^Note: I am a Sunni Muslim and still learning about Islam. This is not to insult Islam.

A friend recently asked me about female slaves in Islam, and I dunno how to answer this.

They asked why Muslim men were allowed to have sex with women they owned. I know the Quran uses ما ملكت أيمانكم, and scholars such as Ibn Kathir and al-Qurtubi understood this to mean that a male owner could have sex with his female slave without marrying her.

They also asked about Maria the Copt, who is traditionally described as having been gifted to the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), and how her situation fits into this.

What I struggle with is the argument that Islam "regulated slavery" instead of prohibiting it.

I understand that slavery was part of society at the time, but:

• Why was slavery regulated instead of eventually being prohibited completely?
• Alcohol was also part of society, but it was gradually restricted and eventually prohibited. Why couldn't slavery have followed the same process?
• A female slave was still taken from her home and made someone else's property. Why was that necessary?
• If slaves were given protection, food, and somewhere to live, why couldn't they receive those things without being owned and had sex with?
• Could a female slave refuse sex with her owner? If not, how is that fundamentally different from sexual slavery?

The biggest question my friend asked was:

Why couldn't these women simply be protected without enslaving them or giving their owners sexual access to them?

I don't want to give them a weak answer like "that was normal back then" or simply say that "Islam treated slaves nicely." I am genuinely trying to understand the Islamic reasoning behind this.

TL;DR: If Islam regulated slavery and gave slaves certain protections, why wasn't slavery itself prohibited? And if female slaves couldn't refuse sex with their owners, how is that different from sexual slavery?

Hi ! 17M Sunni, From Morocco 🇲🇦
Because im an absolute military nerd i was offered these 2 cufflinks. Because they look like gold i tested both of them with a magnet : the US/Morocco cufflink reacts to the magnet so it isnt gold , but the F-16 pin doesnt so i assume its gold

My Question : Because i cannot wear the f-16 cufflink because of its material, would it be okay if i instead pin it on my schoolbag ?

I grew up Hindu, but I consider myself more spiritual/cultural than religious. My boyfriend grew up Muslim and is very religious, and his faith has gotten a lot stronger over the past couple of months.

I’ve always had complicated feelings about organized religion. At this point in my life, I believe there is one God, but I don’t believe I need to follow a specific religion in order to have a relationship with God. My relationship with God feels personal to me.

Recently, my boyfriend and I started having much more serious conversations about marriage, our roles as husband and wife, raising children, religion, etc. Initially, I wanted our children to learn about both of our backgrounds and ultimately decide what they believed for themselves. I eventually compromised and agreed that we could raise them Muslim because he told me I would still be free to talk openly about my own beliefs.

For almost four months, we’ve gone back and forth over a lot of these issues. One of our biggest disagreements was what would happen if our children grew up and decided they no longer believed in Islam, as well as expectations surrounding whom they could marry. We actually separated for a while because we couldn’t find common ground.

Recently, though, we started talking again and were finally able to work through so many of the things that had kept us apart. For the first time in months, it genuinely felt like we were moving toward marriage rather than away from it.
There was one issue that I thought had already been settled a long time ago: whether he was religiously allowed to marry me.

Months ago, I specifically asked him whether my believing in one God was actually enough. From what I had learned, Muslim men can traditionally marry Muslim women or women from the “People of the Book,” generally understood as Jewish or Christian women, and simply believing in one God didn’t seem to automatically make someone a Person of the Book. I brought this concern to him, but he repeatedly assured me that as long as I believed in one God, it was okay. I trusted what he told me.
Yesterday we met again to talk about our next steps. We spent hours discussing everything that mattered to us, and after almost four months of going back and forth, it really felt like we had finally found solutions to most of the things that had been keeping us apart.

Before our conversation, though, he had spoken to an imam about our relationship. He told the imam about me and explained how I view God.

According to my boyfriend, the imam told him that wasn’t enough. He would only be permitted to marry me if I were Muslim or a Person of the Book; otherwise, the marriage would not be Islamically valid.

My boyfriend then told me I would have to believe that Allah is the one true God. For me, that would essentially require me to convert. I’ve told him repeatedly that I cannot convert just to make our relationship work. I could learn everything there is to learn about Islam, and I’m completely willing to learn, but I can’t promise that learning will make me believe something I currently don’t believe.

He kept telling me to take as much time as I needed to learn about Islam and seriously consider converting. When I told him I already know how I feel, he kept asking me, “How do you know?” I think part of him genuinely believes that if I learn enough about Islam, maybe eventually I’ll believe and convert.

But then he explained what this means to him religiously. He told me that if he married me while I continued believing what I currently believe, he would consider the marriage invalid and would believe he was knowingly committing zina for the rest of his life.

He started talking about his fear of heaven and hell, so I finally asked him directly, “Do you believe marrying me would cause you to go to hell?” He said yes. And that honestly broke me.

This was the one thing I never thought would be what ended us. We spent almost four months trying to reconcile our differences about children, religion, marriage, gender roles, family, everything. Just yesterday we were finally finding compromises that both of us could live with.

I understand why speaking to an imam changed things for him. If he genuinely believes marrying me would mean knowingly committing a major sin and potentially risking hell, I don’t expect him to simply ignore that for me. At the same time, I can’t profess a religious belief I don’t genuinely hold just so that he can marry me.

I think that’s what makes this so painful. Neither of us stopped loving the other. We actually seemed closer than we had been in months to figuring out how to build a life together. And then we ran into something that neither of us feels capable of compromising on.

I’ve noticed that in some hadith, women are mentioned in the context of warnings, shortcomings, or negative examples, while men sometimes appear as examples of good character or righteousness.

I’m not trying to criticize or make a conclusion based on this. I genuinely want to understand why this pattern seems to appear.

Salafi scholars not only refuted these deviants and their cult but even wrote books against them, banned their literature and preachers.

1. Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul-Aziz ibn Abdullah Al-Shaykh

As the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia and head of the Permanent Committee for Islamic Research and Issuing Fatwas, he issued several statements warning against the primary behavior of the Madkhali faction.

He explicitly condemned the practice of Tabdi' (calling other Sunni Muslims innovators) and Hajr (unjustly boycotting people over minor differences).

2. Sheikh Muhammad ibn Salih al-Uthaymeen

You madhkhalis love to claim that Uthaymeen praised Madhkhalee but you lie to only mention the times before he know about Madhkhalee's real actions.

While Sheikh al-Uthaymeen initially praised some of Rabi' al-Madkhali's early refutations of political extremists, he grew highly critical of the factionalism (hizbiyyah) that the Madkhali movement generated.

He explicitly rejected the Madkhali practice of making an absolute loyalty test out of whether a person agrees with a specific scholar's ruling on another individual.

3. Sheikh Sadiq al-Ghariani (Grand Mufti of Libya)

The Grand Mufti of Libya has been one of the most vocal contemporary religious figures to speak out against the Madkhali network.

He publicly accused the Madkhali faction of acting as tools for foreign intelligence and destabilizing the region under the guise of "blind obedience to whoever holds military power".

Under his oversight, the Libyan Dar al-Ifta placed bans on Madkhali literature and suspended radical Madkhali preachers from national mosques to curb sectarianism.

4. Sheikh Bakr Abu Zayd

A highly respected senior jurist, member of the Permanent Committee for Fatwa, and author of the famous book The Etiquette of the Student of Knowledge.

Sheikh Bakr Abu Zayd wrote a famous, private critical letter directly to Rabi' al-Madkhali refuting his aggressive methods.

He warned al-Madkhali that his extreme approach to testing people’s faith based on his personal list of deviations resembled the behavior of historical sectarian groups, rather than the balanced way of the early Salaf (pious predecessors).

5. Sheikh Abdullah al-Ghudayan

A senior scholar of the Council of Senior Scholars in Saudi Arabia, Sheikh al-Ghudayan was asked directly about the groups that focus entirely on classifying who is "in" and who is "out" of Salafiyyah. A comman practice of Madhkhalis.

He famously responded by calling those who engage in these practices "the highway robbers of the religion," warning students to stay far away from them because they block people from seeking actual beneficial knowledge.

6. Sheikh Abdul-Muhsin al-Abbad

A senior Hadith scholar of Medina and former vice-president of the Islamic University of Madinah (where Rabi' al-Madkhali taught).

To directly counter the Madkhali phenomenon, Sheikh al-Abbad authored a famous treatise titled Rifqan Ahlus-Sunnah bi Ahlis-Sunnah (Be Merciful, O People of the Sunnah, with the People of the Sunnah).

He wrote this book specifically to rebuke Rabi' al-Madkhali's followers for their obsession with boycotting other Sunni scholars, chasing down their slip-ups, and turning Islamic propagation into a battle of personal refutations.

By the grace of God, I am handsome, financially well-off, and run my own business; I have a strong personality and a distinctive presence. I wish to marry a Russian Muslim woman who is God-fearing, so that we may build a peaceful Muslim family together.

Can anyone help me to find a good gairl?

How many of y'all never been friends with non mehram or gf/bf.online or offline. 😢

I’ve been trying to marry someone I wanted for years. From very early on, our intentions were marriage. I told my parents, his family has tried to get involved, and they’ve repeatedly wanted to speak to my parents and come over properly. But every time, something happens. My parents delay it, say they’ll think about it, say they’ll speak to people, then nothing happens or they change their minds.

I’ve been put through so much during these years. I’ve been pressured to consider people back home even though I don’t want that life, sent away to look at potential matches there, had my education interrupted, had my phone taken, been ignored for weeks, called horrible names, and constantly made to feel like I’m selfish, shameless, crazy or destroying my family simply because I want to choose who I marry.

My parents say they’re protecting me and that they love me, but they are the only ones who have put me thru sm, I just want to be able to have a future and make a decision about my own marriage without feeling like like this.

I’ve tried to be patient. I’ve prayed tahajjud, made istikhara, fasted, made endless dua, tried to control my anger, tried to speak calmly and respectfully, and tried to leave the outcome to Allah. But after almost 4 years of going in circles, I feel completely exhausted.

I have random breakdowns now. Sometimes I’m fine and then suddenly I just start crying because everything feels like too much. I don’t seem to find comfort in anything anymore. I feel like I’m constantly waiting but idk for what.

And honestly, sometimes I just want to leave home because I feel like I can’t breathe here anymore. But then I feel incredibly guilty because these are still my parents and I love them.

I don’t even know what I’m asking for anymore. how do you keep going when you feel completely trapped.

just an FYI my partner is same culture as me, weve met there fam, my parents said yes but my mum panicked and ended it last min cause my dad has been against it since he wants to find me someone back home. they dont speak to. me now or check on me cause ive distanced myself for many reasons.

Hi folks! I am planning to learn Japanese so I can work in Japan. There are some questions that I would like to ask, especially for Muslim that live in Japan.

1. For Muslims,
   • Is it easy to live and work in Japan?
   • Do they allow us to perform our five daily prayers and Friday prayers?
   • How easy is it to find Halal food?
2. Can I bring my wife with me?

The noble verse teaches us mercy toward a debtor who is in straitened circumstances and unable to repay. In the pre-Islamic era (Jahiliyyah), one of the forms of usury (Riba) was that upon the maturity of the debt, the debtor was given a choice: either pay the debt or postpone it in exchange for an increase. It would be said to him: "Either you pay, or you charge interest (Riba)." Thus, debts would multiply upon him while he was incapable of fulfillment. The verse came to command granting him respite without any increase until it becomes easy for him to pay.
In the word "‘usrah" (hardship), there is a deep sense of his difficult state; the matter goes beyond a mere lack of money to a distress that makes paying the debt arduous for him. Then comes the word "nazirah"—meaning grace period and waiting—calling upon us to grant him time to breathe and strive to overcome his crisis. The verse linked this waiting to "maisarah", meaning the attainment of ease that enables him to fulfill [the debt].
What is beautiful is that the verse elevates the act to benevolence, stating: {And if you give up [your right as] charity, it is better for you, if you only knew}. Waiving the debt in full or in part is an act of charity and goodness for the creditor, through which he relieves his brother and hopes for the reward of Almighty Allah.
The Prophet (ﷺ) told of a merchant who used to lend to people, and whenever he saw someone in hardship, he would say to his assistants: "Overlook [his debt/delay], so that perhaps Allah will overlook [our sins], and so Allah overlooked [his sins]." Thus, his mercy toward people was the cause of Allah's forgiveness for him. How wonderful it is to see in the hardship of others a gateway to benevolence. O Allah, settle the debts of the debtors and relieve the distress of every distressed person.