Slavery

Assalamun Alaikum,

There are historical, social and psychological dimensions to this question, which we must
work through patiently, if we are to arrive at a satisfactory answer.
First of all, it is useful to recall why the institution of slavery is thought of or remembered
with such revulsion. Images of the brutal treatment of slaves, especially in ancient Rome and
Egypt, provokes sorrow and deep disgust. That is why even after so many centuries, our conception
of slaves is of men and women carrying stones to the pyramids and being used up in the
building process like mortar, or fighting wild animals in public arenas for the amusement of
their owners. We picture slaves wearing shameful yokes and chains around their necks.
Nearer modern times there is the practice of slavery on an enormous scale by the Western
European nations; the barbarity and bestiality of this trade beggars all description. The trade was principally in Africans who were transported across the oceans, packed in specially designed
ships, thought of and treated exactly like livestock. These slaves were forced to change their
names and abandon their religion and their language, were never entitled to hope for freedom,
and were kept, again like livestock, for hard labouring or for breeding purposes─a birth among
them was celebrated as if it were a death. It is difficult to understand how human beings could
conceive of fellow human beings in such a light, still less treat them thus. But it certainly
happened: there is much documentary evidence that shows, for example, how ship-masters
would throw their human cargo overboard in order to claim compensation for their loss. Slaves
had no rights in law, only obligations; their owners had absolute rights over them to dispose of
them as they wished─brothers and sisters, parents and children, would be separated or allowed
to stay together according to the owner’s mood or his economic convenience.
After centuries of this dreadful practice had made the West European nations rich from
exploitation of such commodities as sugar, cotton, coffee, they abolished slavery─they
abolished it, with much self-congratulation, first as a trade, then altogether. Yet the Muslim
regions had also known considerable prosperity through the exploitation of sugar, cotton, coffee
(these words in European languages are of Arabic origin), and achieved that prosperity without
the use of slave labour. More important, let us also note, when the Europeans abolished slavery,
it was the slave-owners who were compensated, not the slaves─in other words, the attitude to
fellow human beings which allowed such treatment of them had not changed. It was not many
years after the abolition of slavery that Africa was directly colonized by the Europeans with
consequences for the Africans no less terrible than slavery itself. Further, because the attitude to
non-Europeans has changed little, if at all, in modern times, their social and political condition
remains, even where they live amid the Europeans and their descendants as fellow-citizens, that
of despised inferiors. It is barely a couple of decades since the anthropological museums in the
great capitals of the Western countries ceased to display, for public entertainment, the bones and
stuffed bodies of their fellow human beings. And such displays were not organized by the worst
among them, but by the best─the scientists, doctors, learned men, humanitarians.
In short, it is not only the institution of slavery that causes revulsion in the human heart, it is
the attitudes of inhumanity which sustain it. And the truth is, if the institution no longer international debt have replaced colonial exploitation: only slavery has gone, its structures of
inhumanity and barbarism are still securely in place. Before we turn to the Islamic perspective
on slavery, let us recall a name famous even among Western Europeans, that of Harun al-
Rashid, and let us recall that this man who enjoyed such authority and power over all Muslims
was the son of a slave. Nor is he the only such example; slaves and their children enjoyed
enormous prestige, authority, respect and (shall we say it) freedom, within the Islamic system,
in all areas of life, cultural as well as political. How could this have come about?
Islam amended and educated the institution of slavery and the attitudes of masters to slaves.
The Qur’an taught in many verses that all human beings are descended from a single ancestor,
that none has an intrinsic right of superiority over another, whatever his race or his nation or his
social standing. And from the Prophet’s teaching, upon him be peace, the Muslims learnt these
principles, which they applied both as laws and as social norms:
Whosoever kills his slave: he shall be killed. Whosoever imprisons his slave and starves him,
he shall be imprisoned and starved himself, and whosoever castrates his slave shall himself be
castrated. (Abu Dawud, Diyat, 70; Tirmidhi, Diyat, 17; Al-Nasa’i, Qasama, 10, 16)
You are sons of Adam and Adam was created from clay. (Tirmidhi, Tafsir, 49; Manaqib, 73;
Abu Dawud, Adab, 111)
You should know that no Arab is superior over a non-Arab and, no non-Arab is superior over
any Arab, no white is superior over black and no black is superior over white. Superiority is by
righteousness and God-fearing [alone]. (Ibn Hanbal, Musnad, 411)
Because of this compassionate attitude, those who had lived their whole lives as slaves and
who are described in ahadith as poor and lowly received respect from those who enjoyed high
social status (Muslim, Birr, 138; Jannat, 48; Tirmidhi, Manaqib, 54, 65). ‘Umar was expressing
his respect in this sense when he said: ‘Master Bilal whom Master Abu Bakr set free’ (Bukhari,
Fada’il al-Sahaba, 23). Islam (unlike other civilizations) requires that slaves are thought of and
treated as within the framework of universal human brotherhood, and not as outside it. The
Prophet, upon him be peace, said:
Your servants and your slaves are your brothers. Anyone who has slaves should give them you must set them to hard work, in any case I advise you to help them. (Bukhari, Iman, 22;
Adab, 44; Muslim, Iman, 38–40; Abu Dawud, Adab, 124)
Not one of you should [when introducing someone] say ‘This is my slave’, ‘This is my
concubine’. He should call them ‘my daughter’ or ‘my son’ or ‘my brother’.
(Ibn Hanbal, Musnad, 2, 4)
For this reason ‘Umar and his servant took it in turns to ride on the camel from Madina to
Jerusalem on their journey to take control of Masjid al-Aqsa. While he was the head of the state,
‘Uthman had his servant pull his own ears in front of the people since he had pulled his. Abu
Dharr, applying the hadith literally, made his servant wear one half of his suit while he himself
wore the other half. From these instances, it was being demonstrated to succeeding generations
of Muslims, and a pattern of conduct established, that a slave is fully a human being, not
different from other people in his need for respect and dignity and justice.
This constructive and positive treatment necessarily had a consequence on the attitudes of
slaves to their masters. The slave as slave still retained his humanity and moral dignity and a
place beside other members of his master’s family. When (we shall explain how below) he
obtained his freedom, he did not necessarily want to leave his former master. Starting with Zaid
bin Harith, this practice became quite common. Although our Prophet, upon him be peace, had
given Zayd his freedom and left him a free choice, Zayd preferred to stay with him. Masters and
slaves were able to regard each other as brothers because their faith enabled them to understand
that the worldly differences between people are a transient situation─a situation justifying
neither haughtiness on the part of some, nor rancour on the part of others. There were, in
addition, strict principles enforced as law:
Whosoever kills his slave, he shall be killed, whosoever imprisons his slave and starves him,
he shall be imprisoned and starved himself. (Tirmidhi, al-Ayman wa l-Nudhur, 13)
Beside such sanctions which made the master behave with care, the slave also enjoyed the
legal right to earn money and hold property independently of his master, the right to keep his
religion and to have a family and family life with the attendant rights and obligations. As well as
personal dignity and a degree of material security, the Islamic laws and norms allowed the slave a still more precious opening─the hope and means of freedom.

By M Fethullah Gulen