This article is aimed to answer some of the objections raised by Non-Muslims on the issue of slavery in Islam. A lot of books have been written on this topic, and if one is interested, one should read those books so as to get the complete picture. I have only attempted to discuss this topic briefly, but hopefully this should suffice for those who are genuinely seeking the answers to the objections raised against Islam.
First thing one must understand is that Prophet (peace be upon him) did not start slavery. This system was in place centuries before Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) was even born.
The next thing to keep in mind is that Shariah abolished all systems of slavery except one. Before the advent of Islamic Law, free men and women were captured and forcibly sold as slaves. Islam removed this tyranny and Prophet (peace be upon him) cursed those who sold a free person as a slave. Islam has clearly and categorically forbidden the primitive practice of capturing a person, and to make him or her as a slave or to sell that person into slavery. On this point the clear and unequivocal words of the Prophet (peace be upon him) are as follow:
"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 devours this money" (al-Bukhari and Ibn Majah).
The only thing which Shariah did not eradicate about slavery was the issue of prisoners of war. The question was what should be done with the male and female prisoners of war who were captured.
These prisoners of war were retained by the Muslim Government until their government agreed to receive them back in exchange for Muslim soldiers captured by them, or arranged the payment of ransom on their behalf. If the soldiers they captured were not exchanged with Muslim prisoners of war, or their people did not pay their ransom money to purchase their liberty, then the Muslim Government used to distribute them among the soldiers of the army which had captured them. This was a more humane and proper way of disposing of them than retaining them like cattle in concentration camps and taking forced labour from them and, if their women folk were also captured, setting them aside for prostitution. In place of such a cruel and outrageous way of disposing of the prisoners of war, Islam preferred to spread them in the population, and thus brought them in contact with individual human beings. Over and above, their guardians were ordered to treat them well.
The result of this humane policy was that most of the men who were captured on foreign battlefields and brought to the Muslim countries as slaves embraced Islam and their descendants produced great scholars, imams, jurists, commentators, statesmen and generals of the army. So much so that later on they became the rulers of the Muslim world.
The solution of this problem which has been proposed in the present age is that after the cessation of hostilities the prisoners of war of the combatant countries should be exchanged. Whereas Muslims have been practicing it from the very beginning and whenever the adversary accepted the exchange of prisoners of war from both sides, it was implemented without the least hesitation or delay.
In modern warfare we also find that if one government is completely routed leaving her in no position of bargaining for the prisoners of war and the winning party gets its prisoners easily, then experience has shown that the prisoners of war of the vanquished army are kept in conditions which are much worse than the conditions of slaves.
Can anyone tell me what has been the fate of the thousands of prisoners of war captured by Russia from the defeated armies of Germany and Japan in the Second World War? No one has given their account so far. No one knows how many thousands of them are still alive and how many thousands of them have perished due to the hardship of the Russian concentration and labour camps.
The forced labour which has been taken from them is much worse than the service one can exact from slaves. Even perhaps in the times of ancient Pharaohs of Egypt such harsh labour might not have been exacted from the slaves in building the pyramids of Egypt, as has been exacted from the prisoners of war in Russia in developing Siberia and other backward areas of Russia, or working in coal and other mines in below zero temperatures, ill-clad, ill-fed and brutally treated by their supervisors.
The Europeans take great pride in claiming that they abolished slavery from the world, though they had the decency to do so only in the middle of the second last century. Before this, these Western powers had been raiding Africa on a very large scale, capturing their free men and women, putting them in bondage and transporting them to their new colonies. The treatment which they have meted out to these unfortunate people has been worse than the treatment given to animals. The books written by the Western writers themselves bear testimony to this fact.
After the occupation of America and the West Indies, for three hundred and fifty years, traffic in slave trade continued. The African coasts where the black-skinned captured Africans were brought from the interior of Africa and put on the ships sailing out from those ports, came to be known as the Slave Coast.
Only in one century (from 1680 to 1786) the total number of free people who were captured and enslaved only for British Colonies amounts, according to the estimate of British authors, to 20 million human beings. Over the period of only one year (1790) we are told that 75,000 human beings were captured and sent for slave labour in the Colonies. The ships which were used for transporting the slaves were small and dirty. These unfortunate Africans were thrust into the holds of these ships like cattle right up to the top and many of them were chained to the wooden shelves on which they could hardly move because these were only eighteen inches apart, kept one on top of the other. They were not provided with suitable food, and if they fell ill or were injured, no attempt was made to provide them with medical treatment.
The Western writers themselves state that at least 20% of the total number of people who were captured for slavery and forced labour perished during their transportation from the African coast to America. It has also been estimated that the total number of people who were captured for slavery by the various European nations during the heyday of the slave trade comes to at least one hundred million. This is the record of the people who denounce Muslims day and night for recognising the institution of slavery. It is as if a criminal is holding his finger of blame towards an innocent man.
If you read the Christian and Jewish history until the 18th century, you will find that whenever they got dominance they used to kill civilians and the prisoners captured. They did not recognise the skills of a particular person i.e. whether he was a scholar, engineer, doctor etc. and how these skills benefit the humanity; in addition, they did not consider if a woman was a mother and has young children or she has got other responsibilities. All these factors were ignored and generally people captured were killed. Even in this day and age, the number of people killed by USA and Israel is far greater than by any other nation.
Islam, on the other hand, forbade the killing of those who became captives when a war was over. So if someone is not killed what should be done with that person? Should he or she be kept as prisoner? If they were incarcerated then their skills and abilities are wasted. For example, if a person is an architect then by sitting in a prison that person’s abilities would rot over a period of time. Secondly, the state would have to bear the burden of expenses for these prisoners which can get expensive overtime. Thirdly, should they be sent back: there was a great chance that these prisoners of war will use their skills against you again once they got together with their tribe or nation. This would further lead to wars and hence peace cannot be achieved.
Shariah says that you should keep them with you. If someone is illiterate, he or she should be educated and cultured. Those who are skilled should be utilised for the betterment of society. In addition, Shariah encouraged the freeing of slaves gradually. Briefly I would like to tell you about the position and nature of slavery in Islam. Islam tried to solve the problem of the slaves that were in Arabia by encouraging the people in different ways to set their slaves free. The Muslims were ordered that in expiation of some of their sins they should set their slaves free. Freeing a slave by one's own free will was declared to be an act of great merit, so much so that it was said that every limb of the man who manumits a slave will be protected from hell-fire in lieu of the limb of the slave freed by him. The companions of Prophet (peace be upon him) even bought those slaves who came in the market (who were not captured in the war [as it was common in those times]) and set them free.
The result of this policy was that by the time the period of the Rightly-Guided Caliphs was reached, all the old slaves of Arabia were liberated. The Prophet (peace be upon him) alone liberated as many as 63 slaves. The number of slaves freed by 'Aishah was 67, 'Abbas liberated 70, 'Abd Allah ibn 'Umar liberated one thousand, and 'Abd al-Rahman purchased thirty thousand and set them free (may Allah be pleased with them all). Similarly other Companions of the Prophet (peace be upon him) liberated a large number of slaves, the details of which are given in the Traditions and books of history of that period. Thus, the problem of the slaves of Arabia was solved in a short period of thirty or forty years.
Now the question arose about the females: i.e. those females who came as prisoners in war. The Shariah condemned the killing of those females. The Quran refer to them as what your right hand possesses. When the Ameer (leader) of war e.g. General of the army declared that I give that female to a particular soldier, it was equivalent to marriage (and her previous marriage was annulled). Hence, a person was allowed to have intimate relationship with that woman after a waiting period of one menstrual cycle (so as to make sure that she was not pregnant) and this was done with the woman’s consent.
What else could have been done? Rasulullah (Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam) enjoined his followers to treat the slaves kindly, gently, and, above all, to regard them as members of the family.
In this way, they were made to feel wanted; which was far better than treating them as outcasts and leaving them to wander the streets of a strange society in a peniless, destitute condition. Such treatment would have ultimately forced them to take up evil occupations such as prostitution in the case of slave woman in order to fill their hungry stomachs. The First World War in 1914 was a clear reflection of the evils involved in setting captive women free to roam about in a strange society with strange surroundings. During that war, German and English women prisoners on either side were set free to roam the streets with no one to feed them. The result was obvious that they resorted to other unrefined and uncivilised methods of income on the streets. Thus, it is evident that the Islamic treatment of women prisoners of war was conducive towards better social relations and led to the refinement of their overall social lives.
With regards to the objection that you can have unlimited number of female slaves in marriage, it must be understood that a number was not fixed in case of an emergency i.e. if there were a situation where a lot of females were captured. Generally speaking, it would not happen as the females who were captured would not outnumber the soldiers. Also, the soldiers would have to take care of them financially. Not many can afford to take care of a big number of slaves in any case. Hence, this attack on Islam that you can have as many slaves in marriage as you want is not justified.
One advantage which came out of the marriage with these women was that many people of high caliber married these women and many high quality individuals were born: Qasim bin Muhammad bin Abu Bakr, Salim bin Abdullah bin Umar, Imam Zain-ul-Aabideen are just a few examples. Lot of big scholars and Jurists were born from these women and because of this many preferred to marry a slave women rather than a free female.
When in 18th century all the nations of the world signed an agreement to end slavery, then Muslim nations were also bound by this agreement as well. The reason being that Muslims are bound by their international contracts as mentioned in Surah Taubah (chapter 9) of the Glorious Quran.
Islam is against the killing and making free people slaves by force. It is so much against slavery that Jurists have written that it is forbidden to do such actions which will cause Jinns to become your captive (which is the practice of a few even in this day and age).
Those who think that slavery of prisoners of war is tyranny have a false concept of slavery in their mind (they are probably brainwashed from USA’s treatment of black slaves). Islam gave such beautiful teachings regarding the treatment of slaves that the Islamic system of slavery reduced injustice in the world. A couple of narrations are as follow:
Abu Hurairah reported Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: "When the slave of anyone amongst you prepares food for him and he serves him after having sat close to (and undergoing the hardship of) heat and smoke, he should make him (the slave) sit along with him and make him eat (along with him), and if the food seems to run short, then he should spare some portion for him (from his own share) - (another narrator) Dawud said:" i. e. a morsel or two". 4097. (Translation of Sahih Muslim, The Book of Oaths (Kitab Al-Aiman), Book 015, Number 4096)"
Narrated Al-Ma'rur: "At Ar-Rabadha I met Abu Dhar who was wearing a cloak, and his slave, too, was wearing a similar one. I asked about the reason for it. He replied, "I abused a person by calling his mother with bad names." The Prophet said to me, 'O Abu Dhar! Did you abuse him by calling his mother with bad names You still have some characteristics of ignorance. Your slaves are your brothers and Allah has put them under your command. So whoever has a brother under his command should feed him of what he eats and dress him of what he wears. Do not ask them (slaves) to do things beyond their capacity (power) and if you do so, then help them." (Translation of Sahih Bukhari, Belief, Volume 1, Book 2, Number 29)
Well if someone objects as to why Islam did not eradicate all forms of slavery once in for all (i.e. why they kept the slavery of Prisoners intact), then I would have to remind that person (apart from the reasons mentioned above) that the world does not function in such a simple way where you can bring changes overnight. Almost every household had a slave in those times. It was not feasible to introduce a policy which would finish slavery all at once. On the contrary, Islam gave a system whereby freedom of slaves was encouraged and slowly slavery was tackled with.
If Islam would have introduced a policy to finish slavery all at once, there would have been chaos and massive resistance from almost every household. It must be understood that Prophets of Allah (may peace be upon them all) gradually change incorrect teachings in a society while they keep rest of the system in place. For example, Prophet (peace be upon him) did not change the law regarding compensation for murder (i.e. 100 camels), but he gradually abolished seven forms (out of eight) of marriage and kept only one which is practiced among the Muslims all over the world.
I hope the above mentioned explanation must have cleared some of the misconceptions spread by those who have got extreme hatred in their hearts for the religion of Islam. My humble request to those who genuinely seek answers to these misconceptions is to do thorough research before reaching a conclusion.
