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Showing Original Post only (View all)Islamic State seeks to justify enslaving Yazidi women and girls in Iraq [View all]
Source: Reuters
ARBIL Iraq (Reuters) - The Islamic State group said it enslaved families from the minority Yazidi sect after overrunning their villages in northwestern Iraq, in what it praised as the revival of an ancient custom of using women and children as spoils of war.
In an article in its English-language online magazine Dabiq, the group provides what it says is religious justification for the enslavement of defeated "idolators".
The ancient custom of enslavement had fallen out of use because of deviation from true Islam, but was revived when fighters overran Yazidi villages in Iraq's Sinjar region.
"After capture, the Yazidi women and children were then divided according to the Shariah amongst the fighters of the Islamic State who participated in the Sinjar operations, after one fifth of the slaves were transferred to the Islamic State's authority to be divided as khums," it said. Khums is a traditional tax on the spoils of war.
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The Dabiq article said fighters were reviving a practice of the companions of the Prophet Mohammad by enslaving enemies. Enslaving women and forcing them to become wives reduces sin by protecting men from being tempted into adultery, it said.
"One should remember that enslaving the families of the (non-believers) and taking their women as concubines is a firmly established aspect of the Shariah, that if one were to deny or mock, he would be denying or mocking the verses of the Quran and the narrations of the Prophet," the article said.
Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/islamic-state-seeks-justify-enslaving-yazidi-women-girls-150713031.html
FYI. Not an endorsement of US airstrikes.