Islamic State: 'Legitimating' sex slavery as part of "their own [lying] narrative of what Islam should be "?

Yazidi Slaves in Islamic State
Daily Mail

According to Memri (May 22, 2015) - which usually translates Islamist articles into English and summarizes them for anyone interested - issue 9 Of Islamic State's English-language magazine Dabiq offers an article justifying taking women as slaves: "Slave-Girls or Prostitutes," by Umm Sumayyah Al-Muhajirah.

Umm Sumayyah says that the Islamic State (IS) is "reviving a prophetic Sunnah," or tradition about Muhammad, in taking sex slaves, and she promises that "the slave markets will be established against the will of the politically 'correct'."

The Daily Mail also reports on Umm Sumayyah's defense of sex slaves but cites a critic, Richard Brennan, a political scientist at the counter-terrorism think-tank RAND, who says:

They [IS] have done an extremely good job of tainting what it is to be a Muslim. They've taken very specific verses of the Koran and used [these] . . . to create their own narrative of what Islam should be . . . . [but these verses used in this way] are lies . . . because there is no way to square these things - forcing people to be slaves and raping them - with the Koran. It's not Islamic, so they have to lie about that to make [those verses] . . . fit the narrative.

Is Brennan right? He acknowledges that the IS has cited verses from the Qur'an. He may be thinking of such verses as 23:6, which limits Muslim men from sex, "except from their spouses or their slave women, for then they are not blameworthy." Or 70:29-30, which warns believers to "guard their private parts except from their spouses and their slave women, for then they are not blameworthy."

We also read in the Hadith of Muslims having sex with captured women:

Sahih Muslim 3371:

Abu Sirma said to Abu Sa'id al Khadri (Allah he pleased with him): O Abu Sa'id, did you hear Allah's Messenger (May peace be upon him) mentioning al-'azl [coitus interruptus]? He said: Yes, and added: We went out with Allah's Messenger (May peace be upon him) on the expedition to the Bi'l-Mustaliq and took captive some excellent Arab women; and we desired them, for we were suffering from the absence of our wives, (but at the same time) we also desired ransom for them. So we decided to have sexual intercourse with them but by observing 'azl (Withdrawing the male sexual organ before emission of semen to avoid conception). But we said: We are doing an act whereas Allah's Messenger is amongst us; why not ask him? So we asked Allah's Messenger (May peace be upon him), and he said: It does not matter if you do not do it [i.e., coitus interruptus], for every soul that is to be born up to the Day of Resurrection will be born.

Similar reports are found in Sahih al-Bukhari 4138 and Sahih Muslim 3384. I could track down more sources if I tried, but I don't have time to spare.

At a minimum, though, one has to admit that Muslims of Muhammad's time took women captured in battle and used them for sex with Muhammad's tacit consent, if we can believe the hadith. At any rate, this report doesn't need much twisting to "fit the narrative."

Whether later rulings of sharia placed restrictions on the practice of taking sex slaves, I don't know.