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link to dailycaller.com]
A Georgetown University Islamic studies professor has come under fire for a talk he gave earlier this week in which he offered an Islam-based defense of slavery, concubinage and non-consensual sex.
Jonathan AC Brown, who serves as director of the Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown, gave his admittedly controversial speech on Tuesday at the International Institute of Islamic Thought, a Virginia-based group that has foundational ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.
The websites Heat Street and The Daily Banter covered the talk, which was entitled “Islam and the Problem of Slavery.”
In the speech, and a subsequent question-and-answer session, Brown, a white convert to Islam, essentially downplayed the harshness of slavery in Islam. He also stated that American and Western society is “obsessed with the idea of autonomy and consent.”
And at one point in the talk, Brown appeared to suggest that modern Muslims have little room to question the morality of slavery since Muhammad was a slave owner.
“The Prophet of God had slaves. He had slaves. There’s no denying that,” he told a man during the Q&A session. “Was he — are you more morally mature than the Prophet of God? No you’re not. I’ll answer your question for you.”
He also said, according to a transcription provided by The Daily Banter:
Slavery cannot just be treated as a moral evil in and of itself because slavery doesn’t mean anything. The moral evil is extreme forms of deprivation of rights and extreme forms of control and extreme forms of exploitation. I don’t think it’s morally evil to own somebody because we own lots of people all around us, and we’re owned by people.