“Also (forbidden are) women already married, except those (captives and slaves) whom your hands possess. Thus has Allah ordained for you…..” Surah 4:24
Tafsir of Mawdudi, Book2, page 112, footnote 44:
“That is, ‘Those women, who became prisoners of war, while their husbands are left behind in the War Zone, are not unlawful because their marriage ties have been broken by the fact that they have come into the Islamic Zone. It is lawful to marry such women and make them wives, and it is also lawful for those, in whose possession they are, to have sexual relations with them.
There was, however, a difference of opinion as to whether such a woman is lawful if her husband has also been captured along with her. Imam Abu Hanifah and those of his way of thinking are of the opinion that the marriage tie of such a pair should remain intact but Imam Malik and Shafi’ee are of the opinion that it should be broken.’
As there exist many misunderstandings in the minds of people concerning the slave-girls taken as prisoners of war, the following should be carefully studied:
(1) It is not lawful for a soldier to have conjugal relations with a prisoner of war as soon as she falls into his hands. The Islamic Law requires that all such women should be handed over to the government, which has the right to set them free or to exchange them with the Muslim prisoners in the hands of the enemy or distribute them among the soldiers. It is lawful for a soldier to cohabit only with that woman who has been formally given to him by the Islamic government.
(2) Even then, he shall have to wait for one monthly course before he can cohabit with her in order to ensure whether she is pregnant or not; otherwise it shall be unlawful to cohabit with her before delivery.
(3) It does not matter whether the female prisoner of war belongs to the People of the Book or not. Whatever her religion, she becomes lawful for the man to whom she has been given.
(4) None but the one whom the slave-girl is given has the right to “touch her”. The offspring of such a woman from his seed shall be his lawful children and shall have the same legal rights as are given by the Divine Law to children from one’s loins. After the birth of a child she cannot be sold as a slave-girl and shall automatically become free after her master’s death.
(5) If the master marries his slave-girl with another man, he forfeits his conjugal rights over her, but retains other rights such as service from her.
(6) The maximum limit of four has not been prescribed for slave-girls as in the case of wives for the simple reason that the number of female prisoners of war is unpredictable. The lack of limit does by no means provide a license for the well-to-do people to buy any number of slave-girls for licentious purposes.
(7) The proprietary rights over a slave male or female as given to a person by the government are transferable like all other legal proprietary rights.
(8) The handing over of the proprietary rights over a slave-girl to a man formally by the government makes her as much lawful for him as the giving of a hand of a free woman to a man by her parents or guardian by means of nikah (marriage ceremony). Therefore there is no reason why a man who does not hold marriage in detestation should hold sexual intercourse with a slave-girl in detestation.
(9) When once the government hands over the female prisoner of war to someone, it has no right whatever to take her back from him, just as the parent or guardian has no right after the woman is handed over to a man through nikah.
(10) It should also be noted well that if a military commander temporarily distributes female prisoners of war among the soldiers for sexual purposes, or permits them to have sexual relations for the time being, such an act shall be unlawful and there is absolutely no difference between this and fornication, and fornication is a crime according to the Islamic code.”
http://www.islamexposed.com/Essays/slave_girls.htm
Creepy.