ISLAMIC SEX SLAVERY IN INDIA

THE STORY YOU DON’T KNOW: Sex Slavery In Islamic India

Women and children were special targets for enslavement throughout the medieval period, that is, during Muslim invasions and Muslim rule. 

Captive children of both sexes grew up as Muslims and served the sultans, nobles and men of means in various captives. Enslavement of young women was also due to many reasons; their being sex objects was the primary consideration and hence concentration on their captivity.

Psychology regarding Sex

Islam originated in the Arabian peninsula which is by and large stony and sandy. There is no luxuriant herbage, there are no lofty trees or winding rivers. Muhammad used to say that “three things gladden the eye of the gazer: green fields, running water, and fair faces.” [1] Since green fields and running water were denied to the medieval Arab, he concentrated on deriving comfort and society mainly in fair faces. This phenomenon became prominent in the course of Islamic history throughout the world.

In the campaigns launched by Muslims, it was easy to capture women, more so after their menfolk had been massacred. The Prophet’s one great aim was propagation of his religion and as Margoliouth observes, “Abu Bakr (the chief campaigner for Muhammad’s creed) probably was aware that women are more amenable to conversion than men…. slaves than freemen, persons in distress than persons in prosperity and affluence.”[2] Women slaves turned concubines could increase Muslim population by leaps and bounds when captured in large numbers[3]. Hence there was particular keenness on enslaving women from the very beginning of Islam.

This was also encouraged by the injunctions of the Quran. Muslims are allowed four wives besides they are allowed to cohabit with any of their female slaves. Surah iv:3 says, “Then marry what seem to be good to you of women”; Surah iv:29, “Take what your right hand possesses of young women”, and Surah xxxiii:49, “Verily we make lawful for thee what thy right hand possesses out of the booty God hath granted thee.” Muslims are allowed to take possession of married women if they are slaves. Surah iv:28 declares, “Unlawful for you are… married women, save such as your right hand possesses”, that is, female slaves captured in war. Manucci’s observation on the seventeenth century India is significant in this regard. He says that “all Muhammadans are fond of women, who are their principal relaxation and almost their only pleasure.” [4]

From the teachings of the Quran quoted above, it will be seen that while Muhammad restricted the number of lawful wives, he did not restrict the number of slave girls and concubines.[5] All female slaves taken as plunder in war are the lawful property of their master, and the master has power to take to himself any female slave married or single. T.P. Hughes adds that “there is absolutely no limit to the number of slave girls with whom a Muhammadan may cohabit, and it is the consecration of this illimitable indulgence which so popularizes the Muhammadan religion amongst uncivilized nations, and so popularizes slavery in the Muslim religion”.[6]

In brief, the climatic conditions of Arabia the birth-place of Islam, Muhammad’s life-style as a model for Muslims, and injunctions in the Quran and the Hadis, determined Muslim psychology about women. Islam permits polygamy with unbelievable liberality. A man can have four wives at any point of time, that is, if he chooses to have a fifth one, he can divorce one of the already at hand and keep the number within the legal limits of four. Besides, he can have as many slave girls or concubines as he pleases. It is related in the Hadis that Muhammad said that “when the servant of God marries, he perfects half his religion…. Consequently in Islam, even the ascetic orders are rather married than single.” [7] In Islam there is provision for temporary marriage (muta), multi-marriages, divorce, remarriage of widows, concubinage — in short, there is freedom from all inhibitions and reservations in matters of sex. The insistence is on everybody marrying and celibacy is frowned upon. According to a tradition derived from Ibn Abbas and quoted by Ibn S’ad, popularly known as Katib al-Waqidi the Prophet’s biographer, Muhammad said that “in my ummah, he is the best who has the largest number of wives.” [8]

It has been repeatedly said Musalmans are allowed by the Quran and the Hadis to have four wives. The aphorisms and maxims current about this phenomenon indicate that all wives could not have been procured in the normal way; some would have been purchased, some others captured. One aphorism says, “One quarrels with you, two are sure to involve you in their quarrels; when you have three, factions are formed against her you love best; but four find society and occupation among themselves, leaving the husband in peace.” [9] According to another, “Wives there be four: there’s Bedfellow, Muckheap [dirty], Gadabout [idle] and Queen O’ women. The more the pity that the last is one in a hundred.” [10] Yet another says, “A man should marry four wives: A Persian to have some one to talk to; a Khurasani woman for his housework; a Hindu for nursing his children; a woman from Mawaraun nahr, or Transoxiana, to have someone to whip as a warning to the other three.” [11] The mention of so many nationalities in the sayings show that obtaining wives and concubines through all kinds of means — capture, purchase, enslavement — was in vogue among medieval Muslims.

In later times, this encouragement to polygamy was taken advantage of by Muslim conquerors. That Muhammad restricted the number of lawful wives but did not restrict the number of slave concubines, came handy to Musalmans. He “thus left upon the minds of his followers the inevitable impression that an unrestricted polygamy was the higher state…” [12] Hazrat Umar, the second Caliph, was the first to allow instant divorce (by the pronouncement of talaq, talaq, talaq, three times) called talaq-i-bidat (innovative form of divorce), “to meet an extraordinary situation brought on by wars of conquests”. Those wars brought in such an influx of women that constant divorce became necessary to falicitate quick acquisition of fresh spouses by divorcing the old ones. “Victory over an enemy would seem to have been consummated only when the enemy’s daughter was introduced into the conqueror’s harem” [13] — a precept so enthusiastically practised by Muslim conquerors and rulers in India.

It is therefore no wonder that from the day the Muslim invaders marched into India to the time when their political power declined, women were systematically captured and enslaved throughout the length and breadth of the country. Two instances pertaining to two extreme points of time would suffice as examples. When Muhammad bin Qasim mounted his attack on Debal in 712, all males of the age of seventeen and upwards were put to the sword and their women and children were enslaved.[14] And after the Third Battle of Panipat (1761), “the unhappy prisoners were paraded in long lines, given a little parched grain and a drink of water, and beheaded… and the women and children who survived were driven off as slaves — twenty-two thousand, many of them of the highest rank in the land, says the Siyar- ul-Mutakh irin ,” [15]

The special interest of Muslims in sex slavery was universal and widespread and a plethora of evidence is available in contemporary Persian chronicles. In fact, Muslim historians derive extra delight in narrating anecdotes and stating facts about Muslim indulgence in sex and allied activities. Two incidents from the lives of the first two Sultans, Qutbuddin Aibak and Shamsuddin Iltutmish, may be mentioned here as examples.

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