Aside from the lurid details about Sheikh Mashoor bin Hasan Al-Salman’s bordello Paradise and his view of marriage as a master/slave relationship, he also seems to take slavery for granted. He never questions the idea that a woman might own a slave. Slavery is taken for granted in the Qur’an and Islamic law, and even though it has been abolished in Muslim countries, it persists in the shadows: many people in those countries do not accept the idea that Islamic law could be superseded by the law of the land.

Sheikh Mashoor bin Hasan Al-Salman, who is a Palestinian-Jordanian cleric, was asked during a fatwa show he posted on the Internet recently whether a woman can have sex with her slave. He answered in the negative, adding that a woman may marry her slave, but then he becomes a free man and her master.

“Is a woman allowed to have sex with her slave? Dear God…A woman cannot have sex with her slave,” the sheikh responded. “A woman, by nature…Even in the Hereafter, it is not in her nature to be had by one man after the other. When men take turns with a woman, it is humiliating and degrading for her. A man gets 70 virgins (in Paradise), but what does a woman get? One young man.”

Al-Salman continued: “The Prophet Muhammad said: ‘The dwellers of Paradise have clothing that never wears out, youth that never wanes, and a penis that never bends.’ So, she can have sex with this strong man, but she cannot have multiple men taking turns with her. So, a woman is not allowed to have sex with her slave, but she can marry him. If she has no husband and wants to marry her slave, she can. As soon as they are married, he becomes a free man and her master.”