I'm not sure about Arabic. The biggest cluster of Arabic speakers on Earth is in Egypt so they kind of dictate ideomatic expressions ~ so I'll guess that the Imam, if he was explaining the Koran, actually did so in "historic present".
Professor Jwadeh at Indiana University regularly did that when discussing the 7th Century ~ so it's possible the Imam wasn't justifying selling female sex slaves in modern times ~ there, in fact, being no such markets in Egypt at the moment.
Wouldn't be so sure of that.