人们有时会半开玩笑地问：为什么开车需要驾照，而生孩子却不需要任何执照或资格证书？这种话通常只是随口一说，但仔细想想，这是一个合理的问题。如果驾驶、在学校任教、行医、从事法律工作，甚至做一名水管工都需要资格认证，那么对于更加敏感、更加重要的事情，比如生育和抚养子女，又该如何？毕竟，孩子是我们的未来，整个社会的状况在很大程度上取决于孩子如何被培养——他们的品德、责任感、性格等等。众所周知，缺乏良好家庭教育的孩子更容易沾染毒品和犯罪，面临失业，无法成为社会的有用成员和正直的人。这样一来，每一个社会成员都会为此付出代价。

People sometimes jokingly ask, why is it that driving requires a license, but you can have children without a license or any kind of certification? It’s often a lighthearted remark, but, when you think about it, it’s a legitimate question. If driving or teaching at a school, practicing medicine or law, or even being a plumber requires certification, then what about something that is far more sensitive, far more significant like having children and raising them? After all, children are our future and the state of our society as a whole depends on how children are brought up — their morals, their sense of responsibility, their character, and so on. It’s no secret that children who grow up without proper parental influence are far more likely to become involved in drugs and crime, to face unemployment, to fail to become productive members of society and upright human beings. This, then, has a toll on all of us, on all members of society.

以下是这段文字的简体中文翻译: 考虑到如此高的利害关系,人们不禁要问:一个文明国家怎么能允许其公民生育子女,而不设立任何规定来确保所有儿童都有称职的父母呢?儿童不是有权拥有稳定的家庭和能够妥善抚养他的父母吗?作为社会成员,我们不是有权确保我们中间那些不称职、不负责任的人不生育他们将会忽视的子女吗?这些子女更有可能成为社会的负担吗?

Given these high stakes, one has to wonder how any civilized nation could allow its people to have children without having some kind of regulations to ensure that all children have competent parents. Isn’t it a child’s right to have a stable household and parents who are capable of properly raising him? Isn’t it our right as members of society to make sure incompetent, irresponsible people in our midst aren’t having children that they will neglect, children who will be more likely to become burdens on society?

当然，伊斯兰教确实要求有这样的许可——即尼卡哈（婚约）。按照先知的指导正确地完成尼卡哈，能使夫妇处于抚育家庭的最佳境况，并获得大家庭和整个社会的全面支持。

Islam, of course, does require just such a license — a nikah. Properly done, according to Prophetic guidance, a nikah ensures that a couple is in the best position to raise a family, with the full support of the extended family and the community at large.

多年来，现代主义者和自由派人士对伊斯兰的性伦理提出了持续不断的批评，他们认为伊斯兰法律禁止婚前性行为，压制了个人的性自由与自主权。事实恰恰相反：这一禁令保护了人们的自由与自主权，因为它有效地减少了由单身母亲以及无力妥善抚养子女的情侣所生育的孩子数量。这反过来又有利于儿童的利益，进而有利于整个社会的利益。因此，即使一个人本身并不信教，禁止婚前性行为的理性价值也是再清楚不过的。而且，所有的社会学证据都支持这一点。

Yet, Islamic sexual ethics have been the target of unrelenting criticism from modernists and liberals for decades, who argue that Islamic law stifles the sexual freedom and autonomy of individuals by prohibiting premarital sex. To the contrary, this prohibition protects people’s freedom and autonomy because it effectively curbs the amount of children being born to single mothers and couples who are not in a position to take adequate care of them. This in turn benefits the interests of children and hence, the interests of society at large. So, even if one is not religious per se, the rational merits of prohibiting premarital sex are more than clear. And all the sociological evidence supports this.

换句话说,婚前性行为并非如一些人所认为的那样是没有受害者的罪行。这是一种严重的罪行,而大多数现代国家却任其泛滥。这反过来又影响犯罪率,影响需要依靠政府福利(如福利金、失业救济金等)生活的人口比例。实际上,这使人们更加依赖国家,从而使国家权力成倍增长。现代民族国家对维护各宗教人类社会数千年来所依赖的性伦理毫无兴趣,也就不足为奇了。

Put differently, premarital sex is not a victim-less crime, as some believe.45 It is a major crime that most modern nations have allowed to run rampant. This in turn affects the crime rate, it affects the percentage of the population that requires government assistance through welfare, unemployment benefits, etc. — in effect, it makes people far more dependent on the state, thus increasing state power exponentially. It is no wonder that modern nation states have shown no interest in upholding the sexual ethics that human societies of all religions have depended on for thousands of years.

总而言之,我们可以有力地论证,伊斯兰的性伦理在理性和道德上优于世俗自由主义的替代方案。因此,如果宗教层面的论证不足以说服人反对约会、随意约会(hooking up)等行为,那么理性层面的论证也应足以确立其道德主张。即便有人最终不同意这一推理,他至少也应承认它是合乎情理的。而这已足以说明,伊斯兰关于通奸(zina)的性伦理是理性的,而不是单纯的“保守”“封闭”“落后”“残酷”,以及用来贬低伊斯兰律法的其他廉价形容词。

In sum, we can make an unimpeachable case for why Islamic sexual ethics are rationally and ethically superior to the secular liberal alternative. So, if a religious argument against things like dating, hooking up, etc., is not convincing, then the rationalistic argument should suffice to make the moral case. At the very least, even if someone does not ultimately agree with this reasoning, he can admit that it is reasonable. And that is enough to characterize Islam’s sexual ethics concerning zina as rational and not simply “prudish,” “close-minded,” “backwards,” “cruel,” and all the other cheap adjectives used to denigrate Islamic law.