On Scriptuaries and Pagans as Slave-Concubines

This chapter concerns the 1435/2014 IS booklet on slave-concubinage, al-Sabī: Aḥkām wa-Masāʾil, probably authored by the group’s jurisconsult (muftī), Turkī al-Binʿalī (d. 1438/2017). The text was widely disseminated online when first published, attracting much comment in the international press. In the section excerpted here, al-Binʿalī focuses on the permissibility of taking female pagans as slave-concubines. While premodern Sunnī jurists had typically permitted female People of the Book (i.e. Kitābiyyāt, Jews and Christians) as sexual partners for male Muslims living in the Muslim polity, whether through marriage or slave-concubinage, they were almost unanimous in prohibiting such unions with Zoroastrians and other religious groups. Based on largely historical considerations, and adducing the views of Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328), Ibn al-Qayyim (d. 751/1350) and al-Shawkānī (d. 1250/1834) as proof, al-Binʿalī undermines the classical Sunnī view that female pagans are unlawful as slave-concubines.