Sex without consent – How is it looked at through the lens of scriptures

So much so that there is not a specific word for “rape” in the language. The word used for a sex crime is zinaa, defined as “unlawful sexual intercourse” – which includes only two things: (i) fornication (pre-marital sex); and (ii) adultery (extra-marital sex).

Consent is not a factor, as the is book written from the point of view of men. The concept of consent is much more important to women, for obvious reasons – and sex crimes which violate consent, like rape, are simply not acknowledged.

The phrase zinaa bil jabr, which is used by some Islamic scholars (mainly South Asian ones) to refer to rape, does not appear in the scriptures.

Sex is classified into only two categories:
(i) Lawful sex (with wives and slave-girls); and (ii) Unlawful sex (fornication or adultery).

That is the only distinction, and those are the only classifications specified in the sacred text.

The zinaa word causes a lot of confusion. The Quran requires four male witnesses (verses 4:15 and 24:4) to prove that zinaa occurred. This means that fornication and adultery are hard to prove, which would actually protect the perpetrators from punishment. But modern Islamic societies take the word zinaa and apply it to rape, placing the responsibility of providing four male witnesses on the rape victim. If she is unable to provide four witnesses, she is subject to either a hundred lashes (punishment for zinaa in the Quran) or death by stoning (punishment for zinaa in the hadith).

We see this in the form of the Hudood ordinance in Pakistan or the rules of the Higher Judicial Council in Saudi Arabia, and it results in victims being blamed for their own rapes: if they can’t produce four male witnesses, they automatically become guilty of making a false accusation, or are asked to marry their attackers.  Apparently, if the rapist agrees to marry the survivor, he is no longer held a criminal in the eyes of the Sharia law.  In fact, there are many instances where the society has even urged the victim to take this offer to ‘remain honourable’.

There are people who say the scriptures forbids rape – which is not true. There are others who say it allows it – which is also not true. The fact is rape is merely not mentioned, because sex with consent isn’t even considered an entity.

To many, verses like 4:24, allowing men to have sex with slaves/captives of war even if they’re married, can actually be seen as encouraging rape. Sex with slaves and captives of war will almost always be rape, because a slave’s “consent” isn’t really consent.

But even that can’t be said definitively – because the very concept of consent from the female simply doesn’t exist in the scriptures.

Consent is an issue that came from a female point of view, and the religious text was not written by females. The male point of view was more concerned with establishing lineage and paternity at a time when DNA tests didn’t exist. Men wanted to ensure that their children were indeed theirs. Consent doesn’t interfere with that, but fornication and adultery can. This is also why polygamy is allowed but polyandry isn’t.

So feel free to ask Islamic scholars or experts about rape in the scriptures. Ask them to give you verses. They will give you verses talking about treating women nicely, or punishments for general crimes like spreading corruption (5:33 is an oft-cited one), or verses dealing with adultery and/or fornication. They will never be able to provide you with a single verse that even acknowledges the concept of sex without consent.

The above is inspired by a talk from Ali A Rizvi, an ex Muslim Atheist.