The religion that gave rights to
slaves was Islam. Though slavery was not abolished by the teachings of Islam,
but believers are asked to treat their slaves well. It’s highly meritorious to
free the slave and slave can too ransom himself. A freeborn Muslim can never
become a slave; therefore slavery is to be abolished by the expansion of Islam.
The history of Islam shows many former military slaves, usually recruited from
among the Central Asian Turks, became military heads and rulers in medieval Egypt , eastern Iran
and India .
Islam has tolerated slavery but
never approved of it and all its teachings in this subject lead to suppression
of slavery. As it was impossible to completely abolish this practice because
all the states used to practice this and the idea was never challenged
anywhere. It was common practice to enslave the prisoners of war who were not
killed and abolishing this custom would have put Islamic state at a grave
disadvantage to its enemies. By ordering humane treatment ad various
possibilities of releasing themselves, it made many combatants in opposing
armies prefer captivity at the hands of Muslims to death on the battle field.
It has to be highlighted that
slavery in Muslim world can never be compared to that in other empires like the
Roman Empire . Islam teachings and legislation
provided basic right to life to all slaves in Muslim world. According to a
hadith, ‘whoever kills his slave shall be killed by us’. Thus murder of a slave
was punished like that of a free Muslim.
According to the Quran, ‘O mankind!
We created you from a single soul, male and female, and made you into nations
and tribes, so that you may come to know one another. Truly, the most honored
of you in God’s sights is the greatest of you in piety. God is All-knowing,
All-Aware’ 49:13
According to hadith of Prophet
Muhammad (P.B.U.H)
Yield obedience to my successor,
although he may be an Abyssinian slave.
He will not enter paradise who
behaves ill to his slaves. The companions said; “O Prophet of God! Have you not
told us, that there will be a great many slaves and orphans amongst your
disciples?” He said, “Yes; then be kind to them like your own children, and
give them to eat of what you eat yourselves. The slaves that say their prayers
are your brothers.”
“Your slaves are your brethren,
therefore whoever has a brother who depends upon him must feed and clothe him
in the way he feeds and clothe himself; and should impose upon him tasks which
exceed his capacity; should you ask them to do such things ;then you are
obliged to help them.” Another teaching
is: ‘Let none of you say, “This man or this woman is my slave”. He should
rather say, “This is my man and this is my woman.”’ At another occasion Prophet
Muhammad (P.B.U.H) said, “It is true that God has made you their masters, but,
had He so wished, He could equally well have made you their slaves.”
Islamic legislation provides the
method for voluntary liberation of slaves by their masters and there were many
Muslims who observed these in their lives and freed their slaves. In addition
to that, slaves had the ability to but their freedom with sums which they saved
from their work and which state mostly augmented – a measure which the slave
owners had to right to oppose. This procedure is known as mukataba.
There existed military slaves, who
were frequently employed by the princes for their personal guards, and domestic
slaves which were generally imbued with patriarchal character. Military slaves,
some of them, became founders of great and illustrious dynasties like Tulunids
and Mamlukes of Egypt. The object of a growing commercial sector, which under
the Abbasid Empire was often the specialty of non-Muslims, slavery gradually
got suppressed until, at the beginning of last century it was confined to a few
survivals which have now vanished totally. It would be very difficult to deny
that social conditions were remarkably humane during the great periods of
Muslim civilization.
Islam as a religion has been
resistant to racism and genocide. Muslims have both owned and traded in slaves
but slavery among Muslims used to be race-neutral. Slaves could be black, white
or other and so could be masters. It was totally in contrast to other slavery systems,
like white masters-black slaves concept of trans-Atlantic slave system. And the
concept that black people are less than human made possible this Atlantic slave
trade, during which perhaps 40 million people dies.
So, Islam became the first
revealed religion being followed by African slaves and they made a struggle to
uphold Islamic practices.
How Islam valued slaves and gave
them rights is evident from a historical milestone of a slave. Bilal, a black
slave freed by a companion of Prophet (P.B.U.H), was the one who offered first
call to prayer (Azaan) at the Quba mosque built by Prophet Muhammad (P.B.U.H). While the supreme court of US declared in
1857 that slave Dred Scott could not sue for his freedom because he was not a person,
but property. Among all the religions,
surely, Islam is the only religion that attacked the foundations of this evil.
