VIDEO : Progressive Georgetown Professor Offers Defense of Slavery and Rape Under Islam

A professor of Islamic Studies at Georgetown University is feeling the heat of backlash a talk he gave where he offered an Islam-based defense of slavery, concubinage and rape.

From Daily Caller:

Jonathan AC Brown, who serves as director of the Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown, gave his admittedly controversial speech on Tuesday at the International Institute of Islamic Thought, a Virginia-based group that has foundational ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.

The websites Heat Street and The Daily Banter covered the talk, which was entitled “Islam and the Problem of Slavery.”

In the speech, and a subsequent question-and-answer session, Brown, a white convert to Islam, essentially downplayed the harshness of slavery in Islam. He also stated that American and Western society is “obsessed with the idea of autonomy and consent.”

And at one point in the talk, Brown appeared to suggest that modern Muslims have little room to question the morality of slavery since Muhammad was a slave owner.

“The Prophet of God had slaves. He had slaves. There’s no denying that,” he told a man during the Q&A session. “Was he — are you more morally mature than the Prophet of God? No you’re not. I’ll answer your question for you.”

He also said, according to a transcription provided by The Daily Banter:

Slavery cannot just be treated as a moral evil in and of itself because slavery doesn’t mean anything. The moral evil is extreme forms of deprivation of rights and extreme forms of control and extreme forms of exploitation. 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.

“In general, you don’t find the brutality that you see in American slavery. As far as I can tell, generally it is simply not very common. Slaves in Islamic civilization were mostly investments,” he added.

Brown’s thesis on a moral relativism for slavery pales in comparison to his apparent defense of concubinage, which is condoned in the Quran.

He conjured up a scenario in which a woman taken captive during a raid and sold as a slave to a wealthy man is just as free in an existential sense as a woman who was born into and married into poverty. He said:

What’s the difference between someone who is captured in a raid in the steppes of Central Asia brought to Istanbul’s slave market, sold to an owner, who, by the way, might treat her badly, might treat her incredibly well. She’s going to bear him children. She’s going to be a free woman. She’s going to be the mother of his children. If he’s high status, she’s going to be high status. If he dies she might be a very desirable wife. That person’s situation? What’s the difference between that and some woman who’s a poor baker’s daughter who gets married to some baker’s son without any choice because no one expects her to have any choice? And that baker’s son might treat her well. He might treat her horribly.

“The difference between these two people is not that big. We see it as enormous because we’re obsessed with the idea of autonomy and consent, would be my first response,” Brown added.

He also questioned what it meant to give “consent” to sex and to be autonomous, all in an attempt to defend Islam.

Watch the video:

Amy Moreno is a Published Author, Pug Lover & Game of Thrones Nerd. You can follow her on Twitter here and Facebook here.