Exclusive: Islamic State ruling aims to settle who can have sex with female slavesWASHINGTON | By Jonathan Landay, Warren Strobel and Phil Stewart
Islamic State theologians have issued an extremely detailed ruling on when "owners" of women enslaved by the extremist group can have sex with them, in an apparent bid to curb what they called violations in the treatment of captured females.
The ruling or fatwa has the force of law and appears to go beyond the Islamic State's previous known utterances on slavery, a leading Islamic State scholar said. It sheds new light on how the group is trying to reinterpret centuries-old teachings to justify the rape of women in the swaths of Syria and Iraq it controls.
For a U.S. government translation of the fatwa click here.
The fatwa was among a huge trove of documents captured by U.S. Special Operations Forces during a raid targeting a top Islamic State official in Syria in May. Reuters has reviewed the document, which has not been previously published, but couldn't independently confirm its authenticity.
Among the fatwa's injunctions are bans on a father and son having sex with the same female slave; and the owner of a mother and daughter having sex with both. Joint owners of a female captive are similarly enjoined from intercourse because she is viewed as "part of a joint ownership."
The United Nations and human rights groups have accused the Islamic State of the systematic abduction and rape of thousands of women and girls as young as 12, especially members of the Yazidi minority in northern Iraq. Many have been given to fighters as a reward or sold as sex slaves.
Far from trying to conceal the practice, Islamic State has boasted about it and established a department of "war spoils" to manage slavery. Reuters reported on the existence of the department on Monday.
In an April report, Human Rights Watch interviewed 20 female escapees who recounted how Islamic State fighters separated young women and girls from men and boys and older women. They were moved "in an organized and methodical fashion to various places in Iraq and Syria." They were then sold or given as gifts and repeatedly raped or subjected to sexual violence.
DOS AND DON'TS
Fatwa No. 64, dated Jan. 29, 2015, and issued by Islamic State's Committee of Research and Fatwas, appears to codify sexual relations between IS fighters and their female captives for the first time, going further than a pamphlet issued by the group in 2014 on how to treat slaves.
The fatwa starts with a question: "Some of the brothers have committed violations in the matter of the treatment of the female slaves. These violations are not permitted by Sharia law because these rules have not been dealt with in ages. Are there any warnings pertaining to this matter?"
It then lists 15 injunctions, which in some instances go into explicit detail. For example:
"If the owner of a female captive, who has a daughter suitable for intercourse, has sexual relations with the latter, he is not permitted to have intercourse with her mother and she is permanently off limits to him. Should he have intercourse with her mother then he is not permitted to have intercourse with her daughter and she is to be off limits to him."
Islamic State's rape of female captives has been well documented, but a leading IS expert at Princeton University, Cole Bunzel, who has reviewed many of the group's writings, said the fatwa went beyond what has previously been published by the militants on how to treat female slaves.
"It reveals the actual concerns of IS slave owners," he said in an email.
Still, he cautioned that not "everything dealt with in the fatwa is indicative of a relevant violation. It doesn't mean father and son were necessarily sharing a girl. They're at least being 'warned' not to. But I bet some of these violations were being committed."
The fatwa also instructs owners of female slaves to "show compassion toward her, be kind to her, not humiliate her, and not assign her work she is unable to perform." An owner should also not sell her to an individual whom he knows will mistreat her.
Professor Abdel Fattah Alawari, dean of Islamic Theology at Al-Azhar University, a 1,000-year-old Egyptian center for Islamic learning, said Islamic State "has nothing to do with Islam" and was deliberately misreading centuries-old verses and sayings that were originally designed to end, rather than encourage, slavery.
"Islam preaches freedom to slaves, not slavery. Slavery was the status quo when Islam came around," he said. "Judaism, Christianity, Greek, Roman, and Persian civilizations all practiced it and took the females of their enemies as sex slaves. So Islam found this abhorrent practice and worked to gradually remove it.”
In September 2014 more than 120 Islamic scholars from around the world issued an open letter to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi refuting the group's religious arguments to justify many of its actions. The scholars noted that the "reintroduction of slavery is forbidden in Islam."
(Additional reporting by Ahmed Aboulenein in Cairo and William Maclean in Dubai, editing by Ross Colvin)
Militant Islamist fighters hold the flag of Islamic State (IS) while taking part in a military parade along the streets of northern Raqqa province in this June 30, 2014 file photo.
Reuters/Stringer/Files
ISIS creates sex slave rape guidelines
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SouthSac916
All Star
Thought they were CIA
They are, this was a CIA/Mossad joint op
the cac mamba
Veteran
islam 
Domingo Halliburton
Handmade in USA
Islam
ADemonYouKnow
Rookie
Islam 
Islam was summed up to me, when on a political tv programme, a muslim lady screamed angrily 'islam means peace' , when someone made a critical if respectful point about the religion. Reminds me a bit of when you see a video of some cops beating someone up and them shouting 'stop resisting' when he is lying prone on the floor unable to move.
I don't think all muslims act this way, but they need to acknowledge there is a cancer within the religion and it's out of control. They need to enact something like the 'reformation' like the christian churches did.Christianity especially the catholic church was just was brutal but they changed . They need to kill or persuade if possible those tarnishing their religion world wide ,because right now they are doing the work of the devil. Slave markets? public beheading?, setting prisoners on fire?
I don't think all muslims act this way, but they need to acknowledge there is a cancer within the religion and it's out of control. They need to enact something like the 'reformation' like the christian churches did.Christianity especially the catholic church was just was brutal but they changed . They need to kill or persuade if possible those tarnishing their religion world wide ,because right now they are doing the work of the devil. Slave markets? public beheading?, setting prisoners on fire?
You ain't paying attention. Muslim kurds are combating ISIS. I don't know where you guys get the idea that they're complacent or even ok with what's going on
I thought you couldn't have sex outside of marriage in Islam? Doesn't sound very muslim to me
ExodusNirvana
Change is inevitable...
They are...this is all a clever CIA plot to convince us of how evil ISIS is
Islam is incompatible with the west. Pure and simple.
Islam
