It is all right to do a little evil in order to do a greater good.

[crayon]

I wouldn't say I'd do a little evil for alot of good, I would prefer to say I do the lesser evil than the greater evil, though through this I will, insha'Allah, plan to, bring about more good than doing the greater evil.

Hmmm.. Yeah, that's a very interesting way of putting it, and it makes sense. Technically though, don't they mean the same thing?
Do you mean this in general, or for the specific scenario i explained?

 

[Whatsthepoint]

salvery abolished ascribable to pressure from the west? is this an oxymoron or what? we are talking the same west that asked a woman to take the back seat on the bus for a white man not 50 or so years ago? the same west that left us with such indelible images on our minds?

Yes, we are talking the same west. Though I'm sure back then Europe was a much better place for non-whites than the US.
The fact is that without political pressure coming from Europe, at first mostly from Britain, most muslim countries would not have abolished slavery or would have done it significantly later.

 

[Umar001]

Hmmm.. Yeah, that's a very interesting way of putting it, and it makes sense. Technically though, don't they mean the same thing?
Do you mean this in general, or for the specific scenario i explained?

Hmm I had written a reply but had problems, hmm, they don't in some ways, your statement is more general whereas mine is more specific I guess.

I dont know what specific scenario you explained. But I wouldn't do a little evil in order to perform an act which is not obligatory. I.e. I would not sell a haram sweet, inshaAllah, to spend as non obligatory charity.

But I would do something haram to do something halal, meaning, I would pick the lesser evil in some cases, for example, two bad things:

1.Touch a non mahram.
2.Let someone die.

If I am not mistaken in the Islamic field letting someone die is worse a greater evil, so I would do the lesser evil to prevent the greater evil. I would touch a sister to prevent her dying, i.e. push her out of the way of a bus, or drag her out of the sea etc.

But obviously if there is a way to avoid any evil at all then thats the best way, i.e. letting a sister rescue the sister etc.

 

[جوري]

Yes, we are talking the same west. Though I'm sure back then Europe was a much better place for non-whites than the US.
The fact is that without political pressure coming from Europe, at first mostly from Britain, most muslim countries would not have abolished slavery or would have done it significantly later.

That is more of a personal opinion than an historical fact, I am afraid...

peace

 

[Whatsthepoint]

That is more of a personal opinion than an historical fact, I am afraid...

peace

Of course it's not a historical fact, it's a theory, a very probable one though. Muslim countries were the last to abolish slavery. Before that the British and the rest of the world made tremendous effort to supress slavery and slave trade across the globe, they even signed a treaty about it with the gulf countries and there were countless other treaties and conventions. Now, I'm not saying muslim countries didn't do it on their own accord, as a sign of humanity or whatever (I doubt it though), however if it hadn't been for the west that abolished slavery a century before, they would have done it later or not have done it at all.

 

[crayon]

Al Habeshi- ahhhhh yes, I completely understand now. yeah you're right, yours is more specific..

I dont know what specific scenario you explained.

Okay, so here's the scenario in the film I had watched, let me know what you guys think should have been done.

The story is set during the crusades. The king of jerusalem is peace loving, and on good terms with Salah AlDeen. Only problem is, he has a disease, and will die in a very short amount of time. The person who will inherit the throne is his sister, sybilla. She is married to an evil, war hungry, horrible man. And then there's this other guy, Balian, your typical movie hero, a knight, honorable, honest, etc. The king asks Balian to marry his sister, so that when he dies, Balian will be king, and not the current husband. But the husband must be "gotten rid of" before he can marry the sister. Even though he is a vile person, he is still technically innocent of any crime. So what happens is either this:
1-Balian refuses, and the evil man becomes king. He breaks the truce with Salah AlDin, goes to war, and has thousands of people killed, and eventually loses jerusalem.
2-Balian accepts, the evil man is executed (this is the little evil), Balian becomes king, jerusalem stays on good terms with Salah AlDin, they work something out, there is no war, and no one is killed.

What happens in the movie (and history, of course), is the first case. If you had been Balian, what would you have done?

For me, this one is not as clear cut as others...

 

[جوري]

Of course it's not a historical fact, it's a theory, a very probable one though. QUOTE]

You'll forgive me if I don't subscribe to that theory, considering, I don't believe that slavery is totally abolished in the west.. it has just taken on a different form..

but I can agree in part that 'gulf countries' are down right execrable.. I wouldn't associate that with Islam though... even in the Quran they were described as hypocrites... I got very angry thinking of the oppression Muslims endure while the crud of humanity sits on billions, that they'd rather spend on the likes of Mariah carey and other commercial sex workers than Muslims digging in the garbage for food..

what an incredible and sad disparity!

 

[Whatsthepoint]

You'll forgive me if I don't subscribe to that theory, considering, I don't believe that slavery is totally abolished in the west.. it has just taken on a different form..

but I can agree in part that 'gulf countries' are down right execrable.. I wouldn't associate that with Islam though... even in the Quran they were described as hypocrites... I got very angry thinking of the oppression Muslims endure while the crud of humanity sits on billions, that they'd rather spend on the likes of Mariah carey and other commercial sex workers than Muslims digging in the garbage for food..

what an incredible and sad disparity!

There's still plenty of actual slavery in the world, mostly in Africa and the Middle east. And there's sex slaves all over, even in the developed countries.
Elaborate, please. (the different form slavery has taken on in the west)

 

[crayon]

There's still plenty of actual slavery in the world, mostly in Africa and the Middle east.

Um, where? I've lived in the middle east all but 5 years of my life and I've yet to even hear of a person owning a slave.

 

[Whatsthepoint]

Um, where? I've lived in the middle east all but 5 years of my life and I've yet to even hear of a person owning a slave.

Perhaps it's because people don't brag about it..

 

[crayon]

But if the quran never said slavery to be haram, in your opinion of course, why would they not talk about it? If islam says it is perfectly acceptable to have a slave in the present day, why is it taboo to discuss it?

Also, please provide some proof for your claims, thanks.

 

[Whatsthepoint]

But if the quran never said slavery to be haram, in your opinion of course, why would they not talk about it? If islam says it is perfectly acceptable to have a slave in the present day, why is it taboo to discuss it?

Also, please provide some proof for your claims, thanks.

Because it's illegal, I guess.
There's plenty of articles about it, I believe some even from respectable magazines, you can google them yourself. That's evidence, not proof though.

 

[crayon]

"Because it's illegal, I guess."

No, because it is haram.

"There's plenty of articles about it, I believe some even from respectable magazines, you can google them yourself. That's evidence, not proof though"

I did google, I found one thing about the "middle east", wasthis. About camel jockeys in the UAE that are underage, bought from their rents, etc. The article ends with this message:
"UPDATE: In late 2004/early 2005, the United Arab Emirates officially endorsed a plan to replace children used for camel jockeying with robots designed specifically for the purpose."

I also found this on the same website:
Slavery in the United States
Slavery in France
Slavery in Romania

And that's not even looking at the rest of North America, South America, Central America, Asia, and Australia. There are categories for those too. In fact, all the categories have more countries involved with slavery than the middle east, which just has the UAE, on an issue that has been resolved.

 

[Umar001]

Al Habeshi- ahhhhh yes, I completely understand now. yeah you're right, yours is more specific..





For me, this one is not as clear cut as others...

I wouldn't have killed the guy for what might happen, I dont think I can kill someone before they do wrong since they might not do wrong, Allah knows best, see this is why I'm not a scholar, (yet insha'Allah)!

I dont know. But seriously why is it bothering you?

P.s. I know they have inhouse maids in places, like in Eritrea they do, my grandad has one.

 

[Whatsthepoint]

"Because it's illegal, I guess."

No, because it is haram.

"There's plenty of articles about it, I believe some even from respectable magazines, you can google them yourself. That's evidence, not proof though"

I did google, I found one thing about the "middle east", wasthis. About camel jockeys in the UAE that are underage, bought from their rents, etc. The article ends with this message:
"UPDATE: In late 2004/early 2005, the United Arab Emirates officially endorsed a plan to replace children used for camel jockeying with robots designed specifically for the purpose."

I also found this on the same website:
Slavery in the United States
Slavery in France
Slavery in Romania

And that's not even looking at the rest of North America, South America, Central America, Asia, and Australia. There are categories for those too. In fact, all the categories have more countries involved with slavery than the middle east, which just has the UAE, on an issue that has been resolved.

Slavery is not haraam.
Ok, it seems I was mistaken. I do remember reading about it several times. I'll try to find some articles about it in the near future.

 

[AhlaamBella]

A slave in the time of the prophet SAW was a companion and a helper. Not our understanding of a slave today

 

[crayon]

You're right, it is not haram. It is, however, unacceptable to go back to owning slaves after Islam abolished the practice of slavery. Here's what islamonline has to say about it:

When Allah created human beings, He created them to be free and to be vicegerents on the earth. Slavery is something that came from people who couldn’t understand the position of the human being and it was made, in the past, as a global phenomenon.
When Islam came, it tried to bring change to get the human being back to being free, as Allah has created us, by certain procedures. Those procedures of Islam went through without interference from the other nations or states who are non-Muslim states or nations. Maybe within the third century of Hijrah or the migration of the Prophet to Madinah, this phenomenon would have been over and disappeared. But as I mentioned, because it was a global phenomenon, that procedure which was established by Islam couldn’t go through and finish with this very bad phenomenon.
Now, al-hamdulillah all people have agreed to stop this phenomenon and stand up against it. With this, there is no way to go back to adopt this phenomenon again in any way, especially for Muslims, since they must protect the freedom of others and always be with their rights to be free servants of Allah only. We should remember when the Caliph `Umar Ibn Al-Khattab (may Allah be pleased with him) said in a famous khutbah (speech or sermon) of his, “When did you make the people as slaves or servants of you while Allah, the Almighty, created them free!”
This means that the Muslims from the very beginning advocated the freedom of all human beings and were against the oppression of free people by tyrants and dictator leaders.”

Islam has clearly and categorically forbidden the primitive practice of capturing a free man, to make him a slave or to sell him into slavery. On this point the clear and unequivocal words of [Muhammad] are as follows:
"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 eats this money" (al-Bukhari and Ibn Majjah).
The words of this Tradition of the Prophet are also general, they have not been qualified or made applicable to a particular nation, race, country or followers of a particular religion.....After this the only form of slavery which was left in Islamic society was the prisoners of war, who were captured on the battlefield. 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

That was from wikipedia. So even today, unless the person was captured during battle, it is haram to own them.

 

[crayon]

I wouldn't have killed the guy for what might happen, I dont think I can kill someone before they do wrong since they might not do wrong, Allah knows best, see this is why I'm not a scholar, (yet insha'Allah)!

Someday inshAllah.

I dont know. But seriously why is it bothering you?

It's not really bothering me per-se, just that I've been thinking about it...

P.s. I know they have inhouse maids in places, like in Eritrea they do, my grandad has one.

Inhouse maids are a totally different story, they are not owned, they are employed... I know many people who have maids that stay with them. Although in some gulf countries they are treated horrible, even worse than slaves, astaghfirullah..

eeeeee.

 

[Whatsthepoint]

You're right, it is not haram. It is, however, unacceptable to go back to owning slaves after Islam abolished the practice of slavery. Here's what islamonline has to say about it:

Islam did not abolish slavery, certain islamic states and empires did, some as recently as 20 years ago. and it's still practiced in some islamic parts of the world, not in the middle east though...

When Allah created human beings, He created them to be free and to be vicegerents on the earth. Slavery is something that came from people who couldn’t understand the position of the human being and it was made, in the past, as a global phenomenon.
When Islam came, it tried to bring change to get the human being back to being free, as Allah has created us, by certain procedures. Those procedures of Islam went through without interference from the other nations or states who are non-Muslim states or nations. Maybe within the third century of Hijrah or the migration of the Prophet to Madinah, this phenomenon would have been over and disappeared. But as I mentioned, because it was a global phenomenon, that procedure which was established by Islam couldn’t go through and finish with this very bad phenomenon.
Now, al-hamdulillah all people have agreed to stop this phenomenon and stand up against it. With this, there is no way to go back to adopt this phenomenon again in any way, especially for Muslims, since they must protect the freedom of others and always be with their rights to be free servants of Allah only. We should remember when the Caliph `Umar Ibn Al-Khattab (may Allah be pleased with him) said in a famous khutbah (speech or sermon) of his, “When did you make the people as slaves or servants of you while Allah, the Almighty, created them free!”
This means that the Muslims from the very beginning advocated the freedom of all human beings and were against the oppression of free people by tyrants and dictator leaders.”

Well, alchohol and pork consumption and several others non-islamic practices were also a global phenomenon yet muslims managed to root them out in their lands. I don't see how global slave trade prevented the muslim world from abolishing slavery within their own borders.
And I wonder how the author came up with such an exact number as to when slavery would have been abolished in the muslim world.
As I said, before. If Islams' goal was to root out slavery completely, there'd be no rules about enslaving POWs and infidels, liberating slaves would have to be obligatory rather than just encourged etc.

 

[Whatsthepoint]

Slavery is widespread in Mauritania, Niger, Sudan and several other African countries.