Method
This lesson follows a strict rule: text interprets text. Where later tradition or polemics try to force a reading, we return to the wording and the immediate context. The question is simple: does the Qur’an actually legislate mutʿah (a time-limited “contract” for sex), or does it establish marriage, chastity, and obligation?
1) Why People Fight Over Qur’an 4:24
Surah An-Nisāʾ 4:24 sits inside a legal passage listing prohibited relations and clarifying lawful ones. The common claim is that one clause proves mutʿah. But if we read the verse in flow, the verse itself pushes toward chastity, marriage, and obligation—not casual access.
Qur’an 4:24 (core lines)
وَٱلۡمُحۡصَنَٰتُ مِنَ ٱلنِّسَآءِ إِلَّا مَا مَلَكَتۡ أَيۡمَٰنُكُمۡۖ كِتَٰبَ ٱللَّهِ عَلَيۡكُمۡۚ وَأُحِلَّ لَكُم مَّا وَرَآءَ ذَٰلِكُمۡ أَن تَبۡتَغُواْ بِأَمۡوَٰلِكُم مُّحۡصِنِينَ غَيۡرَ مُسَٰفِحِينَۚ فَمَا ٱسۡتَمۡتَعۡتُم بِهِۦ مِنۡهُنَّ فَـَٔاتُوهُنَّ أُجُورَهُنَّ فَرِيضَةٗۚ وَلَا جُنَاحَ عَلَيۡكُمۡ فِيمَا تَرَٰضَيۡتُم بِهِۦ مِنۢ بَعۡدِ ٱلۡفَرِيضَةِۚ
Two phrases control the reading:
- “muhṣinīn ghayra musāfiḥīn” — seeking a lawful protected union, not fornication.
- “fa-ātūhunna ujūrahunna farīḍah” — give them what is due as an obligation (the required compensation).
If mutʿah were the topic, the verse would logically define time limits, termination, rights, and status. Instead, the verse speaks in the language of obligation, chastity, and lawful union. The final line fits naturally as marital practicality: after the obligation is set, you may mutually agree on adjustments.
2) Qur’an 4:25 Confirms the Direction: Marriage, Permission, Mahr, Chastity
The very next verse strengthens the same moral framework. It explicitly describes marriage to believing slave women with permission, mahr, and strict chastity language—then it adds a legal principle about reduced punishment due to slave condition.
Qur’an 4:25 (English excerpt as commonly rendered)
“And whoever among you cannot [find] the means to marry free, believing women, then [he may marry] from those whom your right hands possess of believing slave girls… So marry them with the permission of their people and give them their due compensation [i.e., mahr] according to what is acceptable. [They should be] chaste, neither [of] those who commit unlawful intercourse randomly nor those who take [secret] lovers. But once they are sheltered in marriage, if they should commit adultery, then for them is half the punishment…”
This is not the language of “temporary access.” It is the language of marriage: permission, mahr, chastity, and accountability.
3) Qur’an 2:221: The Moral Principle Behind the Law
The Qur’an states a blunt hierarchy that matches the core ethic we are tracing: faith and moral direction come before status, beauty, or social rank.
Qur’an 2:221 (key lines)
“...a believing slave woman is better than a free polytheist woman, even though she pleases you... and a believing slave man is better than a free polytheist man, even though he pleases you...”
This is the exact logic: light over form, truth over status, and family stability over desire.
4) The Battlefield Clause in 4:24: “Except Those Your Right Hands Possess”
The moral tension comes from the clause that is often “explained away” by inserting tafsīr inside translation. The Arabic itself is short, which is precisely why it becomes a battlefield: people use ambiguity either to justify desire, or to attack the scripture.
Reading it outside a war-collapse scenario creates an obvious contradiction:
- “married women are forbidden”
- “except…”
The cleanest non-apologetic logic is that we have a shift into an administrative/war layer: a woman may have been married, but in war her household collapses—husband killed, missing, or unreachable—so she is no longer practically “within a marriage” in the real sense. The ethical direction of the passage still pushes toward protection + marriage + obligation, not exploitation.
Two honest options (without pretending the tension does not exist)
-
Option 1: Administrative exception (kingdom-law, not Absolute speech)
Qur’an 2:221 is a moral principle (light, stability). Qur’an 4:24 includes a war/legal clause with administrative handling. This is why it feels like a different “voice.” -
Option 2: War context where the previous marriage is practically dead
The clause addresses protection and re-ordering after war collapse, but remains too brief, allowing later abuse and polemical reading.
5) Where the Kolbrin Overlaps: Closing the Loopholes (with direct citations)
The overlap is not “trust me.” It is visible in explicit decrees: protection of slave women, prohibition of sexual exploitation, obligation after pregnancy, judicial intervention, and the idea that slavekeeping exists but is not moral goodness. The Kolbrin repeatedly blocks the very loopholes that mutʿah-style thinking relies on: sex without responsibility.
5.1) Protection from exploitation and forced lewdness
SOF 5:90 — “No woman slave shall be made to do any deed of lewdness, and her modesty shall be honoured. If she be forced into lewdness or immodesty, she shall bear no sin, but he who forced her shall not go unpunished. Lewd talk about women and foul speech shall not go unpunished,”
This directly contradicts any religious “legal packaging” that enables use-and-discard access. The burden is placed on the abuser, not the victim, and even dehumanizing speech is treated as punishable corruption.
5.2) Why punishment is less for slaves (overlap in principle with Qur’an 4:25)
SOF 5:82 — “It is decreed that no man shall permit a female slave to engage in fornication, and it is his duty to keep her modest and free from lewdness. If, after marriage, slaves commit adultery, they shall not be punished to the extent of a free person, for they have been brought up as slaves. Though the punishment of a slave be less, the master may be punished, if the slave warranted punishment because of his neglect.”
Qur’an 4:25 states that punishment is reduced for slave women after marriage. The Kolbrin goes further by explaining why: upbringing and condition matter, and the master can carry legal responsibility for neglect.
5.3) Obligation after intimacy: pregnancy cannot be “discarded”
SOF 5:84 — “It is decreed that if a man have a woman slave, who is a maiden and the intended wife of a freeman, he shall not lie with her. If a man lie with a slave and she become with child, he shall not sell her or cease to support her. If a woman slave marry the slave of another master, then her master shall not restrain her unduly, but he shall meet with the master of her husband and make an arrangement concerning her that is fair and just.”
This is the opposite of “temporary-contract thinking.” It forces continuing responsibility: you do not get to create a child and then sell the mother or abandon support.
5.4) Judicial protection: judges can free slaves from unworthy masters
SOF 5:52 — “It is decreed that if a man have a maidservant or slave and he seek to give her to his son in marriage, he shall deal with her as a daughter. If he smite a manservant or a maidservant so that they lose blood or cannot move about, or if they suffer pain for three days, he shall be brought before the judges, and they shall decide upon his dealings and bring justice to the one injured. It shall be within the power of the judges to free a slave from an unworthy master and place him with another, either as a slave or a freeman”
The system restricts power. “Ownership” is not a license; it triggers accountability and judicial oversight.
5.5) Slavekeeping is not goodness; marriage must not be blocked
SOF 5:54 — “It is decreed that a master shall not allow his servant or slave to remain unmarried if they wish to marry... The duty of a child towards father and mother is great, but the duty to marry is greater... Slavekeeping is not forbidden, but it is not goodness; the truly righteous man sustains the poor by finding work for their hands...”
This matches the core moral direction: marriage is protection and stability; exploitation is not “virtue” just because a system permits it.
5.6) Marriage as protection; chastity as social stability
SOF 5:68 — “A wife must not only be faithful, but she must give her husband no cause to suspect her of unfaithfulness... A wife must never forget that marriage was ordained for the benefit and protection of women. Therefore, they have the greater obligation in upholding it... The upright man... should marry only a chaste woman... without the stain of fornication. It is not wholly good to maintain a concubine, but an unchaste woman may be kept as one or lain with if a slave.”
The ethic is explicit: marriage protects women and stabilizes society. Even where the text recognizes concubinage as a tolerated practice, it still states it is not wholly good, making a clear distinction between what a system permits and what righteousness aims toward.
6) Summary: What This Does (and Does Not) Prove
- It does not prove mutʿah as Qur’anic law. Qur’an 4:24–25 reads most coherently as marriage + chastity + mahr + obligation.
- It does show how legal gaps get abused. The brief clause in 4:24 becomes a tool for two groups: those seeking loopholes for desire, and those seeking ammunition against the Qur’an.
- The moral spine remains consistent. Qur’an 2:221 establishes “light over form,” Qur’an 4:25 protects marriage and chastity, and the Kolbrin repeatedly closes the door to sexual exploitation by forcing responsibility and judicial accountability.