Quran is against enslaving others - update! sorry for the wall of text guys I didn't mean to and plz check the comment thread
Im just updating my slavery post I made 2 month ago and exceprt Melwood786 words into as he provided lot academia sources:
Throughout the years Islam has been misunderstood & misinterpretation by Muslims and non-Muslims believing quran advocates slavery. However, that is false if you see many verses Quran said free them(24:33, 90:8-13, 2:177, 90:60, 4:92, 58:3) treat them well(4:36), and you only have sex with them through marriage(4:25, 24:32, 70:30).
heck, this verse settled the debate once and for all on slavery( in other words enslaving):
In the Quran, Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and demanded that he free all the slaves (44:18-21). When Pharaoh refused, Moses called those who practiced slavery criminals (44:22). Enslaving people was the explicit reason given in the Quran for God punishing the Pharaoh and the Egyptians (23:47-48). These stories in the Quran are not told for their entertainment value, They are told so that Muslim can extract important moral lessons:
Indeed, in the stories of these men there is a lesson for those who are endowed with insight. [As for this revelation,] it could not possibly be a discourse invented [by man]: nay indeed, it is [a divine writ] confirming the truth of whatever there still remains [of earlier revelations], clearly spelling out everything, and [offering] guidance and grace unto people who will believe (quran 12:11)
But apparently, given how my people think that slavery is allowed in Islam, it's a lesson that falls on deaf ears.
The Quran 9:60 literally says that freeing slaves is "obligatory/فَرِيضَةً".
I found it by this brother for his excellent breakdown and amazing resources to back his claim 🙏, he will be mentioned a lot in this post as he provided a lot of evidences for this topic.
https://www.reddit.com/r/progressive/_islam/comments/1cm9jpn/comment/l3cj6r6/
ps: this is regarding enslaving people, as most people some times confuse/conflict slavery as a system and practice, and from this verse it is very clear that the latter is forbidden and the former isn't. Slavery existed in past society over the years/eons and it will take time to abolish slavery( slave workers, trade, etc) from that society which doesn't let slaves becoming homeless, poor, lost, defend, can't think for themself, etc. made a detail posts on this topic at quranist subreddit which I will link here, on why didn't god abolish, but in short god is against ENSLAVEMENT/ING of others.
Quranic_islam: My response to an FAQ - Slavery, "Sex Slaves" and what Your Right Hand Possesses
My response to an FAQ - 4:24 "All married women, except what your right hands possess"
My response to an FAQ - Why did God not prohibit slavery?
https://x.com/quranic/_islam//Quranic/_Islam/status/1616034216306937856%E2%80%A6 thread done by Quranic_Islam
Joseph A Islam: SEX WITH SLAVE GIRLS: provide from the quran and disprove misconnection of when coming to slavery like men allow to have sex with slave which is not support by the quran. Also help you understand that ‘ma malakat aymanukum’ (Literally: What your right hands possesses) is doesn't refer to a specific gender. Rather "right hands" means ‘those that one keeps in protection and honour’. This can include captives, slave girls, maidens, servants (fatayatikum 4:25) etc. ‘ma malakat aymanukum’ can apply to women who owned men slave/servants, etc. so **‘**What your right hands possesses' isn't define by gender rather anyone.
Now I will links of evidences from hadiths, scholars, and others so here:
What Does the Islamic Tradition Say About Slavery? Khaled Abou El Fadl by Dr.khaled
On Slavery and a Moral Reading of the Quran, Usuli Institute Khutbah, 30 August 2019
Eradication of Slavery by Islam - Amin Ahsan Islahi's Explanation - Dr Shehzad Saleem
Slavery and Islam by Dr Jonathan A.C. Brown and Dr. John Andrew Morrow wrote: **"Slavery & Islam" (Academica Press, 2024) This book is a response to the work of Dr. Jonathan AC Brown who claims that the Qur'an, the Prophet, the Shari'ah, and Islam all permit slavery and sexual bondage and that anyone who argues otherwise is an infidel. I argue that human bondage and sexual slavery are prohibited in Islam. https://www.amazon.co.jp/-/en/John-Andrew-Morrow/dp/1680536370
Sex Slaves: Concubines and Collective Consciousness -Mufti Abu Layth by MuftiAbuLayth
Muhammad didn't have ‘slaves' by Sheikh Nizami:
- Muhammad, the Prophet of God, was neither a slave owner (however benign the misguided make out his so-called ‘slave owning’ to be) nor a slave trader. And neither was he a raqīq trader. He obtained individual riqāq through two ways: either he was given a raqīq as a gift or he bought them, coming to free them all. al-Nawawī stated in a well known position that they were the Prophet’s riqāq individually, and at separate times. What this suggests is that he doesn’t seem to have simply been a raqīq ‘owner’ in the sense that he had scores of riqāq concurrently for the sole purpose of ownership. Successively obtaining an individual raqīq can suggest that the Prophet intended to obtain riqāq for their eventual emancipation. It cannot be said that he did this because he might have looked bad; being the leader of Madinah, he could have had a band of riqāq and nobody would have raised an eyebrow for something quite ordinary and expected at the time.
- So while the Prophet freed some riqāq immediately, others he did so after a while. But why the delay? There are variant reasons and possibilities: there may have been mutual benefit in their association; that the raqīq didn’t want to be emancipated just yet; the raqīq wasn’t in a financially and socially stable position where freedom would have meant destitution and/or homelessness; the Prophet wasn’t immediately in a financial position to help the raqīq post-emancipation so waited until he was. We know that it wasn’t always in the interest of a raqiq to be legally emancipated as he or she would then be left without support. In a telling hadith related by Abu Musa al-Ash’ari, the Prophet said, “Any man who has a walīdah, educates her well and nurtures her well, then emancipates her and marries her, shall have two rewards.” (al-Bukhārī)
There were some good arab scholars who did fight against slavery like Ibn Ashur as well as another scholar who sadly lost his life for fighting against slavery he was mixed between berber (amazigh) and Arab his name was, Sheikh Abu Muhammad Abu Salam ibn Hamdoun Al Malaki. There were many scholars in West Africa like Sheikh Abd Al Qadir Kan who fought against slavery and even prohibited it slavery in his area of West Africa and even urged Muslims to resist against the frnehc in enslaving Muslims and Non-Muslims and he even beleived slaver to be haram (like a number of scholars did).
Abul A'la Maududi (1903-1979) wrote:
Islam has clearly and categorically forbidden the primitive practice of capturing a free man, to make him a slave or to sell him into slavery. on this point the clear and unequivocal words of Muhammad are as follows: "There are three categories of people against whom I shall myself be a plaintiff on the Day of Judgement. Of these three, one is he who enslaves a free man, then sells him and eats this money"
(al-Bukhari and Ibn Majjah).
Iranian ayatollah Mohsen Kadivar has used an Islamic legal technique called naskh aqli (abrogation by reason) to conclude that slavery is no longer permissible in Islam
Muslim Scholars Release Open Letter To Islamic State Meticulously Blasting Its Ideology: https://web.archive.org/web/20140925115145/http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/24/muslim-scholars-islamic-state/_n/_5878038.html
International Coalition of Muslim Scholars Refute ISIS' Religious Arguments in Open Letter to al-Baghdadi: https://www.christianpost.com/news/international-coalition-of-muslim-scholars-refute-isis-religious-arguments-in-open-letter-to-al-baghdadi-127032/
"God did not grant rulers the right to enslave, to rob or to kill their own populations. He rather commanded them, by contrast, to protect them, as rulers have been created to serve their peoples not the other way around." --Shaykh Nasir al-Din al-Daymani [d. 1674]
". . . .in the beginning it [slavery] existed like other Pre-Islamic customs which were not repealed all at once. It [Islam], however, prohibited the making of new slaves, and for the slaves still present many regulations were fixed with this in view that bit by bit they should be released." --Sayyid Ahmad Khan [1817-1898]
". . . .the basic assumption in regard to the human species is freedom and lack of any case for being enslaved. Whoever maintains the opposite is opposing the basic principle. . . ."How then can a man who has scruples about his religion permit himself to buy something of this nature? How too can he allow himself to take their women as concubines considering that this involves entering upon a sexual liaison of doubtful legality. . . .Worse than that, in these days, the evil-doers and those who flout Allah, kidnap freeborn children in the qaba'il, villages, and cities of the Maghrib and sell them openly in the markets without anyone showing resentment or being angered on behalf of the religion. . . ." --Shaykh Ahmad ibn Khalid al-Nasiri [1834-1897]
". . . .the abolition of slavery is according to the spirit of the Koran, to Mohammedan tradition, and Mohammedan dogma." --Shaykh Muhammad Abduh [1849-1905]
". . . .it was quite simply the greatest evil in the history of humanity. The Quran had forbidden all further enslavement and had commanded that all existing slaves be freed." --Shaykh Musa Jarullah Bigiyev [1875-1948]
article provide countless hadiths and quran verse on slavery and no it doesn't say islam encourage slavery rather the opposite plz read it What does Islam teach about slavery? by Abu Amina Elias
"Milk al-yamin" literally means "those whom your right hands possess", meaning "those you have a lawful agreement with". (In Arab culture you grasp hands to make an agreement with someone, such as swearing an oath of allegiance to someone).This system of service was called "riqq"in Arabic. Muhammad said they were not slaves. (Sahih Muslim 2249)
Muhammad's army freed slaves as they took towns. This was usually the first commandment of any newly Muslim town, to free their slaves. For example: When the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, besieged the people of At-Ta’if, he freed their slaves who came out to him. Source: Musnad Ahmad 3257
it isn't a modern interpretation that the riqq system was only a temporary way of integrating already-existing slaves into society. the Imam Jafar as-Sadiq said that as well, which means that understanding was part of the early Islam, passed down through the prophet's family. Slavery From Islamic And Christian Perspectives by Sayyid Sa'eed Akhtar Rizvi
in the 1800s, the Egyptian scholar Muhammad Abduh (1849-1905) wrote:
". . . .the abolition of slavery is according to the spirit of the Koran, to Mohammedan tradition, and Mohammedan dogma."
the Russian scholar, Musa Jarullah Bigiyev (1875-1948), wrote:
". . . .it was quite simply the greatest evil in the history of humanity. The Quran had forbidden all further enslavement and had commanded that all existing slaves be freed."
the Moorish Muslim scholar Shaykh Nasir al-Din al-Daymani (d. 1674) said:
"God did not grant rulers the right to enslave, to rob or to kill their own populations. He rather commanded them, by contrast, to protect them, as rulers have been created to serve their peoples not the other way around."
https://www.reddit.com/r/progressive/_islam/comments/166zr1r/comment/jytc5az/ by Melwood:
"In Africa itself there were abolitionists. Those African states and communities who found substitutes for the slave-trade were often as actively abolitionist as the British. . . . In Sierra Leone a Muslim Mandinka scholar, Momodou Yeli, opposed slave-trading among his own Muslim brethren and the Christians of Freetown, and suffered persecution from both communities for his beliefs. Without his assistance the Freetown courts would have found it difficult to stop secret slave trading in the city." (see Revolutionary Years: West Africa Since 1800, pg. 59)
"Colonial edicts abolished slavery, but enforcement was another matter, as officials often placed the onus on slaves to demand their freedom and compensate their owners. A few instances of mass slave exoduses occurred, but emancipation generally was a lengthy process in which slaves negotiated new labour relations, often as tenants, with their former masters. In other economic domains, too, colonial transformations produced uneven results for the long term benefit of the continent. Europeans disrupted local and regional economies, and left in their place a distorted system in which Africa participated in global exchanges at a relative disadvantage." (see The New Cambridge History of Islam, vol 5, pg. 627)
British and other European slave states "abolished" slavery, they paid reparations to slave owners rather than slaves. It just goes to show you who they thought the injured party was: it was the slave owners who were deprived of their human "property," not the slaves who were deprived of their freedom!
...
recent scholarship is largely dismissive of the notion Muslim abolitionism is simply a product of "pressure" from European powers:
"Recently, however, some scholars’ hypotheses have hinted at Muslim abolitionism being something more than a simple response to Western pressure (Clarence-Smith 2006) and described the role of local Muslim abolitionists as fundamental in order to turn foreign abolitionist pressure into law. Lovejoy (2016) himself underlines how opposition to slavery arose in West Africa, and that historiography has focused more on European abolitionism rather than discussing 'the protection of Muslims from enslavement, prohibitions on their sale, and efforts to confront the dangers of subsequent abuse' (Lovejoy 2016, p. 211). In the Ottoman Empire, local abolitionist elites absorbed Western ideas, and others found 'refuge in Islam' (Toledano 1982, p. 278), since egalitarianism was a hard core of the Islamic doctrine." (see Becoming the ‘Abid: Lives and Social Origins in Southern Tunisia, pp. 69-70)
...
Muslim abolitionists, both individuals and movements, existed before the British. For example, the Moorish Muslim scholar Shaykh Nasir al-Din al-Daymani (d. 1674) said:
"God did not grant rulers the right to enslave, to rob or to kill their own populations. He rather commanded them, by contrast, to protect them, as rulers have been created to serve their peoples not the other way around."
Even when those Muslim abolitionists were contemporaneous to their British counterparts, their inspiration was Islamic not European. We know this because their contemporaries recorded their sentiments. For example, the American Quaker minister and abolitionist John Jackson encountered the Muslim scholar and abolitionist Emir Samba Makumba in the British colony of Trinidad in the 1800s. Jackson describes Makumba's Quran inspired abolitionism as follows:
"The old man said that he mourned over the condition of the Christian world; he regretted that their youth were in danger of being drawn away by the evil practices of the Christians. He thought it was safe to judge people by their actions. And when he saw the Christians holding those of their own faith in slavery, engaging in wars with members of their own church, and addicted to habits of intemperance, all of which the Koran forbids, he thought it was sufficient evidence that the religion of Mahomet was superior to the religion of Anna Bissa, (Jesus Christ)." (Note: Jackson probably meant to write an-Nabi Issa not Anna Bissa, see Brief Memoir of John Jackson, pg. 122)
https://x.com/Tweetistorian/status/1193852876071849987 part 1, https://x.com/Tweetistorian/status/1194369147867684864 part 2, https://x.com/Tweetistorian/status/1194700315444023297 part 3 thread by Ian D. Morris discussion slavery plz check it out
Did Allah permit slavery ? (Milk Al-Yamin) & Milk Al-Yamin | What Your Right Hands Possess by the op
https://www.reddit.com/r/progressive/_islam/comments/1cfi57t/please/_help/_im/_losing/_faith/ check Melwood:
During the Abbasid period, slave owners were also punished for owning slaves. One account says:
"According to these accounts, in about 869 CE, Ali bin Muhammad, a slave-descended Arab, journeyed into the slave quarters in the marshlands East to Basrah, where Black slaves were employed by large landowners to dig away at the nitrous surface soil, reclaiming the land beneath it for future sugarcane cultivation. It was exacting work, and the slaves were expected to obtain saltpetre from the upper layers of the soil for their master’s profit. Their well-being was often neglected and their oppression was gruesome. Al-Tabari recounts that Ali received an audience among these slaves by claiming that he was an agent acting on behalf of a Caliph’s son. Having already amassed a following on previous journeys, he began ambushing the establishments of rich landowners and capturing their slaves. He also captured the slaveowners and brought them along in his raids. According to Al-Tabari, after he’d gathered all of the slaveowners in one location, Ali castigated them in front of their own slaves. He sought to win the consent of the slaves, and the slaves themselves must have been awestruck by how much their lives had been turned upside down. 'I wanted to behead you all, for the way you have treated these slaves, with arrogance and coercion. . . In ways that Allah has forbidden,' he said. 'Turn them over to us and let us pay you compensation for them,' the slave owners responded after telling him that the slaves were habitual runaways who would betray him anyways. 'Ali ordered their slaves to bring whips of palm branches and, while their masters and agents were prostrated on the ground, each one was given five hundred lashes.'” (see What Was the Zanj Rebellion?: A remarkable episode of Medieval Islamic history that often goes untold)
Another example comes from 19th century Arabia:
"In addition, Ottoman officials were taking stronger measures with the slave traders. In 1880, Nashid Pasha, the Ottoman Governor in Mecca, had the slave markets in Mecca closed, seized and freed thirty slaves, and condemned their owners to one year’s imprisonment." (see The Abyssinian slave trade to Iran and the Rokeby case 1877)
"There is strong evidence to suggest that the Qur'an regards slavery differently from both classical and modern Islamic texts. First, the vocabulary is distinct. Several words for slave in classical Arabic (such as mukatab, raqiq, qinn, khadim, qayna, umm walad, and mudabbar) are not found in the Qur'an, while others (jariya, ghulam, fata) occur but do not refer to slaves. Likewise, 'abd (along with its plurals 'ibad and 'abid) is used over 100 times to mean 'servant' (q.v.) or 'worshipper' in the Qur'an (see SERVANT; WORSHIP); in each occasion when it is used to refer to male slaves, a linguistic marker is appended, contrasting 'abd to a free person (al-hurr in q 2:178) or a female slave (ama, pl. ima' in q 24:32) or qualifying it with the term 'possessed' ('abd mamluk in q 16:75). Further, when the Qur'an speaks of manumission, it does not use the classical 'itq; nor does wala', the state of clientage after manumission, appear." (see Encyclopaedia of the Quran, vol. 5, pg. 58)
from Melwood comment
isn't just a modern "progressive" interpretation that the riqq system was only a temporary way of integrating already-existing slaves into society. Imam Jafar as-Sadiq (the 6th Shia Imam, founder of the Jafari madhab, teacher of Abu Hanifa and Malik ibn Anas, and Muhammad's great great great grandson), also said that as well, which means that understanding was part of the early Islam, passed down through the prophet's family. Islam Attacks Slavery by Sayyid Sa'eed Akhtar Rizvi
from Jaqurutu comment: https://www.reddit.com/r/progressive/_islam/comments/1alvc2v/comment/kpip1m1/?share%5C_id=EGCl5WF3q-hhIMbrCgWas&utm%5C_content=2&utm%5C_medium=android%5C_app&utm%5C_name=androidcss&utm%5C_source=share&utm%5C_term=1
refuting slavery hadiths about battels led by the prophet by the op
https://www.reddit.com/r/progressive/_islam/comments/1cm9jpn/whats/_the/_justification/_for/_abolition/_of/_slavery/ check others comments, and Jaqurutu & Melwood comments
Edip Yuksel interviews the scholar John Morrow about his new book on Islam and Slavery Edip Yuksel (E) Slavery and Islam - Interview with John Morrow
Does Islam Allow The Practice Of Slavery?! Muhammed Ali by The Muslim Lantern
Slavery was never abolished. checks the comments
https://www.reddit.com/r/progressive/_islam/comments/11xd1qr/comment/jd3a5uy/ check Melwood comment(s)
https://www.reddit.com/r/progressive/_islam/comments/m1q5jj/why/_was/_slavery/_not/_condemned/_in/_islam/ check Melwood comment(s)
https://www.reddit.com/r/progressive/_islam/comments/qwvbyt/how/_to/_justify/_sex/_slavery/ check Melwood and Khaki_Banda comments
https://www.reddit.com/r/progressive/_islam/comments/1d6ziql/i/_have/_struggles/_with/_womanmen/_slaves/_issue/_in/ check Melwood and others comments
https://www.reddit.com/r/progressive/_islam/comments/1db0n8q/doesnt/_960/_abolish/_slavery/ check Jaqurutu & Melwood comments
https://www.reddit.com/r/progressive/_islam/comments/139j22o/concerned/_about/_my/_friends/_religious/_doubts/ check Melwood and No_Veterinarian_888 comment(s)
REGARDING MUSLIM ABOLITIONISTS AND MUSLIM ABOLITIONIST MOVEMENTS by Melwood
ABD AL-QADR KAN
I should point out that the Thomas Clarkson mentioned in the following account was the lesser known British abolitionist who introduced the British abolitionist William Wilberforce to the cause:
"The Reverend Thomas Clarkson in one of his earliest publications lauded Kan:
"[Kan] sets an illustrious example in extirpating the commerce in the human race; and when we consider this amiable man as having been trained up in a land of slavery, and as having had in the introduction of such a revolution all the prejudices of education and custom to oppose; when we consider him again as sacrificing a part of his own revenue; as refusing the presents of Europeans; and as exposing himself in consequence of it to the vindictive ravages of the agents of the latter, he is certainly more to be respected than any of the sovereigns of Europe, inasmuch as he has made a much nobler sacrifice than they, and has done more for the causes of humanity, justice, liberty, and religion. (Clarkson, 80). . . .
"Thomas Clarkson, the British abolitionist, was a striking case among the Christians. He saw in Abdul-Qadir Kan a man of faith and principle whom sovereigns in Europe might one day emulate. Eventually they did, bringing about an abolition of Atlantic slaving that, although sometimes cynical and ineffectual, did come."
In the early 1800s, the governor of British Senegambia also noted that Muslim clerics in the lower Senegal River Valley were anti-slavery and pro-abolition:
"It may be here necessary to remark that there has been greater facility in negociating with [the imam] and less probability of again having disputes with him in consequence of the abolition of the Slave Trade, a commerce which that Prince always opposed as being contrary to the Laws of his Religion, and the means through which several of his subjects, followers of the Prophet, were led into Captivity. (British National Archives, 1811)" (see The Princeton Companion to Atlantic History, pp. 260-262)
MAMADOU JUHE
"'The Hubbu movement mobilized and attracted to the periphery of Futa Jallon the oppressed, the jungle Fulbe, that is, Fulbe of inferior status and extraction who were liable to taxation and to forced labor without mitigation, descendants of pastoral Fulbe recently converted to Islam, certain unassimilated Jallonke, and thousands of slaves concentrated in the rimaibe (slave camps).' . . . In the end Juhe's son, Abal, led a community of discontents to the village of Boketo in the rural country southeast of Timbo. There the Hubbube, repudiating the authority of the Almamate, set up a religious republic, militant if not triumphant. In it slavery was abolished and a call issued to former slaves to repudiate their masters and emigrate to Boketo, where the egalitarian principles being invoked would eliminate their servile status and thus lead to the moral preeminence of the agrarian community." (see The Crown and the Turban, pp. 93-95)
EMIR SAMBA MAKUMBA
I should point out that the following account is by the Quaker American abolitionist John Jackson, who came across Emir Samba Makumba on a trip to Trinidad:
"Among others who came to see us this morning was a Mahometan priest, named Emir Samba Makumba, with whom we had an interesting interview, and obtained from him a brief history of himself and his people now resident upon this Island, where they continued to worship after the manner of their fathers according to the precepts of the Koran. He is about sixty-six years old, his hair and beard, which he had allowed to grow long, are white. He wore the habit of his order, a flowing white tunic. Samba could speak several languages; he addressed us in Arabic, pronouncing the benediction of the Mahometans on those they esteem as people of God. Afterwards he conversed in French, and our friend H.L. Jobity interpreted for us. His countenance was remarkably serene, and although he had been a man of sorrow and acquainted with grief, yet his face was lighted with a smile. He was by descent a chief and a priest among the Mandingoes in Africa, but in early life he was taken captive in one of those intestine wars which are unhappily occasioned among the native tribes in Africa by the slave trade. He belonged to the tribe Fullah Tauro, which engaged in a war with six other tribes to prevent them, as he said, from carrying on the slave trade. . . . The old man said that he mourned over the condition of the Christian world; he regretted that their youth were in danger of being drawn away by the evil practices of the Christians. He thought it was safe to judge people by their actions. And when he saw the Christians holding those of their own faith in slavery, engaging in wars with members of their own church, and addicted to habits of intemperance, all of which the Koran forbids, he thought it was sufficient evidence that the religion of Mahomet was superior to the religion of Anna Bissa, (Jesus Christ). . . . It was a pleasure to be with this benevolent individual, who may be looked upon as one of the brightest philanthropists of the age. When we consider the humble sphere in which he has moved, and the limited means at his command for accomplishing a benevolent scheme which had for its object the emancipation of all his countrymen in captivity, (the Mandingo slaves,) and contemplate the success which has attended the labors of Samba and his co-adjutors, this brief account of him will be esteemed worthy of record." (see Brief Memoir of John Jackson, pp. 119-124)
https://www.reddit.com/r/progressive/_islam/comments/ll2ddu/comment/gnob6yk/ by Melwood
"In addition to some of the better known scholars like the ones above, there were lesser known scholars like: the Senegalese scholar Abd al-Qadr Kan (who lived in the 1700s); the Senegalese scholar Emir Samba Makumba (who lived in the 1800s); and the Guinean scholar Mamadou Juhe (who lived in the 1800s). I hadn't even heard of Ibn Ashur, but I'm not surprised to find out that he was Tunisian. If you look at this timeline, you'll see that Tunisia has a long abolitionist tradition."
Umar had a reputation for being one of the most anti-slavery of the early Muslims, perhaps because of his own slave ancestry. He famously told the Persians: "By Allah, I am not a king to enslave you; rather I am a slave of Allah who has been given a trust." (see Umar ibn al-Khattab: His Life and Times, translated by Nasiruddin al-Khattab, pg 203)
ISLAM AND SLAVERY by Kecia Ali
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History/_of/_concubinage/_in/_the/_Muslim/_world#Abolition_in_the_Muslim_World
Dr. Jamal Badawi, Member of the European Council for Fatwa and Research against slavery https://web.archive.org/web/20060719085911/http://www.islamonline.net/livedialogue/english/Browse.asp?hGuestID=s905I1:
" answer: Islam never introduced slavery. It arose when slavery was practiced widely people of different backgrounds and religious convictions. In fact, in the Bible there are numerous instances of the practice of slavery and concubinage even by prophets such as Solomon.
Islam dealt with this problem in a wise and gradual manner so as to avoid backfiring such as what happened in the US when slavery was abolished overnight contributing to the civil war. The major steps taken by Islam were:
- to dry up any new source of slavery as the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said :"if one takes a free person and sells him or her in slavery, one will never have the smell of Paradise." The only exception to that pertained to the captives of war, a matter which is now classical and irrelevant since international treaties provides for exchange of war prisoners. Even at the time of Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) there were instances when he was magnanimous and set free the captives of war and gave the signal an example of others to do the same (for example, freeing Safiyyah, which resulted in freeing all her people by the rest of the Muslims following the example of the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him)
- to provide for a gradual and smooth ending of the institution of slavery and that included the following measures:
a. to liberate the slaves spiritually and humanly by making it clear that only God is the true master and all humans are His servants and "slave" (in the positive sense).
b. to encourage Muslims to free slaves for the sake of Allah (see 90: 11-13)
c. to allow any person in slavery to regain their freedom to have a contract with "his master" to compensate him financially "for what he might have paid to acquire him before Islam". Once the contract is agreed to, the slaves will automatically be a legitimate receipt of zakat, that the whole community will be participating will be helping him or her regain his or her freedom (see 9: 60)
d. to protect the humanity and legal rights of slaves as a person not as a thing, as the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) taught that anyone who killed a salve would be killed, and anyone who castrated a slave would be castrated…"
e. to teach that slaves must be treated like your own children, brothers and sisters as Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) said: "let not anyone of you say, 'my slave boy or my slave girl' but let him say, 'my boy or my girl'. He also taught that "these (slaves) are your brothers and if Allah willed He would have made you under them." In that sense, the negative notion of slavery was replaced gradually with what may be considered as a "live-in servant" rather than a slave.
If these measures were followed faithfully by Muslims slavery would have been completely abolished within one or two generations. The fact that some people including some misguided Muslims engaged or continued to engage in the practice of slavery is their own fault. Likewise those who argue that since there was no final verse in the Qur'an explicitly abolishing slavery then it must be lawful. This understanding overlooks two crucial points: 1) one is a legalistic interpretation that overlooks the Qur'anic context as explained in the obvious strategy outlined above is a questionable and non-contextual interpretation. It is also an interpretation that does not take into account the maqasid (objectives) of Shari'ah; 2) the second point is that in case of intoxicants there was ample time during the lifetime of Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) to reach the total prohibition. The reason being that intoxication is a bad personal habit that can be treated within a relatively short time as it is called today "detoxification". Slavery, however, was a much more complex institution that continued for many centuries all over the world and was sanctioned even by previous scriptures such as the Bible. It was a deeply rooted economic and social institution. Given this complexity, a smooth abolishment required longer period of time so as to avoid setbacks. The remaining year of the life of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) in Madina where the bulk of legal rulings were revealed, was too short for such a smooth transition. The Qur'an and Hadith set in motion a process that was intended to bring about eventual total abolishment.
Finally, let us remember the beautiful word attributed to 'Umar, the second Caliph after Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him), "how could you enslave people while they were born free by their mothers."
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