Islam, Slaves and Slavery

muqawwee123 · August 8, 2013, 11:33am

Re: Islam, Slaves and Slavery

No matter what reason is given for continuation of slavery, it must be accepted that these explanations are not from Quran or Sunnat. In other words, some group can totally reject these explanations and reinstitute slavery. For example, someone can say that it is the path of
Salaf or original Muslims, and if Salaf did not abolish slavery then we can’t do it either.

We can reject this line of reasoning, but it is not totally illogical and there will be some people who will fall for this reasoning, calling for establishment of slavery to protect the Sunnat.

I think the only way to stop the potential reinstitution of things like slavery is by saying that some laws introduced in the early days of Islam were suited for that era and society. If time has moved on then some of those laws, like slavery, must be looked at with demands of new age and times.

Point is Islam didn’t support slavery from very inception of revelation. Here is the translation of some verses (90:8 to 90:16) from earlier revealed Surah e Balad:

Have We not made for him two eyes?
And a tongue and two lips?
And have shown him the two ways?
But he has not broken through the difficult pass.
And what can make you know what is [breaking through] the difficult pass?It is the freeing of a slave
Or feeding on a day of severe hunger
An orphan of near relationship
Or a needy person in misery

Surat Al-Balad - The Noble Qur’an - ??? ???

It is apparent that reeing a slave was considered one the noblest virtue from the inception of Islam.

As I said, there are several sins / mistakes for which compensation was freeing a slave and afterwards the status of slaves and treatment given by the Prophet, his family and companions to slaves was exemplary in Arab society. Bilal Habshi (RA) is just one example. There is long list of slaves - including Zaid Bin Haritha (RA) who was just a family member (munh bola beta) to the Prophet. In a society, where slaves were given a status equal to insects, the Prophet played a vital role in the marriage of Zaid (RA) and Hazrat Zainab (RA) who was from Quresh family (Quresh who were very much status conscious).