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This article begins by establishing that Imam Ashafa is an authority on his religion and a recognized representative of his religion…

Mohammad Nureen Ashafa is the Imam of Ashafa Central Mosque, Tudun Wada, Kaduna; Vice President, Ashafa Mosque Foundation, as well as the Co-Executive Director of Interfaith Mediation Centre of Muslim-Christian Dialogue Forum, also in Kaduna. He spoke to some media organisations on the implications of the death sentence [fatwa] passed on octogenarian Islamic preacher, Mohammed Bello Abubakar, by the Jama’tu Nasril Islam [JNI], for marrying 86 wives contrary to Islamic injunctions.

This article includes words about women that will sound pleasing to the Western ear…

Islam took into consideration certain needs, social and emotional, sexual urge, all these are part of the things a woman needs in marriage. It is injustice if you do not provide these adequately for the woman. [...] So, how do you share 86 wives in a year? It means that you cannot meet some of the women more than once in a week. In fact, it may not even be possible because we have 52 weeks in a year. So, if you see one every week, the others have to wait till the next year to take their turns. What is the legitimacy? There is no legitimacy for that in Islam. It is an abuse on the rights and dignity of these women. It is an abuse on the sanctity of woman-hood. It is an abuse to marry 86 wives in the name of Islam. [...] Women have rights, they have dignity and honour. Islam respects the dignity of women. A woman needs emotional satisfaction. That affection is part of the rudiments of marriage. How does the man with 86 wives satisfy the sexual and emotional needs of these women?

… with all that being said a reader might accidentally gloss over the sections where Imam Ashafa condones having women as sexual slaves and stock animals…

There is room for concubine in Islam. And that is why you see some royal fathers have four wives and they have concubines. The history of concubine has to do with slavery, if you had women who are in your possession as slaves. This is because in those days, people bought slaves. It may no longer be fashionable in modern times but the law is still there. If you have women as slaves, they can have children for you but you have to protect them, and give them the same honour you give your wives, though they are not legitimate wives. [...] He can do that in the name of culture because there is no restriction on the number of women a man can marry, in most of the traditions.

… thus one is left to wonder what Imam Ashafa is talking about, what is it that Islam is really saying about women and slavery. Perhaps we should turn to the Holy Quran for answers. Answers like “All married women (are forbidden unto you) save those (captives) whom your right hands possess” or you don’t have to be modest around your wives or your slave girls “that your right hand possess.” If we go by what the Holy Quran says, if we go by what today’s representatives of Islam say, then using women for sexual slavery and breeding stock is an acceptable practice in the 21st Century just as it was centuries ago. And then there’s the question of putting someone to death because hundreds of years ago a mass murderer and a bandit said that an invisible monster that lives in the sky told us we had to.

What do you say? – Trevor Blake