those who transgress Allah’s limits, helps them do so, and makes this a religious practice—especially when such veneration is directed toward something akin to sexual indecency? For when something of this kind is permissible, it should be concealed or kept private. Those involved in it must not be appointed to positions of authority or given any share in governance, owing to their deficiency in intellect and religion. What, then, of those of a similar kind whom Allah and His Messenger have cursed? Whoever venerates singing slave women and grants them leadership and authority because of the singing and other things he enjoys from them incurs greater wrath and curse from Allah than someone who appoints a free woman to authority and makes her a ruler. The Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said: “A people who entrust their affairs to a woman will not prosper.”

Thus, whoever venerates effeminate men and grants them leadership and authority on account of something forbidden is more deserving of Allah’s curse and wrath than those people. For the singing of slave women and taking pleasure in them belong to the category of what is permissible. And slave women, along with other