Talk:Islamic views on concubinage

Some thoughts

@Vice regent:

The article is well-written. Some critical pointers however, which can also be treated in mainspace:

• "Concubinage was also practiced by wealthy men in pre-Islamic Buddhism and Hinduism", " Scholars have pointed out that women's lack of choice in marriage was commonplace in medieval times in the Muslim world and Western Europe", "Similar argument was made by Christian abolitionists when asked why Jesus did not condemn slavery": These have apologetic undertones and I would recommend removing them.
• There are some accidental issues WRT sourcing. For example, the article says "God promises to double the reward of a man educates a concubine, frees her and then marries her as his wife", but I can't find any mention of a concubine specifically either in Hamel or in the actual hadith. The Arabic word used here is جارية jāriya, which as I understand it refers to all slave women including but not limited to concubines. This is really a very minor issue in the big picture, but it never hurts to be closer to the sources.
• My feeling is that the first paragraph in the "Permissibility and number of concubines" section is too biased towards historically fringe anti-concubinage views. Al-Razi is certainly a significant figure, but the fact that the vast majority of classical exegetes and fuqaha disagreed with him and considered concubinage permissible needs much greater emphasis than a single sentence. More generally, my impression is that information on the theological and jurisprudential justification of the institution could use more expansion, and differences in views among the madhhabs should be presented in a more structured way.
• As for the Qarmatians, I'm very hesitant to call them Muslim at all—I'm frankly not sure if they themselves considered themselves Muslim, since it was their creed that Muhammad ibn Isma'il would abrogate the age of Islam.
• Why Umar and Hasan (ibn Ali, I presume) specifically? These figures predate the creation of Islamic law as we know it. Ottoman or Safavid practices might be more relevant.
• Are Jonathan Brown and Kecia Ali really relevant figures in the whole of contemporary Islam? I would recommend restructuring this section with a focus on e.g. Al-Azhar, Sayyid Qutb, and the Twelver authorities at Najaf, which I think should stand for the three most significant authorities in Islam currently.--Karaeng Matoaya (talk) 14:18, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

Karaeng Matoaya I have to disagree with you. The tone of the article is apologetic and spends more time trying to explain away the existence of concubinage rather than give the readers bare facts about how it existed. This article fails WP:NPOV. Most sections fail to adequately summarise scholarly viewpoints in proportion to their prevalence. Undue weight has been given to known apologist Jonathan Brown who confesses that his wiews are not widely shared in the academic community. The article also recurrently claims without basis that the Quran encourages men to marry their concubines. I have studied enough of Islamic law to know this is a WP:FRINGE claim. But the article presents it as fact. Undue weight has been given to minority viewpoints even where traditional scholarship is discussed. For instance, the minority view that large scale concubinage was discouraged has been given undue weight. The section on inheritance (under "other") is written inappropriately. It starts with the claim that "concubines could inherit" as if this is an unqualified right and only later tells the reader that its entirely dependent upon the master's will. A more appropriate way to word it would have been that a "Unlike a wife, a concubine does not have a right to inheritance. However, she may receive a share at her master's bequest." Overall, the article concentrates on making the best appear out of a bad situation. Mcphurphy (talk) 00:23, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

Hmmm, I certainly don't agree with the overall characterization of this article. Jonathan Brown is an academic, you're entitled to your opinion on him but for Wikipedia's purposes he's considered a credentialed scholar. The article does cite a source for the marrying concubines claim, I think you might be right that it's outside the mainstream but I'll double check the source. The part about large scale concubinage was put in its proper context and didn't seem to be given undue weight. The inheritance section could use some expansion but I don't believe the word "could" implies that it's a right. Jushyosaha604 (talk) 02:49, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

I agree with Jushyosaha604 about Jonathan Brown. I'm puzzled by Mcphurphy's comment about him, and I wonder if it may derive from a misunderstanding of a comment I made on another page. I was referring specifically to his argument that the notion of darar (harm) does "the same moral and legal work" in regulating non-consentual sex in Islamically licit relations as the notion of consent does in modern law. In his book, he outlines it in the section Consent and Concubines and he goes on to state in the next section that his modern interlocutors have tended to not be convinced by this argument. In general, he is a prominent academic scholar, and the author of a rare general book on the subject of this article, so I see no reason why his views shouldn't get significant weight. As a personal note, academic authors tend to exaggerate the level of support their own views have in the field, and the frank assessment given by Brown on this point is a credit to his intellectual honesty. Eperoton (talk) 04:17, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

The page should be called "Islamic views on concubinage with slaves"

A very peculiar form (and that's an euphemism) of concubinage is presented by the article. To avoid confusion the page should be renamed "Islamic views on concubinage with slaves". --2.41.87.75 (talk) 22:47, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

In Islamic law, concubines were synonymous with, and the same thing as, slaves, as no free woman would be allowed to live in a sexual relationship with a man without being married to him. In Islamic law, therefore, it was taken for granted that a concubine was a slave, since there was no such thing as a free concubine. But perhaps the article could be phrased so that the reader understands that.--Aciram (talk) 22:54, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

As this source points out, Western scholarship has translated this into the English term "concubine". The very first sentence of the article already says In classical Islamic law, a concubine (Arabic surriyya) was a slave-woman with whom her master engaged in sexual relations. Aciram is correct that concubinage was not allowed with free women.VR _talk 05:06, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

In Islamic law, concubines were synonymous with, and the same thing as, slaves That basically constitutes one reason more to rename the article "Islamic views on concubinage with slaves". --2.41.87.75 (talk) 01:17, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

The page should be protected

The page is vandalized again. This is often the case. I don't know how to revert it. It is a sensitive subject, so it would save time if the page was protected. --Aciram (talk) 20:34, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

POV fork

This article crosses over the WP:POVFORK line with sexual slavery in Islam, especially given the frequent use of "slavery" in this article and the proposal above to rename it.

There can be two articles if the topics are truly different, but at the moment there is way too much overlap with the sexual slavery article. I would expect to see, in each article, a summary of the other one preceded by a {{main}} link. ~Anachronist (talk) 19:23, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

As I said on the other talk page, this article was meant to narrowly cover only how Islam views concubinage. An alternative title for this page could also be "Concubinage in Islamic law". The historical practice of concubinage in the Muslim world is different from Islamic views on it, and should be covered elsewhere. This separation mirrors Islamic views on slavery and History of slavery in the Muslim world. It also why we have a separate article on Islamic military jurisprudence and Islam and war.VR _talk 23:34, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

@Vice regent: If Islam in all its forms forbids concubinage, what is the sense of having an entire page about “Islamic views on concubinage”? The only reason I can think of is that, despite concubinage is forbidden but sexual slavery is (was) not, you simply want to talk about “Islamic views on sexual slavery”, but presenting it as “Islamic views on concubinage”. --Grufo (talk) 23:56, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

Requested move 14 October 2021

See also: Talk:Sexual slavery in Islam/Archive 3, Talk:Sexual slavery in Islam/Archive 4, Talk:Sexual slavery in Islam/Archive 5, and Talk:Sexual slavery in Islam/Archive 6

Islamic views on concubinage → Islamic views on sexual slavery – The page was born as a WP:POVFORK from Sexual slavery in Islam, presenting the exact same topic but using an apologetic title. Grufo (talk) 17:38, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

The discussion below developed in Talk:Sexual slavery in Islam, after noticing that this page was created as a sort of spin-off from Sexual slavery in Islam. If we apply here the same policy that we applied there (and there are no reasons why we shouldn't) this page should be renamed to "Islamic views on sexual slavery".

Please do not edit the moved discussion. --Grufo (talk) 23:40, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

Moved from Talk:Sexual slavery in Islam § "Islamic views on concubinage"

 – Grufo (talk) 23:40, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

I don't see why we should force the articles to have the same name. What makes more sense is for an article to reflect the sources that it uses. For that one, looks like the sources use the term "concubinage" more commonly, which I guess makes sense given the article's scope and subject matter. Jushyosaha604 (talk) 02:18, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

Many of the sources in both articles overlap and that is not how Wikipedia works for articles that cover the same subject:

Consistency – The title is consistent with the pattern of similar articles' titles. Many of these patterns are listed (and linked) as topic-specific naming conventions on article titles, in the box above.

— WP:TITLE § Deciding on an article title

--Grufo (talk) 16:55, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

I am not even convinced that the topics are separate enough to warrant two articles, as both discuss sexual slavery. There's a large overlap at the moment, giving us a WP:POVFORK situation. That doesn't mean that each article expresses opposing points of view, it means that the focus of each should be narrowed down, if they are indeed separate topics. Each article should contain a summary of the other one with a link to it. ~Anachronist (talk) 19:47, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

Whether merging or not is another topic (a legitimate one). But what I am talking about is the fact that if the problem of calling sexual slaves “concubines” in a page title emerged here, the same exact problem emerges there – now with the further addition of inconsistency in title names. --Grufo (talk) 21:58, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

Both articles also use the term "slave concubinage". According to a comment on Talk:Islamic views on concubinage, Islamic law does not distinguish between a concubine and a slave. If that is true, then the terms are interchangeable in the context of this topic. ~Anachronist (talk) 22:11, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

@Anachronist: concubine, in the Islamic context, means a female slave with whom her male master (and no other) could engage in sexual relations. Sexual slavery includes such concubinage, but also other things that were never allowed by Islam: sexual enslavement of men, prostitution of female slaves, child pornography etc. This is why we have dozens of scholarly sources that discuss "concubinage" in Islam (see here and here) but are hard pressed to find many reliable sources that use the term "sexual slavery" in relation to Islam. See also my earlier comment. Ideally we should have two articles Islamic views on concubinage and history of concubinage in the Muslim world. This separation mirrors Islamic views on slavery and History of slavery in the Muslim world.VR _talk 23:28, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

— End of moved discussion —

@Vice regent: The fact that sexual slavery in Islam followed some rules where some things were allowed and others were not does not mean it was not sexual slavery. All slave systems had some kind of rules where some things were allowed and others were not. --Grufo (talk) 23:40, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

• @Anachronist: concubine, in the Islamic context, means a female slave with whom her male master (and no other) could engage in sexual relations. One form of sexual slavery could include such concubinage, but other forms of sexual slavery were never allowed by Islam: sexual enslavement of men, prostitution of female slaves, child pornography etc. This is why we have dozens of scholarly sources that discuss "concubinage" in Islam (see here and here) but are hard pressed to find many reliable sources that use the term "sexual slavery" in relation to Islam. See also my earlier comment. Ideally we should have two articles Islamic views on concubinage and history of concubinage in the Muslim world. This separation mirrors Islamic views on slavery and History of slavery in the Muslim world.VR _talk 00:26, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

• Support – I am the one who asked for the rename. See my arguments above. --Grufo (talk) 17:43, 14 October 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose. The topic of this article, and the WP:COMMONNAME, is "concubinage" not "sexual slavery". There are about 40 reliable sources supporting the current name and almost none supporting the proposed name. See this table and these additional quotes. I can also paste all this evidence below. VR _talk 18:20, 14 October 2021 (UTC)
• Many sources used in this article have "concubinage" in their title, but none have "sexual slavery" in their title:
  • Norman, York Allan (2013). "Concubinage". In Josef W. Meri (ed.). Medieval Islamic Civilization: An Encyclopedia. Psychology Press. pp. 169–170.
  • Cortese, Delia (2013). "Concubinage". In Natana J. DeLong-Bas (ed.). The Oxford Encyclopedia of Islam and Women. Oxford University Press.
  • Brockopp, Jonathan E. (2001). "Concubines". In Jane Dammen McAuliffe (ed.). Encyclopaedia of the Quran. Vol. 1. p. 396-397.
  • Ali, Kecia (2017). "Concubinage and Consent". International Journal of Media Studies. 49: 148–152. doi:10.1017/S0020743816001203.
  • Katz, Marion H. (2014). "Concubinage in Islamic law". In Kate Fleet; Gudrun Krämer; Denis Matringe; John Nawas; Everett Rowson (eds.). Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE. VR _talk 20:28, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

References