Slavery is deeply embedded in Islamic law and tradition. Although a slave-owner is cautioned against treating slaves harshly, basic human rights are not obliged. The very fact that only non-Muslims may be taken as slaves is evidence of Islam's supremacist doctrine.
Of the five references to freeing a slave in the Qur'an, three are prescribed as punitive measures against the slaveholder for unrelated sin, and limits the emancipation to just a single slave. Another (
24:33) appears to allow a slave to buy their own freedom if they are "good." This is in keeping with the traditional Islamic practice of wealth-building through the taking and ransoming of hostages, which began under Muhammad.
A tiny verse in one of the earliest chapters, 90:13, does say that freeing a slave is good, however, this was "revealed" at a time when the Muslim community was miniscule and several of their new and potential recruits were either actual slaves or newly freed slaves. Many of these same people, and Muhammad himself, later went on to become owners and traders of slaves, both male and female, as they acquired the power to do so (there is not record of Muhammad owning slaves prior to starting Islam). The language of the Qur'an changed to accommodate slavery, which is why this early verse has had negligible impact on slavery in the Islamic world.
The taking of women and children as slaves, particularly during the conquests outside Arabia, belies the notion that Jihad was being waged in self-defense, since the enemy's families reside neither with the Muslims nor (generally) on the battlefield. These were innocent people captured from their homes and pressed into slavery by Muhammad's companions and successors.
Contrary to popular belief, converting to Islam does
not automatically earn a slave his freedom, although doing so is said to increase a slave master's heavenly reward (Muslim slaves are implied in Qur'an (
4:92)). As far as the Islamic courts are concerned, a master may treat his slaves however he chooses without fear of punishment.
By contrast, Christianity was a major impetus in the movement to abolish the age-old institution of slavery. Yet, abolition had to be imposed on the Islamic world by the European West.
Given that there have never been abolitionary movement within the Islamic world, it is astonishing to see contemporary Muslims write their religion into the history of abolition. It is a lie.
There was no William Wilberforce or Bartoleme de las Casas in Islam. As mentioned, Muhammad, the most revered figure in the religion, practiced and approved of slavery. Even his own pulpit was built with slave labor. Caliphs since have had harems of hundreds, sometimes thousands of young girls and women brought from Christian, Hindu and African lands to serve Islam's religious equivalent of the pope in the most demeaning fashion.
One of Muhammad's closest companions was Umar, who became the 2nd caliph only two years after Muhammad died. It is fair to say that he would have known Islam better than any contemporary apologist - those who say that slaves can only be captured in war and wars can only be waged in self-defense.
Under Umar's authority, Arab armies in Egypt invaded Black Africa to the south and attempted to conquer the Christian Makurians who were living there peacefully. Although the Muslims were held off, the Makurians had to sign a treaty to prevent recurring invasions. The terms of the
Baqt included an annual payment of 360 "high quality" African slaves. The treaty stood for 700 years with no mention of the slightest opposition from generations of Muslim clerics and scholars.
Umar himself was stabbed to death by a slave whose liberty he refused to grant. In this case, the slave was captured during the campaign against a Persia, one of many offensive wars waged by the Muslims against people who were not attacking them.
Modern day apologists trying to defend slavery under Islam generally ignore the basic fact that reducing people to property is dehumanizing. They distract from this by comparing the theoretical treatment of slaves under Sharia with the worst examples of abuse from the era of European slavery.
The first problem with this is that the actual practice of Muslim slavery was often remarkably at odds with the relatively humane treatment prescribed by Sharia. For example, according to the Ghanan scholar John Azumah, nearly three times as many captured Africans died in harsh circumstances related to their transport to Muslim lands than were ever even enslaved by Europeans.
A more insurmountable problem for the Muslim apologist who insists that slavery is "different" under Islam is presented by the many examples of Muhammad and his companions selling captured slaves to non-Muslim traders for material goods. The welfare of the slave was obviously of no consequence.
Another myth about Islamic slavery is that it was not race-based. It was. Muhammad's father-in-law, Umar, in his role as caliph, declared that Arabs could not be taken as slaves and even had all Arab slaves freed on his deathbed. This helped propel the vast Islamic campaign to capture slaves in Africa, Europe and Asia for importing into the Middle East.
The greatest slave rebellion in human history took place in Basra, Iraq beginning in 869. A half-million African slaves staged a courageous uprising against their Arab-Islamic masters that lasted fifteen years before being brutally suppressed. (See
Zanj Rebellion)
Literally millions of Christians were captured into slavery during the many centuries of Jihad. So pervasive were the incursions by the Turks into Eastern Europe, that the English word for slave is based on Slav. Muslim slave raiders even operated as far north as England. In 1631, a French cleric in Algiers observed the sale of nearly 300 men, women and children, taken from a peaceful English fishing village:
"It was a pitiful sight to see them exposed in the market…Women were separated from their husbands and the children from their fathers…on one side a husband was sold; on the other his wife; and her daughter was torn from her arms without the hope that they’d ever see each other again." (from the book,
White Gold, which also details the story of English slave, Thomas Pellow, who was beaten, starved and tortured into embracing Islam).
The Indian and Persian people suffered greatly as well - as did Africans. At least 17 million slaves (mostly black women and children) were brought out of Africa by Islamic traders - far more than the 11 million that were taken by the Europeans. However, these were only the survivors. As many as 85 million other Africans were thought to have died en route.
Most telling, perhaps, is that slavery is
still practiced in the Sudan, Niger, Mauritania and a few other corners of the Muslim world - and you
won't see any of those Muslim apologists (who shamelessly repeat the lie that Islam abolished slavery)
doing or saying anything about it!
In fact, a
fatwa was recently issued from a mainstream Islamic source reminding Muslim males of their divine right to rape female slaves and
"discipline" resisters in
"whatever manner he thinks is appropriate". Not one peep of protest from Islamic apologists was recorded. In 2013, the same site prominently
proclaimed that
"there is no dispute (among the scholars) that it is permissible to take concubines and to have intercourse with one's slave woman, because Allah says so."
In 2011, what passes for a women's rights activist in Kuwait
suggested that Russian women be taken captive in battle and turned into sex slaves in order to keep Muslim husbands from committing adultery. (Other calls for turning non-Muslim women into sex slaves can be found
here).
After the Islamic State kidnapped and pressed into slavery thousands of Yazidi women and children in 2014, the caliphate issued an FAQ of sorts on slavery which included rules on sexually molesting children:
It is permissible to have intercourse with the female slave who hasn’t reached puberty if she is fit for intercourse; however, if she is not fit for intercourse, then it is enough to enjoy her without intercourse. The best that "mainstream" apologists could muster in response was a letter appealing to "the reality of contemporary times", meaning that Islam has
no fixed moral position on the rape of woman and children.
A 12-year-old girl, taken captive by the Islamic State
explained that her 'master' would pray before he raped her:
"He told me that according to Islam he is allowed to rape an unbeliever. He said that by raping me, he is drawing closer to Allah." Other sex slaves have been
forcedto recite passages from the Quran during their rape.
A Quran memorization competition in
2015 offered slave girls as the top three prizes. Again, there were no voices of Muslim protest from elsewhere. As Uzy Bulut keenly observed,
"A religion that encourages destructive rioting and killing over cartoons, but shows no sign of sorrow as little girls are sold and raped, does not have much to contribute to advancing civilization."
Since Muhammad was a slave owner and slavery is permitted by the Qur'an, the Muslim world has never apologized for this dehumanizing practice. Even Muslims in the West will often try to justify slavery under Islam, since it is a part of the Qur'an.
He's always spreading some positive vibes...that's how it starts though
Hadiths that make Islam look good are acceptable to bring up.
Hadiths that make Islam look bad must be ignored, tho. They were probably written by those sneaky Jews.