History of concubinage in the Muslim world

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Concubinage in the Muslim world was the practice of Muslim men entering into intimate relationships without marriage,^[2] with enslaved women,^[3] though in rare, exceptional cases, sometimes with free women.^[4][5][6]

It was a common practice in the Ancient Near East for the owners of slaves to have intimate relations with individuals considered their property,^[a] and Mediterranean societies, and had persisted among the three major Abrahamic religions, with distinct legal differences, since antiquity.^[7][8][b] Islamic law has traditionalist and modern interpretations,^[9] with the former historically allowing men to have sexual relations with their female slaves,^[10][11] while affording female slaves a variety of different rights and privileges in different periods. An example is the status of umm al-walad, which could be conveyed to a concubine who gave birth to a child whose paternity was acknowledged by her owner. In certain times and places, this status prevented a concubine from being sold, and provided other benefits.^[12]

Concubinage was widely practiced throughout the Umayyad, Abbasid, Mamluk, Ottoman, Timurid and Mughal Empires. The prevalence within royal courts also resulted in many Muslim rulers over the centuries being the children of concubines, including the great majority of early Abbasid caliphs and several Shia imams. The practice of concubinage declined with the abolition of slavery.^[13]

Today, slavery has been officially abolished across the Muslim world and the vast majority of modern Muslims and Islamic scholars consider slavery in general and slave-concubinage to be unacceptable practices.^[14]

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