Marriage and Slavery in Early Islam

Abstract

Kecia Ali has already acquired a reputation as one of the most important English-language scholars of Islam and gender of her generation. Her latest book will do nothing to detract from that reputation, and may well solidify her asthe leading scholar of her generation of Islam and gender in the United States.While the title suggests that its contents exhibit a parallel concernwith slavery and marriage, the work is really devoted to showing how theformally separate legal institutions of marriage and slave holding shapedand were shaped by each institution ‒ with their respective doctrines attimes converging, and while at other times, the doctrines diverged. Thebook consists of an introduction, five substantial chapters, and a conclusion.The chapters cover the formation of a marriage and its similarities toand distinctions from concubinage, the only other legal relationship thatmade sexual relations licit. The second chapter treats the interdependencyof claims within marriage, while pointing out the gendered nature of theclaims particular to the husband and the wife. The third chapter focuses onthe wife’s legal claims to her husband’s companionship, particularly in thecontext of a polygynous marriage. The fourth chapter deals with the variousmodes of dissolving a marriage in Islamic law and compares them witha master’s power to manumit his slave. The fifth chapter compares andcontrasts marriage and slavery as particular modes of ownership (milk) ...