Slavery and non-consensual sex is acceptable under Islamic teachings, an Islamic studies professor of a US university told his students.

Jonathan Brown, a tenured Georgetown professor and holder of the Al-Waleed bin Talal Chair in Islamic Civilisation at Georgetown University, while lecturing at International Institute of Islamic Thought on ‘Islam and the Problem of Slavery’ paid tributes to slavery in the Muslim regions, while demonising it in the western countries.

Saying slaves in the Muslim world led a “pretty good life”, Brown termed slavery in the non-Muslim societies as “brutal”.

Brown stated that slaves were “protected by Sharia,” ignoring atrocities committed by slave-owners, where girls and women were forced into the sex trade and their male counterparts were often castrated.

“In general you don’t find the brutality that you see in American slavery,” said Brown, who described the historically common practice as “investments” and “walking venture properties” for slave-owners.

He rapped the use of prison labor in the United States in a lecture that was supposed to revolve around slavery in Islam, and besides shutting his eyes to the abuse of foreign labourers in the Gulf or the ghastly treatment of prisoners in the Middle East.

He also proclaimed that “consent isn’t necessary for lawful sex,” and said consent is a Western concept that was born after the emergence of women’s suffrage and female body autonomy.

Brown defended slavery, saying, “It’s not immoral for one human to own another human” by comparing it to marriage—a quid pro quo arrangement in which both slave and master benefited from the arrangement.

“I don’t think it’s morally evil to own somebody because we own lots of people all around us and we’re owned by people,” said Brown.

Jonathan Brown

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