Islamic law provided a shocking loophole: if a man lusted after another person’s slave girl and the owner refused to sell or swap her, he could simply kidnap her, rape her, and then claim she had died. The only consequence was paying the market price of the “dead” slave girl to the owner. Once the payment was made, the kidnapper legally kept the girl he had violated.

Sahih Bukhari, The Book of Tricks (Volume 9, Page 72): It is narrated that if someone kidnaps a slave girl and then claims she is dead, he is obliged by law to pay her price. But if her owner later finds her alive, she still belongs to her original master, and the money must be returned — it is not considered a valid sale price.

Some people said: “The slave girl now belongs to the kidnapper because the previous owner has already taken the price.”

Bukhari then explains the real trick behind this ruling: “In this there is a trick for whoever desires the slave girl of another man who refuses to sell her. So he kidnaps her, tells her master that she is dead, and when the master takes the price, the kidnapper legally gets to keep the slave girl of somebody else.”

The Prophet ﷺ warned: “Your properties are sacred to each other,” and “For every treacherous betrayer there will be a flag on the Day of Resurrection.”

Why This Trick Worked So Easily in an Islamic State:

• There was no Qisas (retaliatory physical punishment) for harming or killing someone else’s slave — only half the blood money had to be paid, because slaves were considered property, not full humans.
• Molestation and sexual exploitation of slave girls was widespread and openly acknowledged in Islamic society.
• If the owner refused to swap slave girls, men could still satisfy their lust through kidnapping and rape.
• The rapist faced no physical punishment (no lashes, no imprisonment). He simply paid the market value of the slave girl as “compensation” for damaging another man’s property.

This was not a rare abuse — it was a known legal maneuver recorded in the most authentic hadith collection.

How Muhammad Himself Laid the Foundation for This Evil:

1. He never physically punished the Sahaba for molesting slave women. Instead, he only instructed free Muslim women to wear the hijab so men could distinguish them from slave girls (who remained exposed to such abuse).
2. He removed the right of slaves to testify in court, making it almost impossible for a slave girl to accuse her abuser or kidnapper.
3. He repeatedly declared slaves as mere “property” rather than full human beings with equal rights.

Because of these foundational rulings, slave girls had virtually no protection against sexual violence throughout 1,300 years of Islamic history. Owners and other men could kidnap, rape, and exploit them with almost zero fear of real punishment.

The system was designed to protect the sexual desires and property rights of free Muslim men far more than the dignity and safety of enslaved women.