SLAVERY & ISLAM
While there are many examples of the Prophet Mohammed (pbuh) saying that it is good to free slaves slavery was alive and well in the Middle East throughout Islamic history. The Ottomans kept slaves. The Arabs kept slaves. There were slave uprisings from time to time. The African slave trade was an important part of the economy in several Muslim countries.
Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), 570 - 632 AD, said "He will not enter paradise who behaveth ill to his slaves.
Annemarie Schimmel in “Islam: An Introduction” Slavery was not abolished by the Koran, but believers are constantly admonished to treat their slaves well. In case of illness a slave has to be looked after and well cared for. To manumit [free] a slave is highly meritorious; the slave can ransom himself by paying some of the money he has earned while conducting his own business. Only children of slaves or non-Muslim prisoners of war can become slaves, never a freeborn Muslim.
Islam allows the taking of slaves as “booty”, or reward for fighting. This has led to numerous “jihads” by Muslim states and tribes to attack other non-Muslim groups and obtain slaves. Islamic jurispudence laid down regulations for the proper treatment of slaves. However, abuses have occured throughout history.
Muslims were enslaving black Africans long before any slave ships sailed for the New World. Muslims were taking and making slaves all over the lands it had conquered. Later, when slave ships were loaded with black slaves, often, a Muslim slave broker had the human cargo all ready to go. The white Southerners rarely had to go into inland to capture slaves, they were already waiting there, courtesy of some Muslim ruler, and/or slave broker! In many cases, if the black slaves were not sent to the New World, they were sent to the Mideast to be enslaved by Arabs, or kept by other black Muslims as slaves.
SLAVES & SLAVERY IN THE QURAN
[al-Ahzab 33:50] O Prophet! Lo! We have made lawful unto thee thy wives unto whom thou hast paid their dowries, and those whom thy right hand possesseth of those whom Allah hath given thee as spoils of war
This verse clearly shows that muslims believe that taking slaves in war was a God-given right. These slaves were considered ‘booty’ or the spoils of war.
[al-Mu’minun 23:5] And who guard their modesty -
[al-Mu’minun 23:6] Save from their wives or the (slaves) that their right hands possess, for then they are not blameworthy
Muslim males are allowed to have sexual relations with their wives and slave girls. Implicit in this is that Muslim males had slave-concubines. Ayath 70:30 is basically a repeat.
[an-Nisa’ 4:3] And if ye fear that ye will not deal fairly by the orphans, marry of the women, who seem good to you, two or three or four; and if ye fear that ye cannot do justice (to so many) then one (only) or (the captives) that your right hands possess. Thus it is more likely that ye will not do injustice.
The verse legalises sex anytime with females slaves.
[an-Nahl 16:75] Allah coineth a similitude: (on the one hand) a (mere) chattel slave, who hath control of nothing, and (on the other hand) one on whom we have bestowed a fair provision from Us, and he spendeth thereof secretly and openly. Are they equal ? Praise be to Allah! But most of them know not.
The verse says - Slaves are as helpless before their masters as idols are before God.
The Quran also instructs muslims not to force their female slaves into prostitution (24:32-34), and even allows muslims to marry slaves if they so desire (4:24), and to free them at times as a penalty for crime or sin (4:92, 5:89, 58:3) and even allows slaves to buy their liberty, if they meet certain of their master’s conditions (24:33). [90:10 ‘freeing of a bondsman’ refers to muslims ransoming other muslims who were slaves of non-muslims.]
It’s nice to allow a slave to obtain his freedom, (at his master’s discretion) it is tragic that Islam allows them to be enslaved in the first place. There are numerous Hadith that deal with slavery. Whole chapters of Hadith are dedicated to dealing with the taxation, treatment, sale, and jurisprudence of slaves. In addition to this, numerous Hadith mention slaves, and their relation to their Muslim masters.
THE MUWATTA OF IMAM MALIK, AND SLAVERY
The Muwatta is a book of Islamic jurisprudence. It is full of regulations on dealing with slaves:
Chapter 368 - “Who takes the Property of a Slave When He is Freed”
Chapter 371 - “Slaves who cannot be set Free in the Obligatory Freeing of a Slave”
Chapter 383 - “Cohabitation with a Slave Girl after Declaring Her ‘Mudabbir’” (free after the master’s death).
Chapter 387 - “Who is Entitled to the Property of a Slave or Slave Girl at the time of Sale.”
Chapter 388 - “The Limit of Responsibility of the Seller in the Sale of a Slave or Slave Girl.”
Chapter 389 - “On Defect in a Slave or Slave Girl.”
Chapter 390 - “On the Conditional Sale of a Slave Girl.”
WHO COULD BE MADE SLAVES UNDER ISLAM?
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Islam allows muslims to make slaves out of anyone who is captured during war.
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Islam allows for the children of slaves to be raised as slaves
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Like #1, Islam allows for Christians and Jews to be made into slaves if they are captured in war. After Muslim armies attacked and conquered Spain, they took thousand of slaves back to Damascus. The key prize was 1000 virgins as slaves. They were forced to go all the way back to Damascus.
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Christians and Jews, who had made a treaty with the ruling muslims could be made into slaves if they did not pay the “protection” tax.
CONCLUSION
As Britain and France were working to shut down the Atlantic slave trade and abolish slavery in their empires, it was picking up in East Africa, and most of the slaves were being sold to kingdoms in Arabia and the Persian Gulf. The Arabian peninsula in 1962 became the world’s final region to officially abolish slavery, yet even afterward Saudi Arabia alone was estimated to contain a quarter of a million slaves.
An estimated 10 - 20 million Pakistanis (mainly Hindus,Christians and lower-caste Muslims) are now being held in bondage. [Reference: “Slavery” Newsweek May 4, 1992, pp. 30-39, p. 37.]
Arab Muslims in the northern Sudan have been systematically starving the Black African adherents of traditional African religions and Christians in the south; raids have also been taking slaves, a practice Sudan had once abolished. “Slavery,” Newsweek, May 4, 1992, p. 32.]
In the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, Arab-Berber Muslims from the north hold possibly over 100,000 Black African slaves from the south; aside from the shantytowns and a strip of land along the Senegal River, virtually all blacks are slaves and they are more than half the population. “Slavery,” Newsweek, May 4, 1992, p. 30 - 32.]
The importation of Black slaves into Islamic lands over 1200 years may have involved more slaves than the European slave trade did, and, some African writers have suggested that both the West and the Middle East should pay reparations to Africa. [Bethwell Ogot, “The Muslim Trade,” in the Daily Nation of Nairobi, Kenya, responding to Ali Mazrui and citing substantial historical data (reprinted in World Press Review, Aug. 1993, p. 23).]