The true motives behind Islamic State’s use of sexual slavery

Another look at ISIS's "theology of rape",,,

So what about Islamic State’s sexual enslavement of non-Muslims, particularly Yazidi girls? Given the group’s policy coordination at the highest levels, are these practices being carried out as an intentional repudiation of an international “year of the woman” argument? Is the group seeking to refute efforts to lionize Malala Yousufzai or champion women’s emancipation even in the most traditional of villages?

Islamic State is attuned to the interests of observant Muslim boys and girls around the world. As it works to recruit young adults and teenagers throughout the West, newspapers have reported, the group has demonstrated a remarkable sense of the languages and challenges of modernity.

So there may also be an official sense among Islamic State leaders that the practice of sexually enslaving Yazidi women would likely disgust and outrage the West and other Muslims. Yet it also challenges modern Muslim youth to think about male sexual gratification in unambiguous warrior terms, and to view Islamic State’s stark society as morally complete in its treatment of others — a society which requires that they must give up “Western” values to join.

The social context may be just as important for understanding this new policy of sexual enslavement. One thing learned from the study of the small religious movements that have sprung up in the West over the past few centuries is the systematic restructuring of sexual relations that leaders have often demanded at an early point in the movement. This may involve group celibacy or polygamy, the exclusive sexual rights of the leader, or free sexual relations. It can often mean dissolution of prior marriages.

The true motives behind Islamic State’s use of sexual slavery

ISIS Enshrines a Theology of Rape - The New York Times

"He kept telling me this is ibadah,” she said, using a term from Islamic scripture meaning worship.

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The systematic rape of women and girls from the Yazidi religious minority has become deeply enmeshed in the organization and the radical theology of the Islamic State in the year since the group announced it was reviving slavery as an institution. Interviews with 21 women and girls who recently escaped the Islamic State, as well as an examination of the group’s official communications, illuminate how the practice has been enshrined in the group’s core tenets.

The trade in Yazidi women and girls has created a persistent infrastructure, with a network of warehouses where the victims are held, viewing rooms where they are inspected and marketed, and a dedicated fleet of buses used to transport them.

A total of 5,270 Yazidis were abducted last year, and at least 3,144 are still being held, according to community leaders. To handle them, the Islamic State has developed a detailed bureaucracy of sex slavery, including sales contracts notarized by the ISIS-run Islamic courts. And the practice has become an established recruiting tool to lure men from deeply conservative Muslim societies, where casual sex is taboo and dating is forbidden.

A growing body of internal policy memos and theological discussions has established guidelines for slavery, including a lengthy how-to manual issued by the Islamic State Research and Fatwa Department just last month. Repeatedly, the ISIS leadership has emphasized a narrow and selective reading of the Quran and other religious rulings to not only justify violence, but also to elevate and celebrate each sexual assault as spiritually beneficial, even virtuous.

“Every time that he came to rape me, he would pray,” said F, a 15-year-old girl who was captured on the shoulder of Mount Sinjar one year ago and was sold to an Iraqi fighter in his 20s. Like some others interviewed by The New York Times, she wanted to be identified only by her first initial because of the shame associated with rape.
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In the parking lot the same fleet of Hajj buses was waiting to take them to their next destination, said F. Along with 24 other girls and young women, the 15-year-old was driven to an army base in Iraq. It was there in the parking lot that she heard the word “sabaya” for the first time.

“They laughed and jeered at us, saying ‘You are our sabaya.’ I didn’t know what that word meant,” she said. Later on, the local Islamic State leader explained it meant slave.

“He told us that Taus Malik” — one of seven angels to whom the Yazidis pray — “is not God. He said that Taus Malik is the devil and that because you worship the devil, you belong to us. We can sell you and use you as we see fit.”

The Islamic State’s sex trade appears to be based solely on enslaving women and girls from the Yazidi minority. As yet, there has been no widespread campaign aimed at enslaving women from other religious minorities, said Samer Muscati, the author of the recent Human Rights Watch report. That assertion was echoed by community leaders, government officials and other human rights workers.

ISIS Enshrines a Theology of Rape - The New York Times

See also:

The Truth About Islam and Sex Slavery History Is More Complicated Than You Think

Outrage after man tortures and murders 10-year-old daughter | GulfNews.com

A Yemeni father callously tortured and killed his daughter, 10, for allegedly committing adultery in the northern Dhamar province, a local official who questioned the man told Gulf News on Tuesday.

On the weekend, Yemenis on social media widely circulated a photo of a tortured girl who was found dead by shepherds in a rugged area in the northern province of Ibb.

Within hours, police found out that the girl was killed by her father.

Colonel Mohammad Qassem Al Hadi, the director of Dhamar’s Criminal Investigation Department, said that the man admitted that he brutally tortured and shot her four times with his rifle.

Outrage after man tortures and murders 10-year-old daughter | GulfNews.com