It would be hard to imagine a story much more hellish than the lengthy New York Times piece that is racing around the Internet today that ran under this blunt headline: “ISIS Enshrines a Theology of Rape.”
However, it is the second piece of the double-decker headline that will be the most controversial and discussed part of this piece: “Claiming the Quran’s support, the Islamic State codifies sex slavery in conquered regions of Iraq and Syria and uses the practice as a recruiting tool.”
The bottom line: To make that statement, the Times team needs to show readers specific references in the Quran, by quoting them, and then show proof of how ISIS leaders are interpreting those passages, perhaps through a lens from earlier expressions of the faith. It would then help, of course, to show how mainstream Islamic scholars, and experts outside of Islam, read those same passages today.
Terry Mattingly asks, “I am left with what, for me, is a troubling journalistic question: Were Times editors hesitant, or afraid, to quote the actual Quran passages that are being debated in this own troubling and fascinating story?” The answer is yes, this is most probably why they failed to cite the Qur’an.
For a list of the Qur’an and hadith sources for the practice of sex slavery, see [url=http://pjmedia.com/blog/he-said-that-raping-me-is-his-prayer-to-god/]this article by Robert Spencer[/url]. His citations to the accepted Islamic authorities are always accurate.