Imagine being raped. 

Imagine screaming, crying, begging for help

But no one is there.

And because no one saw it happen, you are the one who gets punished.

This is not fiction. This is reality under Islamic Sharia for slave women.

Slave women in Islamic societies were among the most vulnerable, constantly at risk of sexual exploitation and violence. And tragically, Islamic law and tradition offered them no real protection.

Why were they in such danger?

Because:

• Islam didn't allow them to wear the Hijab and even kept their breasts naked in public (link). 

• Muslim men used to molest slave women, and Allah/Muhammad didn't punish or even rebuke those men (link).

• A Muslim owner forced his slave women into prostitution but again Allah/Muhammad didn't punish him (link). 

• Like free Muslim women, the witness of slave women is also not accepted in Islamic courts about their rape (link). 

Yes, in early Islamic history, when the Companions harassed slave girls in Medina, there was no divine punishment for the perpetrators. Instead, the Quran instructed free women to cover themselves with a jilbab. it was not in order to protect all women, but so they could be recognized as “free” and not be harassed.

As for slave girls? They were forbidden from wearing the hijab. And even their chests were exposed publicly. And If they dared to cover themselves, Caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab would lash them, saying, “Don’t try to be equal to free women.”

Now imagine: These same slave girls, if raped, were required to produce four male witnesses to prove it. Otherwise, they were punished with 80 lashes for making a false accusation.

Poor slave women even punished if they were pregnant from the assault.

This was not protection. This was not justice. This was systematic silence and suffering, sanctioned by religion.

For 1400 years, not a SINGLE free man has been punished for raping a slave girl

Why?

Because the impossible four-witness rule was never fulfilled.

This isn’t justice, this is brutality.

Even Islam’s top scholars admit it. 

The Saudi Salafi fatwa site Islam Q&A quotes Ibn Taymiyyah (link):

“From the Prophet’s time to mine (i.e. of Ibn Tamiyyah's time), no case of zina has ever been proven through witnesses. Not one.”

Then the same Saudi Salafi Mufti Shaykh Ibn ‘Uthaymeen further states (link):

"We do not know of any case that was proven by testimony up till our own times (i.e. up till the present day). 

Then this same Saudi Salafi fatwa website Islam Q&A writes (link):

Rape is essentially zina (fornication or adultery) and is proven in the same way as zina is proven, which is with four witnesses. The punishment is one hundred lashes if the man was a virgin and stoning if he was previously married. 

Just imagine: Not one rape conviction ... Not in 1400 years. Because four men had to see it happen with their own eyes.

Let your humanity speak. It’s screaming that this is a clear injustice and cruelty. This is not divine. Believe in that voice, because that voice of your humanity will never mislead you.

Islamic Apologist: But Rape case does not require 4 eyewitnesses in Islam

Islamic apologists claim that:

• Islamic Sharia require 4 eyewitnesses only in case of adultery
• But not in the case of rape of a woman, Islamic Sharia does not demand any 4 male eyewitnesses. 

And as proof, they present the following tradition:

Jami` at-Tirmidhi 1454:
Narrated 'Alqamah bin Wa'il Al-Kindi: From his father: "A women went out during the time of the Prophet (ﷺ) to go to Salat, but she was caught by a man and he had relations with her, so she screamed and he left. Then a man came across her and she said: 'That man has done this and that to me', then she came across a group of Emigrants (Muhajirin) and she said: 'That man did this and that to me.' They went to get the man she thought had relations with her, and they brought him to her. She said: 'Yes, that's him.' So they brought him to the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ), and when he ordered that he be stoned, the man who had relations with her, said: 'O Messenger of Allah, I am the one who had relations with her.' So he said to her: 'Go, for Allah has forgiven you.' Then he said some nice words to the man (who was brought). And he said to the man who had relations with her: 'Stone him.' Then he said: 'He has repented a repentance that, if the inhabitants of Al-Madinah had repented with, it would have been accepted from them.'"

Our Response:

Dear Reader, here are the undeniable facts:

This is just a single narration, and it is the only so-called proof that Islamic apologists rely on.

Even more importantly, this narration is classified as weak by Islamic scholars themselves.

For over fourteen centuries, the leading Islamic scholars—including all four major Sunni Imams—rejected this narration. They ruled firmly that rape cases must meet the same strict condition as adultery: the testimony of four male eyewitnesses.

This has been the standard Islamic ruling for the past 1400 years.

It is only in the modern era, under growing pressure and scrutiny, that Islamic apologists have suddenly begun claiming a new position—that four eyewitnesses are no longer required in rape cases.

But this is not a genuine reform. It is a desperate attempt to cover up centuries of injustice that Islamic law inflicted on victims of sexual violence.

Under the following Hadith, Shams al-Haq Azimi, the commentator of Sunan Tirmidhi, writes (link):

( فلما أمر به ) : أي بإقامة الحد عليه . زاد في رواية الترمذي ليرجم ، ولا يخفى أنه بظاهره مشكل إذ لا يستقيم الأمر بالرجم من غير إقرار ولا بينة ، وقول المرأة لا يصلح بينة بل هي التي تستحق أن تحد حد القذف ۔۔۔ وقال سمعت محمدا يعني البخاري يقول عبد الجبار بن وائل بن حجر لم يسمع من أبيه ولا أدركه يقال إنه ولد بعد موت أبيه بأشهر .

"(When the Prophet) ordered it": meaning, to establish the punishment (i.e., stoning). It is also mentioned in another narration of Tirmidhi that he (the Prophet) ordered the punishment of stoning. However, it is evident that carrying out the punishment of stoning solely based on the testimony of an affected woman without any solid evidence is problematic. The testimony of a woman is not considered strong evidence; rather, she is liable to receive the punishment of slander (false accusation of adultery) until it is proven otherwise. It is reported that Muhammad (peace be upon him) said, "Abdul-Jabbar ibn Wail ibn Hajar did not hear from his father, nor did he meet him, as it is said that he was born several months after his father's death (i.e. this is an "authentic", but a "weak" Hadith)."

Moreover, if we have to accept tis tradition, then the following additional question will arise:

• How could Prophet Muhammad order the stoning of an accused person based solely on the statement of an affected woman without verifying it with concrete evidence?
• This would mean that in Islamic law, any woman could falsely accuse a man, and he would be put to death based solely on her testimony.
• Also, if the woman made a mistaken accusation due to darkness or uncertainty, why did Prophet Muhammad not give the benefit of the doubt to the innocent accused man? 

Thus, if today's Islamic apologists present this narration as evidence, they should, by the same logic, establish a law that punishes a man based solely on a woman's testimony. But as we can observe, present-day Islamists do not enact such a law, and they do not apply the punishment of stoning based on a woman's testimony. This illustrates their double standards.

Moreover, another important question is:

• If Allah truly exists and possesses knowledge of the "Unseen" about the future, and He knew that for the next 14 centuries, the entire community would continue to make this mistake,
• and due to this mistake, hundreds of thousands of women and slaves who suffered rape would never receive justice because there would be no presence of four eyewitnesses,
• then why didn't Allah reveal a clear verse in the Quran specifying the number of witnesses in rape cases? And why didn't He make it simple and straightforward whether a woman's testimony is acceptable in cases of rape or not?

The Quran is a voluminous book, but Allah filled it with boasting about His grandness and powers, some old stories, and tales.

Why didn't Allah have the capability to straightforwardly present the commandments of Sharia in a scholarly manner so that countless innocent women wouldn't fall victim to injustice in the cases of rape?

The only logical conclusion drawn from all this is that there is no all-Knowing, all-Wise, 100% Perfect, and Flawless Allah above the heavens. Instead, it was Muhammad himself who was formulating the Sharia. And since Muhammad was just a human and not 100% perfect, and he didn't possess knowledge of the future "Unseen," we are left with a Sharia that is full of imperfections and human errors.