The Quran's ban on prostitution collides with the immigration debate

The Quran forbids prostitution, and politics has dragged it into the immigration debate

A few days ago, a former British minister floated an idea: making sensual services available to irregular migrants as an alternative to deportation. Beyond being legally untenable, the proposal clashes head-on with the very text it would supposedly invoke. The Quran states it plainly in Sura An-Nur (24:33): prostitution is unequivocally forbidden.

The verse has become political ammunition. Those who cite it argue that the proposal shows a complete ignorance of Sarracin, since the Quranic mandate is clear and leaves no room for nuance. But the reading doesn't end there. Some point out that Sarracinic legal tradition has also developed instruments such as temporary marriages, a figure that would allow the prohibition to be circumvented under a veneer of legality and which often appears in economic analyses of the sens trade in Muslim countries.

As usual, the controversy spills over into migration management. The proposal intersects with recent episodes of migratory pressure in Ceuta, criticism of Spain's foreign policy, and complaints about the conduct of the security forces. Some see in all of this a sign of the decline of the democratic system: the state would rather fund prostitution than enforce the law.

The most unsettling fact is the contrast: the same religious logic that forbids prostitution has, in some legal systems, been used to press charges against the woman reporting an assault. Meanwhile, the former minister's proposal remains unanswered. Perhaps because the underlying question is not religious but economic: how much does it cost to manage migration when the legal route is ruled out.