Christian commutation of Muslim adultery penalties funneled women into royal brothels

Evidence

Royal justice would offer in substitution for lapidation a sentence of enslavement. The convicted adulteress (the accused was almost always a woman, of course), having lost the protection of her husband and of her parents, might perhaps then be recruited into the royal brothels (strictly and centrally regulated in this society) and so became a prostitute. Whatever else this was, it was hardly an application of Koranic law! — L. P. Harvey, Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614, 453

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Pertinent to the sacrifice essay’s female-body-and-state-power theme, though inverse: here the state commodifies rather than sacralizes women.
• CANDY: The image of Islamic lapidation being commuted to royal-brothel recruitment is a striking, digestible historical fact.