Law|stoned to death]]<ref>Dr Azman Mohd Noor, [http://irep.iium.edu.my/16877/1/PUNISHMENT_FOR_RAPE_IN_ISLAMIC_LAW.pdf Punishment for rape in Islamic Law], Malayan Law Journal Articles [2009] 5 MLJ cxiv</ref> and the rapists go unpunished.<ref>{{Citation|url=https://www.dawn.com/news/1016271/a-license-to-rape|title=A license to rape|author=Murtaza Haider|publication-date=June 5, 2003|newspaper=Dawn}}</ref>

Sahih hadiths in Muslim and Abu Dawud detail the nature of the permission granted by this verse: some of Muhammad's fighters were reluctant to have sexual contact with female captives who were already married to the [[Kafir (Infidel)|non-Muslim]] men of the defeated party.

Scenes of Muhammad's companions, and indeed Muhammad himself, engaging in sexual activity with slaves and captives are common throughout hadith literature. While the female perspective is largely absent, leaving the reader to speculate as to whether the female slave or captive would have been receptive to the advances of Muhammad and his companions, it is fair to assume that in at least some (if not most or indeed all) of these cases, the sexual activity occurred without the female's consent and thus qualified as rape. This is particularly clear in the examples that follow where Muhammad's companions initiate sexual contact with the captive women shortly after having slayed their sons, husbands, fathers, and brothers. At the very least, it can be said that in no such case does Muhammad intervene in and that in all such cases he actively permits what, by all appearances, is an instance of his companion's raping a captive or slave. These are originally free [[Kafir (Infidel)|non-Muslims]] who are captured in battle.<ref>{{Citation|url=http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/508/1/uk_bl_ethos_443314.pdf|title=The legal and social status of women in the Hadith literature (PDF)|author=Salma Saad|page=242|year=1990}}</ref><ref>{{Citation|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6MC0DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA17|title=Islamic Jurisprudence on the Regulation of Armed Conflict: Text and Context|author=Nesrine Badawi (1 October 2019). p.17. BRILL. ISBN 978-90-04-41062-6}}</ref> The entire population of a conquered territory can be enslaved, thus providing women who are otherwise rare on the battlefield. This paves the path for concubinage.<ref>{{Citation|url=https://archive.org/details/islamabolitionof0000clar|title=Islam and the Abolition of Slavery|publisher=p. 27. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-522151-0|author=William Gervase Clarence-Smith|year=2006}}</ref> The Muslim military commander is allowed to choose between unconditionally releasing, ransoming or enslaving war captives.<ref>{{Citation|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=l0SyDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA5|title=The Art of Jihad: Realism in Islamic Political Thought|author=Malik Mufti (1 October 2019)|publisher=SUNY Press. p.5. ISBN 978-1-4384-7638-4}}</ref> If a person converted to Islam after being enslaved, their emancipation would be considered a pious act but not obligatory.<ref>{{Citation|url=https://archive.org/details/islamabolitionof0000clar|title=Islam and the Abolition of Slavery|publisher=p. 22. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-522151-0|author=William Gervase Clarence-Smith|year=2006}}</ref> Islamic law does not allow enslavement of free-born Muslims.<ref>{{Citation|url=|title=Violence in Islamic Thought from the Qur'an to the Mongols|author=Robert Gleave (14 April 2015)|publisher=p.142. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-0-7486-9424-2}}</ref>