SOMETIMES ISLAMIC JURISPRUDENCE sinks to the lowest level of degeneracy when it talks about the rights of a Muslim man. Ibn Qudāma, for instance, says the following:

Even if a man marries an adult and two infant girls, and the adult breastfeeds the two small ones, the adult woman is forbidden to him and his marriage with the two little ones is dissolved. There is no obligation for him to pay the dowry for the adult and he is to return to her half the bride price paid for the two little ones. He is then free to marry any of them he wishes.^[i]

Imagine this ‘stallion’ marrying an adult woman and at the same time marrying two infants, with his eldest wife breastfeeding these two children. Islamic jurists are not concerned at all about the rights of suckling infants whose parents marry them off to men decades older than them, and of course without consulting the infant because she is incapable of understanding what is happening. Nevertheless, the jurist cares deeply about the right of the stallion saying “He is then free to marry any of them he wishes.”

As for the killing of a child, this perforce is recognised by the religion

As for the killing of a child, this perforce is recognised by the religion. Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq instructed Khālid ibn al-Walīd, after sending him to fight Musaylima, to kill all the children who had reached puberty.^[ii] The historian al-Ṭabarī also tells us that Mu‘āwiya ibn Abī Sufyān sent Bisr ibn Arta’a to Yemen who came upon the caravan of ‘Ubayd Allah ibn ‘Abbās with two young sons of his, whom Bisr then slaughtered.^[iii]

The Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyya, after recalling the story of a boy who instructed the unjust king on how the king might send him to be killed, said this:

The boy ordered that he himself be killed for the sake of the emergent religion, and for this reason the four imams admired how the Muslim infiltrated the ranks of the disbelievers, even if he were to be overcome, due to their conviction that their killing him was in the interest of the Muslims. ^[iv]

Sporting a beautiful boy became one of the signs of elevated status

With this fatwā the Shaykh al-Islam gave delirious groups permission to fasten explosive belts on children’s waists and have them blown up among innocent people. Examples of such behaviour emerged in Pakistan when Pervez Musharraf assaulted the Red Mosque in Karachi and soldiers found several children wearing explosive belts, and in Afghanistan when police arrested a Pakistani child with an explosive belt which he wanted to detonate among American soldiers. Khomeini handed out wooden keys to paradise to child suicide bombers and sent them to the frontlines to blow themselves up among Iraqi soldiers. Shaykh al-Qaraḍāwī, the spiritual father of the Muslim Brotherhood, issued a fatwā that Jewish children could be killed, on the grounds that when they grow up they will join the Israeli army and possibly kill Palestinians. Al-Qaraḍāwī thus follows in the footsteps of the Prophet and Al-Khiḍr and has children killed in consideration of what would take place when they grew up.

The Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah says that “no punishment is to be inflicted upon those who ‘kiss’ a boy or a foreign woman”.^[v] And because there is no punishment for anyone who ‘kisses’ a boy, we find that sodomy with boys was widespread in the Umayyad dynasty, especially in the caliphate of Yazīd ibn ‘Abd al-Malik. The was also the case in the Abbasid state, until holding parties with boys in the palaces of the Abbasid caliphs became a regular thing, particularly during the days of the caliphate of al-Ma’mūn and al-Amīn. 

Because Islamic legislation neglects children’s rights there is little care for children, for their health or their education

Then came the Ottoman Caliphate when sporting a beautiful boy became one of the signs of elevated status in the state employees. “I hope that the reader will not forget”, says Dr. ‘Alī Al-Wardī, 

the deplorable situation that Iraq went through during the Ottoman era, when a very heavy veil descended upon society, until love of boys became one of the feats many men would boast of. The effects of this still remain today. Sexual perversion is present today in its ugliest form on the coasts of the Persian Gulf on both the Iranian and Arab sides. Muscat is the centre of this deviation. It is permissible there for a man to marry another man and cohabit with him as husbands. The wedded man is referred to as the Inster.^[vi]

Today, boys’ parties are abundant in Afghanistan and in the Wahhābī kingdom of evil. A large number of Arab poets were famous for their love of boys, such as Abū Nuwās, Bashshār ibn Burd and Ṣafī al-Dīn al-Ḥillī because Islam did not grant children any rights that might deter such human wolves. Ṣafī al-Dīn al-Ḥillī published a collection of poetry containing a great deal of odes to young boys, even explicitly describing the practice of sodomy with the pre-pubescent Turkish boys. Even some judges were famous for their love of boys, such as the Qāḍī Yaḥyā ibn Aktham, whom the people of Baghdad protested to al-Ma’mūn about because the judge had corrupted their boys. Al-Ma’mūn said “were they to have protested against his rulings, then I would have sacked him”.

The Islamic religion does not recognize any rights other than the rights of a free Muslim male

Because Islamic legislation neglects children’s rights, we find that in countries ruled by contemporary Islamist movements such as Ḥamās in Gaza, the Muslim Brotherhood in Sudan, and Shiite mullahs in Iran there is little care for children, for their health or their education. According to UN statistics, three million children in Sudan remain outside the school system, out of a total of seven million in the country. Most of these children live in squalid conditions on the streets or in so-called cells where they are taught the Qur’ān and hadiths, and where their elderly teachers exploit them and practice sodomy with them.

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Enlightenment Islam is the path to salvation

The Islamic religion does not recognize any rights other than the rights of a free Muslim male, along with some crumbs for women’s rights such as inheritance. And even in this right she gets only half of what her male brother is entitled to.

^[i]  Ibn Qudāma, Al-Mughnī, Book 43, chapter on breastfeeding.

^[ii] Tarīkh al-Ṭabarī, Vol.2, p.248.

^[iii] Tarīkh al-Ṭabarī, Vol.3 p.153)

^[iv] Ibn Taymiyya, مجموع الفتاوى 28/540.

^[v] Ibn Taymiyya,  السياسة الشرعية للراعي والرعية  Section Two, ‘Ḥudūd punishments’.

^[vi] ‘Alī Al-Wardī, مهزلة العقل البشري, p. 10.

See Part One of this essay here