An Al-Azhar professor said captured women become property so a Muslim can have s*x with them "to humiliate them."

PAY ATTENTION... because this cultural war has already moved deep into America!!!
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The speaker is Suad Saleh, professor of comparative jurisprudence at Al-Azhar University in Egypt. MEMRI translated the Sept. 12, 2014, Fatwa segment on Al-Hayat TV.
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On-screen captions say Islam "put slavery into order" by limiting it to "legitimate wars between Muslims and their enemies." She called female prisoners of war "those whom you own."
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MEMRI's line is: "In order to humiliate them, they become the property of the army commander, or of a Muslim, and he can have s*x with them just like he has s*x with his wives." She used a war with Israel as the example, then said that war was "impossible" in practice.
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She rejected buying East Asian women and labeling them slave girls. She said that was "nonsense" and "not prescribed by Islam at all."
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The category she kept was a wife or a slave taken in a war "against our faith." The clip is from 2014 and still circulates because that is what an Al-Azhar scholar said on air.
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#Egypt #AlAzhar

The 2014 television appearance by Dr. Suad Saleh, a professor of comparative jurisprudence at Al-Azhar University, remains a highly controversial piece of media. When critically and logically assessing her statement, its weaponization by political lobbies, and the underlying Islamic legal context, the issue must be evaluated across three distinct dimensions: jurisprudential context, modern consensus, and media weaponization. [1]

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1. Jurisprudential and Historical Context

To analyze Dr. Saleh’s remarks logically, one must separate historical Islamic jurisprudence (Fiqh) from modern international law:

Restriction, Not Invention: Historically, Islam did not create slavery; the practice was a deeply entrenched global economic and military reality in pre-Islamic Arabia and across ancient civilizations. Dr. Saleh's phrase that Islam "put slavery into order" refers to how classical Sharia restricted the avenues of enslavement. Instead of allowing kidnapping, debt-bondage, or self-sale, classical law limited new enslavement exclusively to non-Muslim prisoners captured in a legitimate state-sanctioned war. [1, 2, 3]
The Concept of Reciprocity: In classical warfare, taking prisoners of war (POWs) as slaves or concubines (Ma malakat aymanukum) was practiced reciprocally by all warring empires (such as the Byzantine and Sasanian Empires). If an enemy army captured, enslaved, or violated Muslim women, the historical ruling allowed a reciprocal framework.
Dr. Saleh’s Specific Rejections: Notably, Dr. Saleh explicitly called the modern trafficking or buying of women (such as East Asian domestic workers) and labeling them "slave girls" as "nonsense" and "not prescribed by Islam at all". [1, 2]

2. Modern Consensus and the "Impossible" Exception

The most critical part of Dr. Saleh's interview is her explicit statement that such a scenario is "impossible" in practice today.

The Power of International Treaties: Under modern Islamic jurisprudence, Muslim-majority nations have signed international treaties (such as the Geneva Conventions and the 1926 Slavery Convention) that universally outlaw slavery and dictate the humane treatment of POWs. [1, 2]
Official Al-Azhar Stance: Institutions like Al-Azhar and Egypt’s Dar al-Ifta maintain that these international treaties are religiously binding agreements (‘Uqud). According to Quranic mandates to "fulfill all covenants" (Quran 5:1), the signing of these treaties permanently closes the door on historical practices like slavery and concubinage. Consequently, any revival of these practices—such as those attempted by extremist groups like ISIS—is condemned by Al-Azhar as entirely illicit and un-Islamic. [1, 2, 3]

3. Critical Assessment of Media Weaponization

When secular or political entities weaponize this specific clip, they often employ specific rhetorical distortions:

Rhetorical Tactic	Logical Reality
Decontextualization	Clips are edited to highlight the jarring classical terminology ("property," "humiliate") while completely removing her ultimate conclusion: that this practice is legally impossible and obsolete in the modern world.
Equating Classical Rules with Modern Intent	Critics present a discussion on historical 7th-century warfare rules as if it is an active policy or endorsement for modern actions against contemporary nations (like Israel).
Ignoring Internal Condemnation	The weaponized narrative portrays Dr. Saleh's academic breakdown of medieval text as a consensus mandate, ignoring the reality that she was drawing a theoretical line to forbid modern trafficking.

Summary Judgment

Logically, Dr. Suad Saleh’s 2014 remarks represent an academic breakdown of classical, historical jurisprudence rather than a prescriptive manual for modern life. Her explicit rejection of modern human trafficking, combined with her acknowledgment that executing historical slavery is impossible today, confirms that mainstream Islamic scholarship views the practice as closed. [1]

However, the use of provocative phrases like "to humiliate them" leaves such academic discourses highly vulnerable to exploitation. When stripped of its theoretical and legal context by media watchdogs, the clip becomes a powerful tool for anti-Islamic rhetoric, illustrating the deep divide between complex medieval text analysis and modern public communication.