Islam has often been represented by Christian writers as a religion which not only tolerated slavery but also encouraged it. This is a serious accusation levelled against Islam, and in this article, I propose to show its falsity.
I would have taken, if possible, the charitable view that the charge against Islam is based on ignorance of facts, but I am grieved to note that in the majority of the critics the overflowing motive seems to be prejudice and malice.
Here, to begin with, let us have a look at Islam and its codes. As far as slavery was concerned, Arabs in the pre-Islamic days were as bad offenders as their neighbours.
Slaves were a commercial commodity, and slavery was an established institution. It was a source of livelihood for thousands and a source of labour for scores of thousands. To the elites, the number of slaves in the household was a symbol of high status. This was the state of affairs at the advent of Islam.
Slavery offended the spirit of Islam as much as idolatry did. But while the latter had its roots in spiritualism and hence could be countered by reason, slavery had its roots in commerce, in social structure, in agriculture undertakings; and reason alone was but a feeble weapon against a foe so insidious and so deeply rooted.
How was then slavery to be eradicated?
The ill-informed may well suggest that the Prophet of Islam could have used force. But the ineffectiveness of force for such a purpose is well recognized by all dispassionate students of sociology.
Force may achieve submission but it inevitably achieves hostility, and very often hostility is so fierce that many a good cause has been lost when force has been employed for its advancement.
The sad plight of the Negroes of America is but one illustration of how ineffective the employment of force can be when the object is to achieve social reform.
The emancipation of slaves did not change the attitude of the white masters toward their ex-slaves, and what a bitter legacy of racial antipathy has it left!
Toynbee writes, “The Blacks in the United States who were emancipated juristically in 1862 are, with good reason, feeling now, more than a century later, that they are still being denied full human rights by the white majority of their fellow citizens. (1)
Islam’s war against slavery aimed at changing the attitude and mentality of the whole society, so that after emancipation, slaves would become its full-fledged members, without any need for demonstrations, strikes, civil disobedience and racial riots.
And Islam achieved this seemingly impossible objective without any war. To say that Islam waged no war against slavery would not be a true statement. A war it waged, but a war in which neither sword was resorted to, nor blood was spilt.
Islam aimed at striking at the roots of its foe and created allies by arousing the finer instincts of its followers. A three-pronged attack on slavery was launched.
Firstly, Islam placed restrictions on the acquisition of slaves. Prior to Islam, slavery was practised with abandon.
Debtors were made slaves, war captives were either killed or made slaves. In weaker nations, people were hunted like animals, killed or captured and reduced to slavery. Islam, in unambiguous terms, forbade its followers to enslave people on any pretext.
The only exception was an idolatrous enemy captured in a war which was fought either in self-defence or with the permission of the Prophet or his rightful successors.
This exception was, in the words of the Commander of faithful, Ali, “In order to serve as a guarantee for the preservation of the lives of the captives.” (2)
As ‘Allamah Tabataba’i has described at great length, prior to Islam strong and dominant people, throughout the world, used to enslave weak persons without any restraint. Important among the “causes” of enslavement were the following three factors:
1. War: The conqueror could do with the vanquished enemy whatever he liked. He could put the arrested soldiers to death, condemn them to slavery or otherwise keep them under his authority or clutch.
2. Domination: A chief or ruler could enslave, depending on his sweet wish, anyone residing under his domain.
3. Guardianship: A father or grandfather had absolute authority over his offspring. He could sell or gift him or her away; could lend him or her to someone else, or exchange him or her with another’s son or daughter.
When Islam came on the scene, it nullified and negated the last two factors completely. No ruler or progenitor was allowed to treat his subjects or offspring as his slaves.
Every individual was bestowed with well-defined rights; the ruler and the ruled, the progenitor and the offspring had to live within the limits prescribed by religion; no one could transgress those limits.
And it drastically restricted the first cause, i.e., war, by allowing enslavement only in a war fought against an unbelieving enemy. In no other way could anyone be enslaved. At the same time, Islam raised the status of slavery to that of a free man; and opened many ways for their emancipation. (3)
Before the slave trade was started on a large scale by the Westerners (when colonization began), it was only in wars that men were made captives. But Islam did not permit wars of aggression. All the battles fought during the lifetime of the Prophet (s.a.w.a) were defensive battles. Not only this but an alternative was also introduced and enforced:
“…..to let the captives go free, either with or without any ransom “.(4)
In the battles forced upon the Muslims, the Prophet (s.a.w.a) had ordered very humane treatment of the prisoners who fell into Muslim hands.
They could purchase their freedom on payment of small sums of money, and some of them were left off without any payment.
It all depended upon the discretion of the Prophet (s.a.w.a) or his rightful successors, keeping in view the safety of the Muslims and the extent of danger from the enemy.
The captives of the very first Islamic battle, Badr, were freed on ransom (in form of money or work like teaching ten Muslim children how to read and write), while those of the tribe of Tay were freed without any ransom.
Even in such enslavement, a condition was attached that a mother was not to be separated from her child, nor brother from brother nor husband from wife nor one member of a clan from his clan.
The Prophet and the first Shi’ite Imam, ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib, prescribed severest penalties for anyone who took a free man into slavery: cutting off the hand of the culprit.
Commander of faithful, Ali writes:
The possession of a slave by the Quranic laws was conditional on a bonafide war, waged in self-defence, against idolatrous enemies; and it was permitted in order to serve as a guarantee for the preservation of the lives of the captives. (5)
Mohammad found the custom existing among the pagan Arabs; he minimized the evil, and at the same time laid down such strict rules that but for the perversity of his followers, slavery as a social institution would have ceased to exist with the discontinuance of the wars in which the Muslim nation was at first involved.
The mutilation of the human body was also explicitly forbidden by Mohammad, and the institution which flourished both in the Persian and the Byzantine empires was denounced in severe terms.
Slavery by purchase was unknown during the reigns of the first four Caliphs, the Khulafat-Rashidin, ‘the Rightly-guided Caliphs’ as they are called by the Sunnis.
There is, at least, no authentic record of any slave having been acquired by purchase during their tenure of office. But with the accession of the usurping house of Ummayya, a change came over the spirit of Islam. (6)
Mu’awiyah was the first Muslim sovereign who introduced into the Islamic world the practice of acquiring slaves by purchase. He was also the first to adopt the Byzantine custom of guarding his women by eunuchs.
During the reign of the early Abbasids, the Shi’a Imam Ja’far al-Sadiq preached against slavery, and his views were adopted by the Mu’tazila. Karmath flourished in the ninth century of the Christian era and seems to have held slavery to be unlawful. Thus, we see that the earnest attempt of Islam to stop its followers from acquiring new slaves was foiled by Banu Ummayyah.
And I must record to the lasting disgrace of a large number of Muslims that, in later times, they utterly ignored the precepts of the Prophet and the injunctions of the Qur’an, and the Arabs too participated with the European Christians in the abominable slave trade of East Africa. The West African slave trade was totally in the hands of the European Christians.
Secondly, Islam commenced an active campaign to emancipate the slaves. Emancipation of slaves was declared to be the expiation for a number of sins.
This question is related to canonical laws of Islam, but we shall enumerate a few of them to show how for small sins of commission the penalty imposed was the manumission of slaves.
For instance, if a man failed to fast without any reasonable excuse during the month of Ramadan, or if he failed to observe the fast of i’tikaf or vow, etc, he had to free a slave for each day, in addition to fasting afterwards.
Similarly, a slave had to be freed for every breach of vow; or for tearing one’s garment as a demonstration of grief on the death of a spouse or child; or if a woman beat herself or cut or pulled her hair in grief over the death of anyone; or for accidental homicide and, in some cases, even for intentionally killing a Muslim; or if a husband told his wife that she was to him like his mother, and for many other trespasses. (7)
From these instances, some of them trivial but deeply ingrained in Arab culture, one can see how religious laws were enacted for the emancipation of slaves, and the total eradication of the curse of slavery from society.
It may well be argued that by prescribing emancipation of slaves as penance for sins, Islam envisaged the continuance of slavery as a permanent institution.
This was not so. For every instance emancipation of a slave was prescribed as a penance, an alternative was also prescribed – clearly indicating that Islam’s objective was in time to create a society free from this pernicious institution. (8)
Islam also declared that any slave woman who bore a child by her master could not be sold and, on her master’s death, she became automatically a free woman. (9)
Moreover; in contrast to all previous customs, Islam ordained that the child born to a slave woman by her master should follow the status of the father. (10)
Slaves were given a right to ransom themselves either on payment of an agreed sum or on completion of service for an agreed period.
The legal term for this is mukatabah. Allah says in the Qur’an:
And those who seek a deed [of liberation] from among those [slaves] whom your right hands possess, give them the writing (Kitab) if you know of goodness in them, and give them of the wealth of Allah which He has given you. (11)
The word Kitab in the verse stands for the written contract between the slave and his master known as “mukatabah – deed of contract”. The significant factor in mukatabah is that when a slave desires to get into such a mutual written contract, the master should not refuse it. (12)
In the verse quoted above, God has made it incumbent upon Muslims to help the slaves in getting liberated. When a slave wants to get himself freed, the master has not only to agree to it but is also directed to help the slave from his own wealth. (13)
The only provision is the satisfaction to the effect that the slave would live a respectable life after earning his freedom.
Thus, about 1400 years ago, Islam dealt in the most effective way a death blow to slavery. It also directed that the slaves seeking freedom should be helped by the public treasury (baytul mal). (14)
Thus, as a last resort, the Prophet and his rightful successors were to provide a ransom for the slaves out of state coffers. The Qur’an recognizes the emancipation of slaves as one of the permissible expenditures of alms and charity. (15)
It is worth remembering that a slave automatically became free if the master cut his ear or blinded his eye (16). Also if the slaves, living in an Islamic state, accepted Islam before their masters, then they would become free automatically.
If the slave became blind or handicapped, he would become free (17). According to Imam Ja’far al-Sadiq (peace be upon him), if a slave is Muslim and has worked for seven years then he should be set free. Forcing him to work after seven years is not permissible. (18)
It is because of this tradition (hadith) that religious scholars are of the opinion that freeing the slave after seven years is a highly recommended deed of virtue.
In addition to these compulsory ways of emancipation, voluntary emancipation of slaves was declared the purest form of charity. Imam ‘Ali emancipated one thousand slaves, purchasing them from his own money (19). The same was the number of slaves emancipated by the seventh Imam Musa al-Kazim.
The fourth Imam, ‘Ali bin al-Husayn, used to emancipate every slave in his household on the eve of ‘Idd (the annual celebration of Muslims). It is important to note that in all the above cases, the freed slaves were provided with sufficient means to earn their livelihood respectably.
To be continued!
NOTES:
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1. Toynbee, A. J., Mankind and Mother Earth, (N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 1976), p.12.
2. Ameer Ali, Muhammadan Law, vol.2, p.31.
3. al-Tabataba’i, Sayyid Muhammad Husayn, al-Mizan fi Tafsir’l Qur’an, vol.16, 2nd ed. (Beirut, 1390/1971), pp. 338-358.
4. (The Qur’an 47:4)
5. al-Waqidi, Muhammad bin ‘Umar, Kitabul Maghazi, ed. M. Jones, vol. I (London: Oxford University Press, 1966), p.129; Ibn Sa’d, al-Tabaqatul Kabir, Vol. II:1 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1912), pp.11, 14.
6. Ameer Ali, Muhammadan Law, vol. 2, pp. 31-2.
7. al-Khu’i, Sayyid Abu’l Qasim, Minhajus Salihin, 3rd ed., vol. II (Najaf, 1974), pp. 328-331; also see the Qur’an, 4:92, 5:89, 58:3.
8. Ibid.
9. al-‘Amili, Hurr, Wasa’ilu ‘sh-Shi’ah, vol.16 (Tehran, 1983), p.128.
10. Ibid.
11. (The Qur’an 24:33)
12. al-‘Amili, op. cit., vol.16, p.101.
13. Ibid, p. 111.
14. Ibid, pp. 121-2.
15. See the Qur’an 9:60, 2:177.
16. al-Hilli, Muhaqqiq, Sharaya’ul Islam, (kitabul-‘itq); also see The Encyclopaedia of Islam:, vol. I (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1960), p. 31.
17. Ibid, pp. 31-3.
18. Ibid, pp. 43-4.
19. Ibid, p. 3.
