Islam and Slavery — Page 68
{. FEMALE PRISONERS OF WAR. WITH regard to those women also who take an active part in the war against Muslims and are taken captives on the battle-field, Islam sanctions a similar exceptional arrangement according to which the Muslims are permitted to enter into conjugal relations with those of the women prisoners whose guardians do not soon arrive to secure their freedom by means of ransom or who do not themselves make demand for emancipation under the system of. Mukatabat which has already been explained. The object of this exceptional arrangement is that the morals of the women prisoners as well as of those who capture them may not be spoiled, and that society may be protected from vice and corruption. From history it appears that great wars are generally followed by the prevalence of immorality, for, on the one hand, such wars result in the preponderance of women over men, and on the other, men lose much of their power of self-control owing to the heavy strain which the hardships of war exert on their nerves. Therefore, during and after a war there is very often a tendency towards laxity of morals, and as Islam puts the question of the preservation of individual and national morality above all other considerations, therefore, it was necessary that it should have ordained special precautionary measures as a safeguard against such corruption. Hence, on the one hand, an exceptional system of plural marriages was permitted and on the other, Muslims were allowed to have conjugal relations =