Islamic views on slavery

The major juristic schools of Islam traditionally accepted the institution of slavery.. Although Muhammad and many of his companions bought, sold, freed, and captured slaves, these slaves did benefit from the Islamic dispensations, which improved their situation relative to that in pre-Islamic society. At the end of 19th century a dramatic shift in Muslim thought occurred and today even most (but not all) conservative Islamic scholars regard slavery as opposed to Islamic principles of justice and equality.

In Islamic law, the topic of Islam and slavery is covered at great length. The Qur'an and the hadith consider emancipation of a slave to be a highly meritorious deed, and see slavery as an exceptional circumstance, a condition that can be entered into only under certain limited circumstances. Ironically -- and tragically -- the large number of freed slaves led to a greater demand for new slaves, and enormous suffering and loss of life from the capture and transportation of slaves from non-Muslim lands to fill the demand. In theory, slavery in Islamic law does not have a racial or color component, although this has not always been the case in practice.

The Arab slave trade was most active in eastern Africa, and by the end of the 19th century such activity had reached a low ebb. In the early 20th century (post World War I) slavery was gradually outlawed and suppressed in Muslim lands, largely due to pressure exerted by Western nations such as Britain and France. However, slavery claiming the sanction of Islam is documented presently in the African republics of Chad, Mauritania and the Sudan.

Slavery in pre-Islamic Arabia

Slavery was widely practiced in pre-Islamic Arabia, as well as in the rest of ancient and early medieval world. The majority of slaves within Arabia were of Ethiopian origin, through whose sale merchants grew rich. The minority were white slaves of foreign race, likely brought in by Arab caravaneers (or the product of Bedouin captures) stretching back to biblical times. Native Arab slaves had also existed, a prime example being Zayd ibn Harithah, later to become Mu hammad's adopted son. Arab slaves, however, usually attained as captives, were generally ransomed off amongst nomad tribes. The slave population was recruited by the abandonment, kidnapping or sale of small children. There is no conclusive evidence of the existence of enslavement for debt or the sale of children by their families; the late and rare accounts of such occurences show them to be abnormal. Free persons were also able to sell their offspring, or even themselves, into slavery. Enslavement was also possible as a consequence of committing certain offenses against the law, as in the Roman Empire.

Two classes of slave were apparent: A purchased slave, and a slave born in the master's home. Over the latter, the master had complete rights of ownership, though these slaves were unlikely to be sold or disposed of by the master. Female slaves were at times forced into prostitution for the benefit of their masters in accordance with Near Eastern customs.

Slavery in the Qur'an

Quran front cover. The Quran includes multiple references to slaves, slave women, slave concubinage, and the freeing of slaves.

"The Qur'an recognizes the basic inequality between master and slave and the rights of the former over the latter (^{[Quran 16:71]}, ^{[Quran 30:28]})", Lewis states. "It also recognizes concubinage (^[Quran 6:3], ^{[Quran 23:6]}, ^{[Quran 33:50]}, ^{[Quran 70:30]}). It urges, without actually commanding, kindness to the slave (^{[Quran 4:36]}, ^{[Quran 9:60]}, ^{[Quran 24:58]}) and recommends, without requiring, his liberation by purchase or manumission. The freeing of slaves is recommended both for the expiation of sins (^{[Quran 4:92]}, ^{[Quran 5:92]}, ^{[Quran 58:3]}) and as an act of simple benevolence (^{[Quran 2:177]}, ^{[Quran 24:33]}, ^{[Quran 90:13]}). It exhorts masters to allow slaves to earn or purchase their own freedom." Sikainga describes the Qur'anic references to slavery as mainly containing "broad and general propositions of an ethical nature rather than specific legal formulations." Brockopp states that slaves are mentioned in at least twenty-nine verses of the Qur'an, most of these are Medinan and refer to the legal status of slaves. He adds that the legal material on slavery in the Qur'an is largely restricted to manumission and sexual relations.

The Quran accepts the distinction between slave and free as part of the natural order and uses this distinction as an example of God's grace in ^{[Quran 16:71]}, regarding this discrimination between human beings in their status as in accordance with the divinely-established order of things. "The Qur'an, however, does not consider slaves to be mere chattel; their humanity is directly addressed in references to their beliefs (^{[Quran 2:221]}, ^{[Quran 4:25]}), their desire for manumission and their feelings about being forced into prostitution (^{[Quran 24:33]}). In one case, the Qur'an refers to master and slave with the same word, rajul. Later interpreters presume slaves to be spiritual equals of free Muslims. For example, ^{[Quran 4:25]} urges believers to marry 'believing maids that your right hands own' and then states: "The one of you is as the other," which the Jalaalayn interpret as "You and they are equal in faith, so do not refrain from marrying them." The human aspect of slaves is further reinforced by reference to them as members of the private household, sometimes along with wives or children."

There are many common features between the institution of slavery in the Qur'an and that of neighboring cultures. However, the Qur'anic institution had some unique new features. The idea of using alms for the manumission of slaves appears to be unique to the Qur'an, assuming the traditional interpretation of verses ^{[Quran 2:177]} and ^{[Quran 9:60]}. Similarly, the practice of freeing slaves in atonment for certain sins appears to be introduced by the Qur'an (but compare Exod 21:26-7). The forced prostitution of female slaves, a Near Eastern custom of great antiquity, is condemned in the Qur'an. ^{[Quran 24:33]} Murray Gordon notes that this ban is "of no small significance." Brockopp writes: "Other cultures limit a master's right to harm a slave but few exhort masters to treat their slaves kindly, and the placement of slaves in the same category as other weak members of society who deserve protection is unknown outside the Qur'an. The unique contribution of the Qur'an, then, is to be found in its emphasis on the place of slaves in society and society's responsibility toward the slave, perhaps the most progressive legislation on slavery in its time."

Islamic jurisprudence

Bilal ibn Ribah, a freed black slave, calls the people to prayers as the first Muezzin.

Islam has never preached the abolition of slavery as a doctrine, though is has endeavored to moderate the institution of slavery. Spiritually, the slave has the same value as the free man, but in this earthly life, failing emancipation, he must piously resign himself to the fact of his inferior status.

Principles

Muslim jurists defined slavery as an exceptional condition, with the general rule being a presumption of freedom (al-'asl huwa 'l-hurriya — "The basic principle is liberty") for a person if his or her origins were unknown. Lawful enslavement was restricted to two instances: capture in war (on the condition that the prisoner is not a Muslim), or birth in slavery. Islamic law did not recognize the classes of slave from pre-Islamic Arabia including those sold or given into slavery by themselves and others, and those indebted into slavery. Though a free Muslim could not be enslaved, conversion to Islam by a non-Muslim slave did not require that he then should be liberated. His slave status was not affected by his conversion to Islam.

Treatment

In the instance of illness, it would be required for the slave to be looked after. Manumission is considered a meritorious act. Based on the Quranic verse (^{[Quran 24:33]}), the Islamic law permits a slave to ransom himself upon consent of his master through a contract known as mukataba. Azizah Y. al-Hibri, a professor of Law specializing in Islamic jurispundence, states that both the Qur’an and Hadith are repeatedly exhorting Muslims to treat the slaves well and that Muhammad showed this both in action and in words. Al-Hibri quotes the famous last speech of Muhammad and other hadiths emphasizing that all believers, whether free or enslaved, are siblings. Lewis explains, "the humanitarian tendency of the Qur'an and the early caliphs in the Islamic empire, was to some extent counteracted by other influences," notably the practice of various conquered people and countries Muslims encountered, especially in provinces previously under Roman law (even the Christianized form of slavery was still harsh in its treatment of slaves). In spite of this, Lewis also states, "Islamic practice still represented a vast improvement on that inherited from antiquity, from Rome, and from Byzantium." Murray Gordon writes: "It was not surprising that Muhammed, who accepted the existing sociopolitical order, looked upon slavery as part of the natural order of things. His approach to what was already an age-old institution was reformist and not revolutionary. The Prophet had not in mind to bring about the abolition of slavery. Rather, his purpose was to improve the conditions of slaves by correcting abuses and appealing to the conscience of his followers to treat them humanely."

Legal status

File:Slavezanzibar.jpg

A boy slave in the slave trade market of Zanzibar punished by chaining to a 32 pound log. c.1890. From the Moresby Treaty of 1822, slave trade through Zanzibar became exclusive to Arab and Islamic traders as the sale of slaves to European powers had become illegal

Within Islamic jurisprudence, slaves were excluded from religious office of from any office involving jurisdiction over others. Freed slaves are able to occupy any office within the Islamic government, and instances of this in history include the Mamluk who ruled Egypt for almost 260 years and the Eunuchs (castrated human male) who have held military and administrative positions of note. With the permission of their owners they are able to marry. Annemarie Schimmel, a contemporary scholar on Islamic civilization, asserts that because the status of slave under Islam could only be obtained through either being a prisoner of war (this was soon restricted only to infidels captured in a holy war) or born from slave parents, slavery would be theoretically abolished with the expansion of Islam. Islam's reforms stipulating the conditions of enslavement seriously limited the supply of new slaves, according to Lewis. In the early days of Islam, he notes, a plentiful supply of new slaves were brought due to rapid conquest and expansion. But as the frontiers were gradually stabilized, this supply dwindled to a mere trickle. The prisoners of later wars between Muslims and Christians were commonly ransomed or exchanged.

According to Lewis, this reduction resulted in Arabs who wanted slaves having to look elsewhere to avoid the restrictions in the Qur'an, meaning an increase of importing of slaves from non-Muslim lands, primarily from Africa. These slaves suffered a high death toll. Patrick Manning states that Islamic legislations against the abuse of the slaves convincingly limited the extent of enslavement in Arabian peninsula and to a lesser degree for the whole area of the whole Umayyad Caliphate where slavery existed since the most ancient times. He however notes that with the passage of time and the extension of Islam, Islam by recognizing and codifying the slavery seems to have done more to protect and expand slavery than the reverse.

Theoretically, free-born Muslims could not be enslaved, and the only way that a non-Muslim could be enslaved was being captured in the course of holy war. (In early Islam, neither a Muslim nor a Christian or Jew could be enslaved.) Slavery was also perceived as a means of converting non-Muslims to Islam: A task of the masters was religious instruction. Conversion and assimilation into the society of the master didn't automatically lead to emancipation, though there was normally some guarantee of better treatment and was deemed a prerequisite for emancipation. Among jurists, the majority of Sunni authorities approved the manumission of all the "People of the Book", that is, Christians and Jews, but according to some jurists, especially among the Shi’a, only Muslim slaves should be liberated. In practice, traditional propagators of Islam in Africa often revealed a cautious attitude towards proselytizing because of its effect in reducing the potential reservoir of slaves.

Marriage and concubinage

Slave women were required mainly as concubines and menials. A Muslim slaveholder was entitled by law to the sexual enjoyment of his slave women. While free women might own male slaves, they had no such right. The property of a slave was owned by his or her master unless a contract of freedom of the slave had been entered into, which allowed the slave to earn money to purchase his freedom and similarly to pay bride wealth. The marriage of slaves required the consent of the owner. Under the Hanafi and Shafai schools of jurisprudence male slaves could marry two wives, but the Maliki permitted them to marry four wives like the free men. According to the Islamic law, a male slave could marry a free woman but this was discouraged in practice. Islam permits sexual relations between a male master and his female slave outside of marriage. This is referred to in the Qur'an as ma malakat aymanukum or "what your right hands possess". There are some restrictions on the master; he may not co-habit with a female slave belonging to his wife, neither can he have relations with a female slave if she is co-owned, or already married. In continuation of ancient Arabian custom, the child of a freeman by his slave was also a slave unless he was recognized and liberated by his father. If he chose to do so, the woman then receives the title of "umm walad" (lit. mother of a child), which is an improvement in her status as she can no longer be sold. She is automatically freed upon her master's death, however she is not automatically freed unless her child is still alive; her value is then deducted from this child's share of the inheritance. Lovejoy writes that as an umm walad, they attained "an intermediate position between slave and free" pending their freedom, although they would sometimes be nominally freed as soon as they gave birth. In theory, the recognition by a master of his offspring was optional, and in the early period was often withheld. By the high Middle Ages it became normal and was unremarkable in a society where the sovereigns themselves were almost invariably the children of slave concubines.

There is no limit on the number of concubines a master may possess. However, the general marital laws are to be observed, such as not having sexual relations with the sister of a female slave. In Islam, "men are enjoined to marry free women in the first instance, but if they cannot afford the bridewealth for free women, they are told to marry slave women rather than engage in wrongful acts." One rationale given for recognition of concubinage in Islam is that "it satisfied the sexual desire of the female slaves and thereby prevented the spread of immorality in the Muslim community." Concubinage was only allowed as a monogamous relation between the slave woman and her master, however, in reality in many Muslim societies, female slaves were prey for members of their owners' household, their neighbors, and their guests. In Imami Shiite jurisrudence, the master of a female slave may grant a third party the use of her for sexual relations. Under the legal doctrine of kafa'a(lit."efficiency"), the purpose of which was to ensure that a man should be at least the social equal of the woman he marries, a freedman is not as good as the son of a freedman, and he in turn not as good as the grandson of a freedman. This principle is pursued up to three generations, after which all Muslims are deemed equally free. Lewis asserts that since kafa'a "does not forbid unequal marriages", it is in no sense a "Muslim equivalent of Nuremburg laws of Nazi Germany or the apartheid laws of South Africa. His purpose, he states, is not to try to set up a moral competition - to compare castration and apartheid as offenses against humanity."

Legal disabilities and dispensations of slaves

A 19th-century engraving depicting an Arab slave-trading caravan transporting black African slaves across the Sahara. This aspect of the slave trade developed from Islamic conquests of North Africa in the 7th and 8th centuries, continuing to grow until the 15th century, and peaking in the mid-19th century.

With respect to those enslaved under Islam, Levy states that:

'Morally as well as physically the slave is regarded in law as an inferior being.'

Among the legal disabilities affecting slaves at various times in their lives and reflecting that inferior status are:

• female slaves, unlike other household servants, must submit to concubinage with their master unless they have been married subsequent to their enslavement
• they were excluded from religious office of from any office involving jurisdiction over others
• in what might be called civil matters, the slave was a chattel with no legal powers or rights whatsoever
• they may not inherit property, even if they are freed upon their owner's death
• their evidence is generally rejected in a court of law
• they cannot hold property and must hand over to their owner any they may acquire
• except as their master's agent they may not carry on trade or business
• slaves may lawfully killed in vengeance (talio) if their master or their master's kinfolk kill the slave of another person
• except in the Hanafi madhhab, slaves may be killed for killing other slaves but no free person may be killed for killing a slave. If they are killed by a free man, the killer is only liable to at the time of the death not to pay their owner their sale value and not full blood-money compensation. Thus, their owners may kill them with impunity.
• they are not permitted marriage without their owner's consent. A master cannot be compelled to give his/her consent to his/her slave's marriage. By the view of some madh'hab (but not others), a master may compel his/her slave(s) to marriage and determine the identity of their marriage partner(s)
• the mahr that is given for marriage to a female slave is taken by her owner, whereas all other women possess it absolutely for themselves
• the property of slaves is owned by the master unless the master has granted the terms of a mukataba, which allowed the slave to earn money to purchase his or her freedom and similarly to pay bride wealth.
• under the Hanafi and Shafi'i schools of jurisprudence male slaves could marry two wives, but the Maliki permit them to marry four wives like the free men. According to the Islamic law, a male slave could marry a free woman but this was discouraged in practice.

In certain legal punishments, a slave would be entitled to half the penalty required upon a freeman. For example: where a free man would be subject to a hundred lashes due to pre-marital relations, a slave would be subject to only fifty. Other cases however, as with theft or apostasy, require the same punishment upon the slave as the free man, as long as the necessary conditions for such punishments are fulfilled.

Manumission

The Qur'an and the hadith, the primary Islamic texts, make it a praiseworthy act for masters to set their slaves free. There are numerous ways in which a slave may become free. One way is through expiation for certain sins committed by the master, such as involuntary manslaughter or perjury. Other ways include emancipation through becoming an umm walad, who is freed upon her master's death along with her children, or an independent act of piety by the master, as recommended by the Qur'an. It is also commendable to manumit a slave who demands his freedom and is considered worthy of it. Another method is the mukataba contract: Levy states that "the slave may redeem himself if his master agrees and contracts to let him go on payment of a stipulated sum of money, which may be paid in two or more instalments, or on the giving of stipulated services or other consideration. If the consideration is a sum of money, the master must grant the slave the right to earn and to own property."

If the master makes a declaration of the slave's freedom, whether in jest or earnest, in the presence of the slave or another, then such a declaration becomes legally binding. Similarly, the master may promise manumission (verbally or in writing) that the slave is to be freed upon his (i.e. the master's) death. Lastly, a slave is also freed automatically if he comes into the possession of a master who is directly related to him.

History of slavery under Muslim rule

Reasons for low natural increase in the internal slave population

Harem pool with black eunuch slave. 19th century painting. Black slaves serving harems were desirably castrated 'level with the abdomen'.

According to Bernard Lewis, the growth of slave populations through natural increase appears to have been insufficient to maintain numbers right through to modern times, which contrasts markedly with rapidly rising slave populations in the New World. He suggests that the main factor was the liberation of slaves as an act of piety, but mostly by a freeman's liberation of his own offspring born by a slave mother. Other factors Lewis describes for the low natural increase of slave populations in the 'Islamic world' include:

1. Castration: A fair proportion of male slaves were imported as eunuchs.
2. Liberation of military slaves: Military slaves that rose through the ranks were usually liberated at some stage in their careers.
3. Restrictions on procreation: Among the menial, domestic, and manual worker slaves, casual mating was not permitted and marriage was not encouraged.
4. High death toll: There was a high death toll among all classes of slaves including great military commanders. Slaves usually came from remote places and, lacking immunities, died in large numbers. As late as the nineteenth century, Western travellers in North Africa and Egypt noted the high death rate among imported black slaves.

Segal notes that recent slaves, weakened by their initial captivity and debilitating journey, would have been easy victim to climate changes and infection. Children were especially at risk, and the Islamic market demand for children was much greater than the American one. Many blacks, both slave and free, lived in conditions conducive to malnutrition and disease, with effects on their own life expectancy, the fertility of women, and the infant mortality rate.

Long-term consequences of Muhammad's prescriptions on slavery

Bernard Lewis writes: "In one of the sad paradoxes of human history, it was the humanitarian reforms brought by Islam that resulted in a vast development of the slave trade inside, and still more outside, the Islamic empire." He notes that the Islamic injunctions against the enslavement of Muslims led to massive importation of slaves from the outside. Murray Gordon concurs: "Muhammad took pains in urging the faithful to free their slaves as a way of expiating their sins. Some Muslim scholars have taken this mean that his true motive was to bring about a gradual elimination of slavery. Far more persuasive is the argument that by lending the moral authority of Islam to slavery, Muhammad assured its legitimacy. Thus, in lightening the fetter, he riveted it ever more firmly in place." According to Patrick Manning, Islam by recognizing and codifying the slavery seems to have done more to protect and expand slavery than the reverse.

Oriental slave trade

13th century slave market in the Yemen

Main article: Arab slave trade

The 'Oriental' or 'Arab' slave trade is sometimes called the 'Islamic' slave trade, but religion was hardly the point of the slavery, Patrick Manning, a professor of World History, states. Also, this term suggests comparison between Islamic slave trade and Christian slave trade. Furthermore, usage of the terms "Islamic trade" or "Islamic world" implicitly and erroneously treats Africa as it were outside of Islam, or a negligible portion of the Islamic world.

The author Ronald Segal distiguishes the Islamic slave trade from that of the Atlantic or European slave trade by highlighting the aspects of its duration and its accent upon the subjugation of women: "It began in the middle of the seventh century and survives today in Mauritania and Sudan. With the Islamic slave trade, we're talking of 14 centuries rather than four." Further, "whereas the gender ratio of slaves in the Atlantic trade was two males to every female, in the Islamic trade, it was two females to every male."

In the 8th century Africa was dominated by Arab-Berbers in the north: Islam moved southwards along the Nile and along the desert trails. The Solomonic dynasty of Ethiopia often exported Nilotic slaves from their western borderland provinces, or from newly conquered or reconquered Muslim provinces. Native Muslim Ethiopian sultanates (rulership) exported slaves as well, such as the sometimes independent sultanate (rulership) of Adal (a sixteenth century province-cum-rulership located in East Africa north of Northwestern Somalia). Between 1530 and 1780 there were almost certainly 1 million and quite possibly as many as 1.25 million white, European Christians enslaved by the Muslims of the Barbary Coast. On the coast of the Indian Ocean too, slave-trading posts were set up by Arabs and Persians. The archipelago of Zanzibar, along the coast of present-day Tanzania, is undoubtedly the most notorious example of these trading colonies. East Africa and the Indian Ocean continued as an important region for the Oriental slave trade up until the 19th century. Livingstone and Stanley were then the first Europeans to penetrate to the interior of the Congo basin and to discover the scale of slavery there. The Arab Tippu Tib extended his influence and made many people slaves. After Europeans had settled in the Gulf of Guinea, the trans-Saharan slave trade became less important. In Zanzibar, slavery was abolished late, in 1897, under Sultan Hamoud bin Mohammed. The rest of Africa had no direct contact with Muslim slave-traders.

Roles filled by slaves

A system of plantation labor, much like that which would emerge in the Americas, developed early on, but with such dire consequences that subsequent engagements were relatively rare and reduced. Moreover, the need for agricultural labor, in an Islam with large peasant populations, was nowhere near as acute as in the Americas. Slaves in Islam were mainly directed at the service sector - concubines and cooks, porters and soldiers - with slavery itself primarily a form of consumption rather than a factor of production. The most telling evidence this is found in the gender ratio; among black slaves traded in Islam across the centuries, there were roughly two females to every male.

Almost all female slaves had domestic occupations. This included the gratification of the master's sexual impulses. This was a lawful motive for their purchase, and the most common one.

In recruiting barbarians from the "martial races" beyond the frontiers into their imperial armies, the Arabs were doing what the Romans and the Chinese had done centuries before them. In the scale of this recruitment, however, and the preponderant role acquired by these recruits in the imperial and eventually metropolitan forces, Muslim rulers went far beyond any precedent. It was not until the medieval Islamic state that we find military slaves in significant numbers, forming a substantial and eventually predominant component in their armies.

19th century and post 19th century

Bishop Samuel Adjai Crowther of Nigeria (c. 1807 - 1891). He was captured by Islamic Fulani slave raiders at the age of 14 and emancipated by the intervention of the British Navy. He converted to Christianity and was later ordained as the first African bishop of the Anglican Church.

Slavery in Muslim lands was influenced by the revolution against slavery in 19th century in England and later in other Western countries which gave rise to a strong abolitionist movement in Europe. Contrasting with ancient and colonial systems, slaves in Muslim lands had a certain legal status and had obligations to as well as rights over the slave owner. Slavery was not only recognized but was elaborately regulated by Sharia law. Although emancipation of slaves was recommended, it was not compulsory. Lewis elucidates that it was for this reason that

"the position of the domestic slave in Muslim society was in most respects better than in either classical antiquity or the nineteenth-century Americas"

and that the situation of such slaves were no worse than (and even in some cases better than) free poors.

Ironically, the enlightened incentives and opportunities for slaves to be emancipated meant there was a strong market for new slaves and thus strong incentive to enslave and sell human beings. The processes of acquisition and transportation of slaves to Muslim lands often imposed appalling hardships, though "once the slaves were settled in Islamic culture they had genuine opportunities to realize their potential. Many of them became merchants in Mecca, Jedda, and elsewhere." The hardships of acquisition and transportation of slaves to Muslim lands drew attention of European opponents of slavery. The continuing pressure from European countries eventually overcame the strong resistance of religious conservatives who were holding that forbidding what God permits is just as great an offence as to permit what God forbids. Slavery, in their eyes, was "authorized and regulated by the holy law". Even masters persuaded of their own piety and benevolence sexually exploited their concubines, without a thought of whether this constituted a violation of their humanity. There were also many pious Muslims who refused to have slaves and persuaded others to do so. Eventually, the Ottoman Empire's orders against the traffic of slaves were issued and put into effect.

Slavery in the forms of carpetweavers, sugarcane cutters, camel jockeys, sex slaves, and even chattel exists even today in some Muslim and non-Muslim countries (Some have questioned the use of the term slavery as an accurate description).

Twentieth Century suppression and outlawry

See also: Abolitionism § National_abolition_dates

Hamoud bin Mohammed, Sultan of Zanzibar from 1896 to 1902. He complied with British demands that slavery be banned in Zanzibar and that all the slaves be freed. For this he was decorated by Queen Victoria and his son and heir, Ali bin Hamud, was brought to England to be educated.

Gordon writes: "Unlike Western societies which in their opposition to slavery spawned anti-slavery movements whose numbers and enthusiasm often grew out of church groups, no such grass-roots organizations ever developed in Muslim societies ... In Muslim politics, the state unquestioningly accepted the teachings of Islam and applied them as law. And lest it be lost sight of, Islam, by sanctioning slavery, however mild a form it generally took, also extended legitimacy to the nefarious traffic in slaves.

Writing about 1862 the English traveller W.G. Palgrave says that in Arabia he constantly met with negro slaves in large numbers. The effects of concubinage were apparent in the number of persons of mixed race and the emancipation of slaves he found to be common. Doughty, writing about 25 years later, made similar reports.

Slavery was common in the East Indies until the end of the 19th Century. In Singapore in 1891 there was a regular trade in Chinese slaves by muslim slaveowners, with girls and women used for concubinage.

At Istanbul, the sale of women slaves, both negresses and Circassians continued to be openly practised until the granting of the Constitution in 1908.

Emir Faisal I at Versailles in 1919. His slave (unnamed) is pictured at top right. Faisal served as King of Iraq from 1921 to 1933

It was in the early 20th century (post World War I) that slavery gradually became outlawed and suppressed in Muslim lands, largely due to pressure exerted by Western nations such as Britain and France.

In 1925 slaves were still being bought and sold at Mecca in the ordinary way of trade. The slave market there consisted of the offspring of local slaves as well as those imported from the Yemen, Africa, and Asia Minor.

By the Treaty of Jedda, May 1927 (art.7), concluded between the British Government and Ibn Sa'ud (King of Nejd and the Hijaz) it was finally agreed to suppress the slave trade in Saudi Arabia. Then by a decree issued in 1936 the importation of slaves into Saudi Arabia was prohibited unless it could be proved that they were slaves at that date. It was not until 1962 that all slavery practice or trafficking in Saudi Arabia was prohibited.

Writing in 1969, Levy noted: 'Most Muslim states have abolished slavery, but it still flourishes in some of the Arabian Peninsular States such as Saudi Arabia, the Yemen and Oman though it has been abolished in Kuwait and Qatar. He also described that 'it [slavery] exists today in the deserts of Iraq bordering on Arabia'.

Slavery was not formally abolished in Yemen and Oman until the year 1970.

The last nation to formally enact the abolition of slavery practice and slave trafficking, was the Islamic Republic of Mauritania in 1981 although it still exists there de facto.

Gordon writes on the lack of homegrown Islamic abolition movements:

That slavery persisted as long as it did in the Muslim world – it was only abolished in Saudi Arabia in 1962 and as late as 1981 in Mauritania – owed much to the fact that it was deeply anchored in Islamic law. By legitimizing slavery and, by extension, the sordid traffic in slaves (for which there was no legal sanction), Islam elevated these practices to an unassailable moral plain. As a result, in no part of the Muslim world was an ideological challenge ever mounted against slavery. The political and social system in Muslim society would have taken a dim view of such a challenge.

Slavery in the contemporary Muslim world

The issue of slavery in the Islamic world in modern times is controversial. Critics argue there is hard evidence of its existence and destructive effects. Others maintain slavery in central Islamic lands has been virtually extinct since mid-twentieth century, and that reports from Sudan and Somalia showing practice of slavery is in border areas as a result of continuing war not Islamic belief.

Salafi juridical support for slavery

In recent years, according to some scholars, there has been a "reopening" of the issue of slavery by some conservative Salafi Islamic scholars after it's "closing" earlier in the 20th century when Muslim countries banned slavery and "most Muslim scholars" found the practice "inconsistent with Qur'anic morality."

In 2003 a high-level Saudi jurist, Shaykh Saleh al-Fawzan, issued a fatwa claiming “Slavery is a part of Islam. Slavery is part of jihad, and jihad will remain as long there is Islam.” He attacked Muslim scholars who said otherwise maintaining, “They are ignorant, not scholars ... They are merely writers. Whoever says such things is an infidel.” At the time of the fatwa, Al-Fawzan was a member of the Senior Council of Clerics, Saudi Arabia’s highest religious body, a member of the Council of Religious Edicts and Research, the Imam of Prince Mitaeb Mosque in Riyadh, and a professor at Imam Mohamed Bin Saud Islamic University, the main Wahhabi center of learning in the country. [2]

According to multiple sources, religious calls have also been made to capture and enslave Jewish women. "It is hard to imagine a serious person calling for America to enslave its enemies. Yet a prominent Saudi cleric, Shaikh Saad Al-Buraik, recently urged Palestinians to do exactly that with Jews: 'Their women are yours to take, legitimately. God made them yours. Why don't you enslave their women?'" [3]

Saudi Arabia

While slavery is illegal in Saudi Arabia despite Shaykh al-Fawzan's fatwa, the proclamation carries wieght among many Salafi Muslims. According to reformist jurist and author Khaled Abou El Fadl, it "is particularly disturbing and dangerous because it effectively legitimates the trafficking in and sexual exploitation of so-called domestic workers in the Gulf region and especially Saudi Arabia." Despite statements to the contrary by its government child slavery is still sanctioned in Saudi Arabian society.

According to the U.S. State Department:

Saudi Arabia is a destination for men and women from South and East Asia and East Africa trafficked for the purpose of labor exploitation, and for children from Yemen, Afghanistan, and Africa trafficking for forced begging. Hundreds of thousands of low-skilled workers from India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia, and Kenya migrate voluntarily to Saudi Arabia; some fall into conditions of involuntary servitude, suffering from physical and sexual abuse, non-payment or delayed payment of wages, the withholding of travel documents, restrictions on their freedom of movement and non-consensual contract alterations. The Government of Saudi Arabia does not comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking and is not making significant efforts to do so. [4]

Africa

According to Dr. Kwaku Person-Lynn, "The saddest and most painful reality of this situation is, that same slave trading is occurring today, still in the name of Islam. It is primarily happening in the countries of Mauritania, located in northwest Afrika, and Sudan, in northeast Afrika" and "if we assess what we have before us, this only leaves us to conclude that this is a horrendous misuse of Islam." [5]

Speaking of Sudan under modern Islamic rule and the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, the author Ronald Segal describes that:

"The resurgence of fundamentalist Islam has a lot to do with slavery in both countries. Both describe themselves as Islamic states and pursue policies of Arab-Islamic religious law, but they are essentially exercises in the maintenance of control ... Also, it is partly a reaction to the power differentials in the world at large. Islam was a civilization that for hundreds of years was arguably the central civilization of the world and certainly dwarfed the cultures and powers of a West that is now unquestionably supreme. So there is a sense of humiliation. In such a situation you get a backlash ... a re-Islamization. There's nothing in the Koran that says someone can come along and free your slave."

Sudan

File:FrancisBok.jpg

Francis Bok, author and escaped former Sudanese slave. At the age of seven, he was captured and enslaved during a raid in Southern Sudan. For ten years he was slave to a family that called him "abeed" (black slave). In that time he states that he was neglected and abused, given an Arab name and forced to perform Islamic prayers.(Courtesy Unitarian Universalist Association/Jeanette Leardi)

Main article: Slavery in Sudan

There has been a recrudescence of of jihad slavery since 1983 in the Sudan.

Slavery in the Sudan predates Islam, but continued under Islamic rulers. Though it never completely died out in Sudan. According to CBS news, slaves have been sold for $50 apiece. [6] In 2001 CNN reported the Bush administration under pressure to take action, as conservative Christians in the United States Congress concerned about slavery and religious oppression in Sudan, advocated non-lethal aid to the opposition forces.

CNN has also quoted the U.S. State Department's allegations: "The [Sudanese] government's support of slavery and its continued military action which has resulted in numerous deaths are due in part to the victims' religious beliefs." [7]

In the Sudan, Christian captives in the ongoing civil war are often enslaved, and female prisoners are often used sexually, with their Muslim captors claiming that Islamic law grants them permission.

Chad

IRIN (Integrated Regional Information Networks) of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports children being sold to Arab herdsmen in Chad. As part of a new identity imposed on them the herdsman "...change their name, forbid them to speak in their native dialect, ban them from conversing with people from their own ethnic group and make them adopt Islam as their religion."

Mauritania

Slavery began in Mauritania around 1000 A.D., when the Arab and Berber tribes sought to Islamize the Africans. When the Africans resisted, they were enslaved. A system exists now by which Arab Muslims -- the bidanes -- own black slaves, the haratines. Malouma Messoud, a former muslim slave has explained about her enslavement to a religious leader:

"We didn't learn this history in school; we simply grew up within this social hierarchy and lived it. Slaves believe that if they do not obey their masters, they will not go to paradise. They are raised in a social and religious system that everyday reinforces this idea."

In the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, despite slave ownership having been made punishable by law in 1981, hereditary slavery continues, moreover, as claimed by the representatives of interested organisations such as Amnesty International:

"Not only has the government denied the existence of slavery and failed to respond to cases brought to its attention, it has hampered the activities of organisations which are working on the issue, including by refusing to grant them official recognition".

Imam El Hassan Ould Benyamin of Tayarat in 1997 expressed his views about earlier proclamations ending slavery in his country as follows:

"[it] is contrary to the teachings of the fundamental text of Islamic law, the Quran ... [and] amounts to the expropriation from muslims of their goods; goods that were acquired legally. The state, if it is Islamic, does not have the right to seize my house, my wife or my slave.

An estimated 90,000 black Mauritanians remaining essentially enslaved to Arab/Berber owners.

Disputation about the plight of slaves and government denials

According to Seyyed Nasr, professor of Islamic studies at George Washington University:

If some write today that slavery is still practiced here and there, as in the Sudan or some other African lands, it is more like the slavery of sweatshops in China or the West today. In neither case is it a prevalent practice, nor are such practices condoned by religious authorities. -Seyyed Nasr, The Heart of Islam: Enduring Values for Humanity

Jok Madut Jok, professor of History at Loyola Marymount University, states that the abduction of women and children of the black south by Arab north is slavery by any definition. The government of Sudan insists that the whole matter is no more than the traditional tribal feuding over resources.

Diplomatic spokesmen for the Republic of Sudan have denied that there is slavery in their country, and asserted that slave redemption programs are fraudulent attempts to make money. According to a June 2003 press release of the Embassy of Sudan in the United States of America, there are documented instances of people, who were not slaves, being gathered together and instructed to pretend they were being released from slavery.

Islamist opinions

Syed Qutb

Syed Qutb, the most renowned scholar of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood said in his (Tafsir) of the Quran

"And concerning slavery, that was when slavery was a world-wide structure and which was conducted amongst Muslims and their enemies in the form of enslaving of prisoners of war. And it was necessary for Islam to adopt a similar line of practise until the world devised a new code of practise during war other than enslavement"

Qutb's brother Muhammad Qutb contrasted sexual relations between Muslim slaveowners and their female slaves with the, in his view, depraved practice of casual consensual sex in contemporary Europe:

Islam made it lawful for a master to have a number of slave-women captured in wars and enjoined that he alone may have sexual relations with them ... Europe abhors this law but at the same gladly allows that most odious form of animalism according to which a man may have illicit relations with any girl coming across him on his way to gratify his animal passions

Taqiuddin Al Nabhani.

Shiekh Taqiuddin al-Nabhani of Hizb ut-Tahrir, a shariah judge accredited by Al-Azhar University, gives the following explanation:

When Islam came, for the situations where people were taken into slavery (e.g. debt), Islam imposed Shari’ah solutions to those situations other than slavery. For example Islam clarified in relation to the bankrupt debtor that the creditor should wait until a time of ease for the debtor to pay. The Supreme (Allah) said in the Quran: "And if he is one in difficulty then waiting to a time of ease"'....It (Islam) made the existing slave and owner form a business contract, based upon the freedom , not upon slavery...It forbade the enslaving of free people with a comprehensive prohibition ... So Allah will deal with the seller of the free person. As for the situation of war, Islam prevented the enslaving of captives or prisoners of war absolutely. In the second year of the Hijrah, it clarified the rule of the captive in that either they are favoured by releasing without any exchange, or they are ransomed for money or exchanged for Muslims or non-muslim citizens of the Caliphate.

File:SKHFDL4.jpg

Fadhlallah Haeri

Shaykh Fadhlalla Haeri of Karbala expressed the view in 1993 that the enforcement of servitude can occur but is restricted to war captives and those born of slaves.

Dr. Abdul-Latif Mushtahari, the general supervisor and director of homiletics and guidance at the Azhar University, has said on the subject of justifications for Islamic permission of slavery:

"Islam does not prohibit slavery but retains it for two reasons. The first reason is war (whether it is a civil war or a foreign war in which the captive is either killed or enslaved) provided that the war is not between Muslims against each other - it is not acceptable to enslave the violators, or the offenders, if they are Muslims. Only non-Muslim captives may be enslaved or killed. The second reason is the sexual propagation of slaves which would generate more slaves for their owner."

Professor William Clarence-Smith of the University of London describes the 'worrying trend' of fundamentalists or literalists who have called for the reinstatement of slavery as an integral part of the shari'a in an Islamic state. He describes the 'dogged refusal of Mawlana Mawdudi to give up on slavery' and the notable 'evasions and silences of Muhammad Qutb' as unhelpful in the regard of promoting slavery abolition. He also names contesting (anti-slavery) rationalists from Pakistan and Indonesia.

References

General

• Al-Hibri, Azizah Y. (2003). "An Islamic Perspective on Domestic Violence". 27 Fordham International Law Journal 195.
• P.J. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W.P. Heinrichs (ed.). "Abd". Encyclopaedia of Islam Online. Brill Academic Publishers. ISSN 1573-3912.{{cite encyclopedia}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link)
• Bloom, Jonathan; Blair, Sheila (2002). Islam: A Thousand Years of Faith and Power. Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-09422-1.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Clarence-Smith, Willian Gervase (2006). Islam and the Abolition of Slavery. Oxford University Press.
• Esposito, John (1998). Islam: The Straight Path. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-511233-4. - First Edition 1991; Expanded Edition : 1992.
• Javed Ahmed Ghamidi (2001). Mizan. Lahore: Al-Mawrid. OCLC 52901690.
• Gordon, Murray (1987). Slavery in the Arab World. New York: New Amsterdam Press.
• Hasan, Yusuf Fadl; Gray, Richard (2002). Religion and Conflict in Sudan. Nairobi: Paulines Publications Africa. ISBN 9966-21-831-9.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Ed.: Holt, P. M ; Lambton, Ann; Lewis, Bernard (1977). The Cambridge History of Islam. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-29137-2.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Ingrams, W. H. (1967). Zanzibar. UK: Routledge. ISBN 0-7146-1102-6.
• Jok, Madut Jok (2001). War and Slavery in Sudan. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 0-8122-1762-4.
• Juynboll (1910). Handbuch des Islamischen Gesetzes. Leyden.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Khalil bin Ishaq. Mukhtasar tr.Guidi and Santillana (Milan, 1919).
• Levy, Reuben (1969). The Social Structure of Islam. UK: Cambridge Univerisity Press.
• Lewis, Bernard (1990). Race and Slavery in the Middle East. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-505326-5.
• Lovejoy, Paul E. (2000). Transformations in Slavery. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-78430-1.
• Manning, Patrick (1990). Slavery and African Life: Occidental, Oriental, and African Slave Trades. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-34867-6.
• Mendelsohn, Isaac (1949). Slavery in the Ancient Near East. New York: Oxford University Press. OCLC 67564625.
• Nasr, Seyyed (2002). The Heart of Islam: Enduring Values for Humanity. US: HarperSanFrancisco. ISBN 0-06-009924-0.
• Pankhurst, Richard (1997). The Ethiopian Borderlands: Essays in Regional History from Ancient Times to the End of the 18th Century. The Red Sea Press. ISBN 0-932415-19-9.
• Sachau (1897). Muhammedanisches Recht [cited extensively in Levy,R 'Social Structure of Islam']. Berlin, Germany. {{cite book}}: Text "Berlin" ignored (help)CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Schimmel, Annemarie (1992). Islam: An Introduction. US: SUNY Press. ISBN 0-7914-1327-6.
• Segal, Ronald (2001). Islam's Black Slaves: The Other Black Diaspora. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
• Sikainga, Ahmad A. (1996). Slaves Into Workers: Emancipation and Labor in Colonial Sudan. University of Texas Press. ISBN 0-292-77694-2.
• Tucker, Judith E.; Nashat, Guity (1999). Women in the Middle East and North Africa. Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-21264-2.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Ahmad A. Sikainga, Shari'a Courts and the Manumission of Female Slaves in the Sudan 1898-1939,

The International Journal of African Historical Studies > Vol. 28, No. 1 (1995), pp. 1-24

See also

• Christianity and Slavery
• Criticism of the Qur'an
• Ma malakat aymanukum
• Muhammad's slaves
• Slavery and religion
• Slaves freed by Abu Bakr

External links

• Race and Slavery in the Middle East by Bernard Lewis
• BBC Domentary, Religion and Ethics - Islam and Slavery
• 'My Career Redeeming Slaves' by John Eibner, Middle East Quarterly, December 1999