Sibya: A New Word of the Day

Vincent J. Curtis

3 July 2015

“Sibya” is an Arabic word that refers to a female slave captured at war.  The reason this word has become current in English is that ISIS is granting Sibya to winners of a Koran memorization contest it is holding during Ramadan.

According to Christian Today and the Middle East Media Research Institute, the contest is meant to show that ISIS members of the ones who most closely follow “true” Islam, that the ISIS is a legitimate state, that ISIS fighters study the Koran, and that the group is not moved by the denouncement of the international community.

“By showcasing its slavery, ISIS is boasting that it practices Islam in its most literal interpretation, doesn’t capitulate to public opinion and rejects modern interpretations,” said Ryan Mauro, a national security analysis for Clarion Project [quotes taken from the Christian Today article]  “It is also showing it has a functional Islamic educational system and it therefore a real caliphate.”

Some of these girls and women were Yazidis who were capture in Iraq; others were Christians.

The value of the prize varies with the age of the girl or woman.  In November, 2014, women between the ages of 40 and 50 sold for $40, girls between 10 and 20 years sold for $129, and children under ten were auctioned for higher prices, according to the UK-based monitoring group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.  In 2014, the Group reported that 300 Yazidi girls and women captured in Iraq were forced to convert to Islam and sold To ISIS jihadists in Syria for $1000.

These facts have been known for weeks and months but, so far, no major Islamic group in the western world, or any Islamic government, has condemned the practice of Sibya by ISIS.  The practice of giving away a Sibya as a reward for Islamic piety during Ramadan has also failed to attract condemnation for heresy by any major Islamic organization or state.  This failure to condemn is noteworthy because it means that these major Islamic organizations and states understand and agree with ISIS that the practice of Sibya is indeed legitimate under the rules of Islam.

Consequently, the practice of Sibya is legitimate Islam and is restrained only by the conscience of the individual potential buyer, and the laws of the state in which the Muslim lives.

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