Quote:Isn't that what you argued Abu?
I did? I don't think so. Islam is clearly against homosexuality. But please let us not go here again, you've really done it to death. You know Islam prohibits homosexuality, and the claims that homosexuality was allowed in Islamic society was just orientalist propaganda, meant to be consumed by an anti-homosexual Europe (in the past), to justify wars and crusades.
Quote:If you don't want to ask, why did you ask?
It was a rhetorical question. I know quite well that Biblical prophets did keep concubines and that it was considered quite acceptable in their religion.
Quote:So they can only take sex slaves as war booty in times of war, but not in times of peace? I must have forgotten going over this one
Sex slaves is not the correct terminology and really doesn't befit the situation that existed. Yes in times of peace it's forbidden to take slaves, and as mentioned in the last days of the Caliphate, it was even forbidden at all to take slaves. It is a practise that existed in the past, but need not exist in the future, and Islamically, it's preferred for it not to exist, hence the great rewards for freeing slaves. Islam came as a mercy to mankind, to free them from their bonds to other men, not enslave them. The discussion of this topic here really does not do the Islamic history any justice whatsoever. You must look at it in it's correct perspective, Islam was a leading force in the decline of slavery throughout most of it's history. Those cases where it wasn't, like the Barbary slave trade for instance, where special cases that were not really sanctioned by Islam. The Barbary states grew out of the Moors who had escaped the inquisition and reconquista of al-Andalus and re-settled in North Africa, and they were seeking revenge for their mistreatment by the Catholics, and so they raided the coasts of the new Catholic Iberia, pillaging what they could and taking them as slaves. It wasn't right... but after what they'd been through, one can certainly see their justifications as having some validity.
Quote:Can you list the examples for us?
It's what we are discussing now. Concubinage. Or did you mean something other than that?
Quote:Haven't we been over this before? The fact that sharia law is not implimented does not mean that questions about what sharia law are moot.
It is, because it doesn't exist, and hasn't for a long time. Yes as Muslims we should be living under it, but we're not. I most likely won't in my lifetime, so what is the benefit in discussing what it hypothetically would and wouldn't allow? Concubinage is not a requirement of Islam, and therefore speculating that it might or might not be including as a means of dealing with the welfare issues that could arise out of a hypothetical future conflict is just ludicrous. Trends towards the end of the Ottoman Caliphate tend to indicate that it would probably not exist, but can't guarantee that... can you guarantee me democracies or Jewish or christian states would never re-implement it? You can't, and arguing over whether they might is just ridiculous.
But like with everything else, when discussing Islam, anything goes.. True?
Quote:Or do you suggest people not bother themselves with finding out what it is until they find themselves living under it?
Exactly, ignorance is bliss, so remain in a blissful state for now. Nothing like a surprise is there?
Quote:So because immoral behaviour is inevitable Islam allows it in order to be 'realistic'?
Immoral is a subjective term.