Islamic State fatwa details rules for having sex with female slaves, girls

Islamic State militants have issued a set of rules detailing when it is appropriate for “owners” of enslaved women and girls to have sex with them.

The rules were revealed in a fatwa that was part of a trove of documents captured by U.S. Special Operations Forces during a raid targeting a top Islamic State official in Syria in May and were first published Tuesday by Reuters.

The fatwa was apparently created to curb what Islamic State leaders considered violations in the treatment of captured women and girls.

The rules are laid out in response to a question posed at the beginning of the document: “Some of the brothers have committed violations in the matter of the treatment of the female slaves. These violations are not permitted by Sharia law, because these rules have not been dealt with in ages. Are there any warnings pertaining to this matter?”

Among the rules are bans on a father and son having sex with the same female slave, and the owner of a mother and daughter having sex with both.

Joint owners of a female captive are also instructed not to engage in intercourse with the same slave because she is viewed as “part of a joint ownership,” the document states.

“The owner of two sisters is not allowed to have intercourse with both of them, rather he may only have intercourse with just one,” the fatwa says. “The other sister is to be had by him, if he were to relinquish ownership of the first sister by selling her, giving her away or releasing her.”

The rules state that if an “owner” impregnates his female slave, he cannot abort the child.

The fatwa lists 15 rules total, with some of them going into explicit detail about what is considered appropriate sexual behavior with a female captive.

It also instructs owners of female slaves to “show compassion towards her, be kind to her, not humiliate her, and not assign her work she is unable to perform.”

A leading Islamic State expert at Princeton University, Cole Bunzel, who has reviewed many of the group’s writings, told Reuters the fatwa went beyond what has previously been published by the militants on how to treat female slaves.

“It reveals the actual concerns of [Islamic State] slave owners,” Mr. Bunzel said.

Still, he cautioned that not “everything dealt with in the fatwa is indicative of a relevant violation. It doesn’t mean father and son were necessarily sharing a girl. They’re at least being ’warned’ not to. But I bet some of these violations were being committed.”

This is not the first time such rules have been documented. In December 2014, it was revealed a similar pamphlet, titled “Question and Answers on Female Slaves and their Freedom” was distributed in Mosul, Iraq. The rules laid out, in explicit detail, when it was permissible for Islamic State militants to have sex with captured women and young girls.