IN RELATION TO the subject of prisoners of war, the most contentious issue is that of female prisoners of war. Dr. Qureshi alleges, for instance, “Truth be told, the Holy Quran and hadith contain many references to sex slavery. The Holy Quran explicitly allows Muslim men to use their captive women for sex (23:6; 33:50; 70:30).”186 As we have demonstrated however, this is not the “truth” at all.
This is because the word “slave” cannot be truly applied to prisoners of war. As demonstrated earlier, the Holy Quran is very clear in stating that prisoners of war can only be taken in specific circumstances. Even when these prisoners are taken, there is no commandment in the Holy Quran that they should be distributed among the Muslim soldiers. It only happened in the early days of Islam due to practical reasons, such as the unavailability of state prisons, and due to the fact that Muslim prisoners were treated as slaves by the enemy. Even in such a case, the Holy Quran forbade the Muslims from turning their prisoners into slaves and to not keep them after the conclusion of the war.
In the same context, the female prisoners of war were taken due to the prevalent conditions and exigencies of the time. The existence of state prisons in the modern times has obviated the need to distribute prisoners among Muslim soldiers. It is no longer required to put prisoners into the custody of individuals.
Regardless, there is no such thing as “sex slavery” in Islam. Hazrat Mirza Bashir-ud-din Mahmud Ahmad, the second Khalīfa of the Aḥmadiyya Muslim Jamā‘at has commented on this issue at length in his commentary of the Holy Quran, known as Tafsīr-e-Kabīr. In the discussion of verse 7 of chapter 23 of the Holy Quran, he lists the following conditions that had to be met before a female prisoner could be handed over to a Muslim soldier:
If the female prisoner chooses not to use option 5, it clearly means that something is preventing her from going back to her home country as she has clearly refrained from exercising her right to earn her release. In such a case, her Muslim master was allowed to marry her involuntarily as a last resort.
As Islam is a religion that promotes moral values, this last step is one of necessity. If the prisoner is allowed to stay with her master without marriage, it has the danger of leading to fornication and other possible vices which can in turn lead to immorality in the Islamic society. After all this, if the female prisoners gives birth to a child, she automatically becomes a free woman.188
We have discussed this issue here in principle but it is clear that none of this applies in the modern age due to the existence of state prisons and penitentiaries.