"If the legislator (pbuh.!) had prescribed marriage as necessary for the lawfulness of coition with slave women, the latter themselves would have faced great difficulties. It is stated in the glorious Quran that the Most High Allah intends facility for you and does not wish to put you to hardship and trouble: ‘Allah desireth for you ease; He desireth not hardship for you’ (II: 185). May it be remembered that the prescription in the religious law of a slave woman’s being lawful for her master is not with a bad intent and purpose; on the contrary, it is due to wishing well for the slave woman and for social and cultural good.... Now the question why an owned slave-woman is lawful without marriage, why there is no condition of ‘affirming and consent’ and marriage in her case. The answer, firstly, is that it is not required at all.... And there is the reason, believe it or not, of the moral needs of the slave woman! If the master were not allowed to bed slave women without marrying them, the ulema explain, the slave women would be at a great disadvantage. Being slaves the women will have difficulty in finding husbands; not having husbands they will commit lechery and debauchery. Hence the rule to help them—that their master can bed them without marrying them! As the ulema put it: There were in it other difficulties as well on account of which the condition of marriage was unwise; for instance, the slave-girl is not equal in status to a free woman and as such it would be difficult for her to have a husband which could result in lechery, called ‘an abomination’ and ‘debauchery’ by Allah’s Book, repugnant to God and the worst of habits. Hence the Shariah proposed this form which, though, as it is, is not like marriage but, by reason of its result, creates in it the virtue of marriage, because after the slave-girl’s bearing a child the owner’s ownership becomes defective, that is, it is then not permissible to sell her. She then becomes the mother of her master’s children, a mistress of the house and as good as the owner’s wife; she will become free after her master’s death; she cannot be given to the heirs nor can she be sold."