A collection of ideas in need of sorting on slavery in Islam, a topic requiring a lot of digging and sorting. This is work in progress, just to show the huge amount of data and sources that is actually available if one is prepared to dig in book sites or scholarly texts and manuscripts.

Slavery and Islam

For every gallon of ink that has been spilt on the trans-Atlantic slave trade and its consequences, only one very small drop has been spent on the study of the forced migration of black Africans into the Mediterranean world of Islam. From the ninth to the early twentieth century, probably as many black Africans were forcibly taken across the Sahara, up the Nile valley, and across the Red Sea as were transported across the Atlantic in a much shorter period. Yet their story has not yet been told.

Eve Troutt Powell (Author, Editor), John O. Hunwick (Editor)

It may sound strange, but until very recently some Muslim universities thought the slaves were things and laws were necessary for protecting the owners’ rights. The slaves themselves had absolutely no rights or protection.

2:177: “Righteousness does not consist of turning your faces towards the East and the West. But righteous is he who … gives money, though dear, to near relatives, and orphans, and the needy, and the homeless, and the beggars, and for the freeing of slaves;“

2:221: “(To marry) a slave woman who believes, is better than to marry an unbelieving woman, even though she is alluring to you.”

Well, this may tell as much about the value of non-Muslims.

4:3: “- - - marry women of your choice, two or three or four - - - or (a captive) that your right hand possesses - - -.”

The distance between a poor Muslim and a slave was less than in a similar situation in the Americas – it was acceptable to marry a slave woman. The woman then formally often was given her freedom and was no more a slave – though as the more or less forced wife of a man, her freedom was not necessarily very real. The social position was better though, and she kept her freedom if there was a divorce.

4:24: “Also (prohibited (to Muslims*) are) women already married, except those whom your right hand possess (= slave women*)”.

This question surfaced for a special reason: The warriors wanted to know if they were permitted to rape married female captives when they were waging war. Not married captives they knew they could treat just as they wanted, but what about married ones? The answer was as you see: You also are free to rape married non-Muslim women, (but with one exception; not if they were pregnant). And this was given as a general statement and rule - any slave or female captive could be raped (except when pregnant), husband or no husband.

4:25a: “If any of you have not the means wherewith to wed free believing women, they may wed believing girls from those whom your right hand possess - - -”.

To marry a slave girl is far down socially, but acceptable. Willing or not willing? The question is never asked in the Quran (besides it is likely that many would be willing, as it often meant they formally became free women, not slaves any more).

4:25b: “- - - their punishment (for crime or indecency) is half of that for free women.”

This was softer than in the Americas, as far as it was practised (slaves in the house often fared not too bad, whereas slaves in the fields, mines, etc. could have a terrible life – not unlike the worst situations in the Americas).

[4.22-25] And marry not woman whom your fathers married, except what has already passed; this surely is indecent and hateful, and it is an evil way.

Forbidden to you are your mothers and your daughters and your sisters and your paternal aunts and your maternal aunts and brothers' daughters and sisters' daughters and your mothers that have suckled you and your foster-sisters and mothers of your wives and your step-daughters who are in your guardianship, (born) of your wives to whom you have gone in, but if you have not gone in to them, there is no blame on you (in marrying them), and the wives of your sons who are of your own loins and that you should have two sisters together (in marriage), except what has already passed; surely Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.

(Forbidden to you are) all married women except mā malakat aymānukum (those whom your right hands possess) (this is) Allah's ordinance to you, and lawful for you are besides those, provided that you seek with your property, taking in marriage not committing fornication. Then as to those whom you profit by, give them their dowries as appointed; and there is no blame on you about what you mutually agree after what is appointed; surely Allah is Knowing, Wise. And whoever among you has not within his power ampleness of means to marry free believing women, then (he may marry) of mā malakat aymānukum (those whom your right hands possess) from among your believing maidens; and Allah knows best your faith: you are (sprung) the one from the other; so marry them with the permission of their masters, and give them their dowries justly, they being chaste, not fornicating, nor receiving paramours; and when they are taken in marriage, then if they are guilty of indecency, they shall suffer half the punishment which is (inflicted) upon free women. This is for him among you who fears falling into evil; and that you abstain is better for you, and Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.

4:92 "It is not for a believer to kill a believer unless (it be) by mistake. He who hath killed a believer by mistake must set free a believing slave, and pay the blood- money to the family of the slain, unless they remit it as a charity. If he (the victim) be of a people hostile unto you, and he is a believer, then (the penance is) to set free a believing slave."

4/36: “- - - do good to parents, kinfolks, orphans, those in need, neighbours who are near, neighbours who are strangers, the Companion by your side, the wayfarer (ye meet), and what your right hand possess - - -”.

Allah likes people who do good - even to slaves. Your slaves are mentioned after even wayfarers you happen to meet, but they are mentioned. Treat slaves well!

8/70: “O Prophet! Say to those who are captives in your hands: ‘If Allah findeth any good in your hearts, He will give you something better than what has been taken from you, and He will forgive you - - -.”

Muhammad was a great taker of slaves, and he promises the slaves a better life in Paradise – the always cheap words. It also is a bit ironic that Muhammad had attacked and stolen and raped and murdered and enslaved - - - but it was his victims that needed forgiving. Some religion.

“They sold him for a miserable price, for a few dirhams counted out: in such low estimation did they hold him!”

— Qur'an, [Quran 12:20]

16/75: “- - - a slave under the dominion of another - - - a man on whom We have bestowed goodly favours - - - are the two equal? (By no means); praise be to Allah.”

This “praise be to Allah,” tells on many pages about the Muslims’ evaluation of slaves.

23:5-6 "And who guard their modesty - Save from their wives or the (slaves) that their right hands possess."

24:31 "And tell the believing women to lower their gaze and be modest, and to display of their adornment only that which is apparent, and to draw their veils over their bosoms, and not to reveal their adornment save to their own husbands or fathers or husbands' fathers, or their sons or their husbands' sons, or their brothers or their brothers' sons or sisters' sons, or their women, or their slaves."

24:58 "O ye who believe! Let your slaves, and those of you who have not come to puberty, ask leave of you at three times (before they come into your presence)."

33:25-26 "Allah repulsed the disbelievers in their wrath; they gained no good. Allah averted their attack from the believers. Allah is ever Strong, Mighty. And He brought those of the People of the Scripture who supported them down from their strongholds, and cast panic into their hearts. Some ye slew, and ye made captive some.

33:50 "O Prophet! Lo! We have made lawful unto thee thy wives unto whom thou hast paid their dowries, and those whom thy right hand possesseth of those whom Allah hath given thee as spoils of war."

Corpus

O Prophet! Indeed, We have made lawful to you your wives (to) whom you have given their bridal money and whom you rightfully possess from those (whom) Allah has given to you

Arberry

O Prophet, We have made lawful for thee thy wives whom thou hast given their wages and what thy right hand owns, spoils of war that God has given thee

Yusuf Ali

O Prophet! We have made lawful to thee thy wives to whom thou hast paid their dowers; and those whom thy right hand possesses out of the prisoners of war whom Allah has assigned to thee

Qaribullah

O Prophet, We have made lawful to you the wives to whom you have given dowries and those whom your right hand possesses, of whatever spoils of war that Allah has given you

Pickthall

O Prophet! Lo! We have made lawful unto thee thy wives unto whom thou hast paid their dowries, and those whom thy right hand possesseth of those whom Allah hath given thee as spoils of war

Muhammad Sarwar

Prophet, We have made lawful for you your wives whom you have given their dowry, slave girls whom God has given to you as gifts

33:55 "It is no sin for the wives to converse freely with their fathers, or their sons, or their brothers, or their brothers' sons, or the sons of their sisters or of their own women, or their slaves."

Quranic institution had some unique new features.[18] According to Brockopp, the idea of using alms for the manumission of slaves who had converted to Islam appears to be unique to the Quran.[19] Other scholars state that Quran does not condemn prostitution, and both male and female prostitution has been practiced throughout Islamic history.[20]

Brockopp states that the Qur'an was a progressive legislation on slavery in its time because it encouraged proper treatment.[18] Others state that Islam's record with slavery has been mixed, progressive in Arabian lands, but it increased slavery and worsened abuse as Muslim armies attacked people in Africa, Europe and Asia.[21][22] Murray notes that Quran sanctified the institution of slavery and abuses therein, but to its credit did not freeze the status of a slave and allowed a means to a slave's manumission in some cases when the slave converted to Islam.

http://self.gutenberg.org/articles/eng/Ma_malakat_aymanukum

This article was sourced from Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License

Ma Malakat Aymanukum

New Age Islam

In the Quran, the word ‘Abd’ is used for male servant and ‘amah’ is used for female servant. So, when the Quran wants to specify any one of them it uses specific words but when it speaks of both, it uses the phrase Ma Malakat Aymanukum and leaves it to the reader to understand its meaning according to the context.

The phrase “Ma Malakat Aymanukum” has been used in the Quran on a number of occasions and … translated it as “the possession of their hands” and

female slaves are meant by it though the phrase is gender neutral and male slaves are also meant according to the context.

“Ma Malakat Aymanukum Min Fatayatukum Al Muminat” (4; 25) It means young girls among your captives or slaves. This also shows that Ma Malakat Aymanukum is gender neutral and only means slaves or female slaves.

“Also (prohibited are) women already married, except those whom your right hands possess” (4: 24)

… in this context, “whom your right hands possess” does not mean only female slaves but also prisoners of war among women

not to display their adornment except before their husbands … and those in their possession and male attendants incapable of sex desire and those boys who have not yet attained knowledge of sex matters (24: 31)

Obviously, here slave (those in their possession ) means male slaves and “incapable of sex desire” are castrated men.

it becomes clear that the phrase “Ma Malakat Aymanukum” is not used only to mean female slaves but it is a gender-neutral phrase meaning both male and female slaves. Also, on some occasions it is also used to mean prisoners of war or women taken as war booty or male prisoners of war or servants or captives.

Modern re-alignment:

The concubine [sex-slave] concept is against quran.

The great book Al-quran never discuss slave/sex-slave or personal private parts. Orthodox wrongly interpreted following verses to justify sex-slavery.

The verses 23/5-7 and 70/29-30 have same meanings. Therefore, translation of verses 23/5-6 are given under.

23/1: قَدْ أَفْلَحَ الْمُؤْمِنُونَ

Certainly will Momineen [the safety/security providers] have succeeded.

23/5:

وَالَّذِينَ هُمْ لِفُرُوجِهِمْ حَافِظُونَ

And they who guard for their flaws/shortcomings

23/6:

إِلَّا عَلَى أَزْوَاجِهِمْ أوْ مَا مَلَكَتْ أَيْمَانُهُمْ فَإِنَّهُمْ غَيْرُ مَلُومِينَ

Except from their group-mate or those who are under their oath, for indeed, they will not be blamed .

As far verses 33/50 and 4/24 are concerns here “Malakat aimanukum” and “Ma malakat be yaminika” also means the groups/jamaat under your oath.

In these verses the agreement/contract between head of state and different jamaats [groups/sub-groups] has been described.

Remember,Al- quran never allow slave or sex slave[through nikah or without],nor this great book discusses personal private parts and sex.

Momin= A safety/security/peace provider

Furj= A rift/flaw/shortcoming

Malakat aimanukum= people under your oath[to look after]

Azwajuhum= their group mate.

It suddenly becomes servitude or another form of employment, changing the label, not the contents.

Modern re-affirmation

Sheikh al-Fawzan, a member of the Senior Council of Clerics, Saudi Arabia’s highest religious body, a member of the Council of Religious Edicts and Research, the Imam of Prince Mitaeb Mosque in Riyadh, and a professor at Imam Mohamed Bin Saud Islamic University, the main Wahhabi center of learning in the country said in 2003 “Slavery is a part of Islam. Slavery is part of jihad, and jihad will remain as long there is Islam.” He attacked Muslim scholars who said otherwise maintaining they were "infidels" and “ignorant, not scholars”.

The American journalist John J. Miller said, "It is hard to imagine a serious person calling for America to enslave its enemies. Yet a prominent Saudi cleric, Shaikh Saad Al-Buraik, recently urged Palestinians to do exactly that with Jews: 'Their women are yours to take, legitimately. God made them yours. Why don't you enslave their women?'"

http://self.gutenberg.org/article/WHEBN0003140575/Islamic%20views%20on%20slavery

Modern Criticism

A Saudi cleric issued a fatwa permitting sex slavery.

He said: “Praise be to Allaah. Islam allows a man to have intercourse with his slave woman, whether he has a wife or wives or he is not married … Our Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) also did that, as did the Sahaabah (his companions), the righteous and the scholars.”

In the eighth century, when Arab armies invaded India, they took thousands of Hindu POWs as slaves back to the Caliph Walid in Damascus, who distributed the women as gifts to the newly emerging Arab nobility.

The ninth-century Persian historian al-Baladhuri writes in his book The Origins of the Islamic State that when the Arab general Muhammad bin Qasim invaded India in the year 711AD, the non-Muslim prisoners taken were given a choice of death or slavery.

Sixty thousand captives were made slaves in the city of Rur, among whom were “thirty ladies of royal blood.” One-fifth of the slaves and booty were set apart for the caliph’s treasury and dispatched to Damascus, while the rest were scattered among the “army of Islam.”

The nineteenth century Indian Islamic scholar Abdullah Yusuf Ali, whose translation of the Qur’an is considered the most authentic, had the courage to be honest when he put a footnote to the Quranic verse mentioned above: “The point does not now arise as the whole conditions and incidents of war have been altered and slavery has been abolished by international agreement.”

But courage to face facts is rare among many Muslims today. I asked the writers of the Toronto Star and The Independent columns why they had not addressed the passages of the Qur’an that permit Muslims to take slaves. They did not answer.

I wrote to a woman who told Christiane Amanpour of CNN that “Boko Haram do not understand Islam.” I asked her why she had not addressed Sharia law that permits taking non-Muslim females as POWs. She too, did not respond.

We Muslims are caught in a conundrum. If the Arab general bin Qasim is our hero for enslaving non-Muslim women in India in the eighth century, how could Boko Haram be judged wrong for doing exactly the same in Nigeria today?

All we Muslims need do today is to echo Abdullah Yusuf Ali by saying, “what was permitted in the seventh century, is no longer applicable in the twenty-first.” But alas, neither honesty nor courage comes easy.

https://torontosun.com/2014/05/20/muslims-must-be-honest-about-quran/wcm/d6d23872-ea0e-4159-b6c5-e555977ebb46

The general term ma malakat aymanukum literally is "what your right hands possess"

If there are scholars investigating slavery, those whom the right hands possess, and if this is translated into English, it almost always lacks the required critical thinking in its approach.

Encyclopedia of Islam, Published by E.J. Brill, Vol. 1, page 24 'abd'

"Abd” is the ordinary word for 'slave' in Arabic of all periods, more particularly for "male slave", "female slave" being “ama”. On the other hand, the Quran frequently uses the term "rakaba", literally "neck, nape of the neck", and still more frequently, the periphrasis "ma malakat aymanukum - "that which your (their) right hand possesses".

Shorter Encyclopedia "mamluk":

"The term (mamluk) owes its origin probably to the current phrase of the Quran ma malakat aimanukum - "what your right hand possesses", a general designation of slaves without specialization of gender."

Dr. Abdul Latif, from Al-Azhar writes "The second reason (to take slaves) is the sexual propagation of slaves which would generate more slaves for the owner."

Ibn Timmiya wrote: "The one who owns the mother also owns her children. Being the master of the mother makes him the owner of her children whether they were born to a husband or they were illegitimate children. Therefore, the master has the right to have sexual intercourse with the daughters of his maid slave because they are the daughters of his property, provided he does not sleep with the mother at the same time"...Vol. 35, page 54.

Umar, the 2nd Caliph also committed what seems to be rape of a female slave. From Ibn Sa'd, volume 2, Page 438 "A slave girl passed by me who attracted me, and I cohabited with her while I was fasting".

https://www.answering-islam.org/Silas/femalecaptives.htm

ma - whom

malakat مَلَكَتْ م ل ك (Miim-Lam-Kaf)

to rule/command/reign, be capable, to control, power/authority, king, kingdom.

aymānukum أَيْمَانُكُمْ ى م ن (Ya-Miim-Nun)

right side, right, right hand, oath, bless, lead to the right, be a cause of blessing, prosperous/fortunate/lucky.

In the 45+ English translations 'mā malakat aymānukum' is interpreted variously but the general theme is that which is within one's ownership, control, and rightfully owned i.e. slaves or captured slaves.

In the context of 4:24 'mā malakat aymānukum' refers to female slaves that are legally purchased, owned or captured slaves within the control of the winners, thus lawful to have sex without marriage.

http://www.city-data.com/forum/islam/2604884-4-24-cannot-marry-married-women-2.html

Here is a detailed explanation on this topic.

The Term “Ma Malakat Aymanukum” refers to female captives of war. These women are those who themselves participated in war and fought on the battlefield physically and/or provided logistic and material support against the Muslims.
Earlier, when the Muslims became victorious in Jihad, they did not always take the defeated enemy as Captives, there were times when they were set free. Or they were held to be exchanged in return for release of Muslim prisoners held captive by enemy. And lastly, it was only sometimes that they kept the captives as Slaves. This decision on whether to retain or free the captives rests with the Caliph and he does so keeping in mind the safety and security of the people under his Caliphate and the prevalent circumstances which a Caliph knows best. (It is highly possible that if all captives are set free then they could re-group and wage a war again, the Caliph of the time is better able to assess and make a judgement on how best to deal with the captives )
If the Caliph decides to retain the captured enemy as captives, then it is the Caliphs’s responsibility to ensure the captives don’t spend their time in cage like jails and under detention suffering abuse (Physical, Mental and Sexual). In Islam a more humane method is adopted for these prisoners of war where the Caliph himself assigns each one to a Muslim who will be their sole Guardian and responsible for taking care of them going forward.
Once the Caliph assigns a captive to a person, the assigned person becomes their sole Guardian. The new guardian has the option to either retain them under their guardianship or set them free.
The Captives can always ask their guardians to set them free. And if the Guardian promises and signs a contract of manumission, then the guardian is obliged to fulfill it.
A guardian can marry a female captive off to someone else and it is not always compulsory for him to keep her under his guardianship. If the guardian intends to Marry her off, then he should not get intimate with her.
The captives live and eat with their guardians in their houses. The guardian has to ensure they are not treated badly, and everything from their food to clothing and all other necessities are taken care of. The captives eat the same food and wear the same clothes like their guardians. If the Guardian and his household eats fine food and wears fine clothes, equally fine food and clothes need to arranged for the Captive.
It is prohibited for the Guardian to call the captives as “My Slave”, rather they are to be addressed affectionately as “My Boy”! or “My Girl”!
It is prohibited to treat them harshly, verbally abuse them or beat them. A guardian has to set the captive free if they beat or even slap them. Setting them free is an expiation for the sin of beating/slapping them.
A guardian is commanded to help them if he sees they are struggling with something. It is prohibited to overburden them with any work or to ask something which is beyond their capacity. Any household work is divided equally.
A Captive lives like just another member of a family, eating, talking, learning, helping and living just like all the other members of the household.
It’s natural for a Man to get inclined towards a woman Captive under his custody and vice versa. He could either marry her or he could still be intimate with her as there is no Sin if one gets intimate with the female captives. As discussed above, the Man is completely responsible for the captive’s welfare, food, clothing, shelter etc. It’s very likely that such love and affection shown by the man will be appreciated and reciprocated by the female captive under his custody. It is not possible for a guardian to force himself upon her because of the points we have discussed here regarding fair treatment of captives.
If a Man gets intimate with his female captive, then it is compulsory for him to announce and let everyone know and not keep it a secret. Just like how a marriage is announced.
It is not permitted to allow any other man to get close or intimate with a female captive under ones guardianship. The guardian is responsible and accountable for her safety and security.
A Man is forbidden from getting intimate with a female captive other than the one who is directly under his guardianship. He cannot get intimate with a captive woman under the guardianship of his wife or any other member of his family. This is the proof that the captives are to be treated fairly and they are not considered and utilized as “Sex’Slaves” who can be transferred from one person to another at will for purpose of Sex or any other reason.
If a Man intends to get intimate with his female captive, then he has to wait for a certain period of time to ensure she is not Pregnant. He is forbidden to get intimate with her until that time.
If the Female captive is pregnant, then the man cannot get intimate with her until after she has delivered. He still has to take care of her food, clothing, shelter and other essential expenses. The Guardian will also be responsible for the child after birth even though he is not the father.
From theological perspective there is a double reward for a man who sets a captive under his guardianship free and marries her thereafter. Therefore Islam encourages marriage with them.
Lastly, there are various virtues and rewards in Islam for setting a captive free. The Prophet SAS has said - “Feed the hungry, Visit the sick and set the Captives free” - Sahih Bukhari 5058 .

I hope the points explained above will help understand how female captives of war should be treated and their rights in Islam. They are at par with the status of a wife in Islam and in no way are they considered and treated as “Sex-Slaves”. If anyone goes beyond these and commit excesses, like beating, raping, torturing, abusing etc , then such person will be held accountable and may be prosecuted under an Islamic law.

And Allah(SWT) Knows best!

The expression, “maa malakat aymanukum” in the Quran

Introduction

One of the most abused expression in the Quran is “maa malakat aymanukum”, which translates word for word as “maa (what), malakat (possess), aymanukum (your right hand)”. Many traditional Muslim scholars have abused this statement and made lawful the owners to have sex with their female slaves (servants). They have also introduced short term (temporary) marriage called “muta marriage”; even have made rape of women permissible during war time in Islam. All these innovations and fabrication contradict the laws of God in the Quran. In addition, the critics of the Quran also used this abused expression to report it one of the controversial issues in the Quran to be unethical.

Description of different categories of these people

The Quran has expression “maa malakat aymanukum” including 2 other similar expression, “maa malakat aymanuhum“, and “maa malakat aymanuhunna” with a minor variation in grammar with respect to person and gender. The literal meaning of these expressions is “What your right hand possess”, “What their right hand possess” and “What their (female) right hand possess” respectively. The careful review of the relevant verses in the Quran indicates that this expression covers five categories of people. They can be men, women, boys or girls, and the expression has different meanings in different contexts although all of them fall under the same class – a group of people who depend on you, almost totally, for their living requirements, security and well-being. However, the following is a description of all these categories of people in the Quran, and the nature of relationship between these people and those who belong to them or are responsible for them:

1. maa malakat aymanukum = what you already have.

The first category is the women who were already married to their husbands even if their marriages did not follow the Quranic rules as their marriage occurred before the revelation of the Quran or before their conversion to Islam. In this case, if you already have a wife or wives, even from a category that became prohibited after the revelation of the Quran, you can keep them. You do not have to divorce them as God would not break an established marriage. Thus, this category of women falls under what you already have, and sexual relationship is permitted being married couples:

[Quran 4:3] If you deem it best for the orphans, you may marry their mothers – you may marry two, three, or four. If you fear lest you become unfair, then you shall be content with only one, or with what you already have (maa malakat aymanukum). Additionally, you are thus more likely to avoid financial hardship.
[Quran 33:50] O prophet, we made lawful for you your wives to whom you have paid their due dowry, or what you already have (maa malakat yameenuka), as granted to you by God. Also lawful for you in marriage are the daughters of your father’s brothers, the daughters of your father’s sisters, the daughters of your mother’s brothers, the daughters of your mother’s sisters, who have emigrated with you. Also, if a believing woman gave herself to the prophet – by forfeiting the dowry – the prophet may marry her without a dowry, if he so wishes. However, her forfeiting of the dowry applies only to the prophet, and not to the other believers. We have already decreed their rights in regard to their spouses or what they already have (maa malakat aymanuhum). This is to spare you any embarrassment. God is Forgiving, Most Merciful.
[Quran 33:52] Beyond the categories described to you, you are enjoined from marrying any other women, nor can you substitute a new wife (from the prohibited categories), no matter how much you admire their beauty. You must be content with those already made lawful to you (maa malakat yameenuka). God is watchful over all things.

2. maa malakat aymanuhum = What is rightfully theirs.

The second category is also the women and sexual relationship with them is allowed. We, however, have to be very careful in understanding God’s law in the Quran. God deliberately used the word OR when permitting the sexual relationships between men and what is rightfully theirs. It is EITHER their spouses OR what is rightfully theirs. God did not choose AND in these particular verses(their spouses and what is rightfully theirs). God’s choice of His words is deliberate and He constructs His laws very clearly to leave NO doubt in the mind of His true worshipers. In this category of what is rightfully theirs, are situations where a man and a woman married each other without registering their marriage with the appropriate authorities. Common law marriage in the USA is one of these cases where both the man and the woman agrees to live together as a husband and a wife in front of God but do not register their marriage. It can also include cases described in the first category of people who becomes rightfully theirs by the permission given to them by God:

[Quran 23:6] Except with their spouses, or those who are rightfully theirs (maa malakat aymanuhum); then indeed, they are not to be blamed.
[Quran 70:30] Except with their spouses, or those who are rightfully theirs (maa malakat aymanuhum); then indeed, they are not to be blamed.
Note:They guard their modesty except with their spouses or who rightfully theirs.

It is noteworthy that short-term agreement between a man and a woman to have sex for any period of time is not included in this category. This short-term agreement is prostitution and is forbidden by God’s law in the Quran. In this short term agreement the man deprive the woman from her legal rights that a wife has, and free himself from having any obligation of a husband towards his divorced wife. The example of this short-term agreement to have sex between a man and a woman is what many scholars call Muta marriage. They make it legal, when it is against all the laws of marriage and establishing a family in the Quran.

3. maa malakat aymanukum = Slaves (if any).

This category is the slaves who are dependent totally on their owner. Although the Quran advocates the freeing of the slaves in every possible occasion, the law is placed in the Quran to protect those who were slaves at the time of the revelation of the Quran and for those who may become slaves in any future time. Slaves and servants are protected and not considered as sexual partners under any circumstance outside a lawful marriage:

[Quran 4:25] Those among you who cannot afford to marry free believing women, may marry believing slave women (maa malakat aymanukum). God knows best about your belief, and you are equal to one another, as far as belief is concerned. You shall obtain permission from their guardians before you marry them, and pay them their due dowry equitably. They shall maintain moral behavior, by not committing adultery, or having secret lovers. Once they are freed through marriage, if they commit adultery, their punishment shall be half of that for the free women. Marrying a slave shall be a last resort for those unable to wait. To be patient is better for you. God is Forgiver, Most Merciful.

In this verse, God clarifies the status of the believing slave women as being honorable women who may marry believing men after getting permission from their guardians. If these slave women are the sexual partners of their guardians, how can God offer them to the believing men? God asks them to MAINTAIN their moral behavior, by not committing adultery or having secret lovers. Thus, this verse clearly shows that those slave women are not the sexual partners of their guardians:

[Quran 24:33] Those who cannot afford to get married shall maintain morality until God provides for them from His grace. Those among your servants (maa malakat aymanukum) who wish to be freed in order to marry, you shall grant them their wish, once you realize that they are honest. And give them from God’s money that He has bestowed upon you. You shall not force your girls to commit prostitution, seeking the materials of this world, if they wish to be chaste. If anyone forces them, then God, seeing that they are forced, is Forgiver, Merciful.

Two important teachings are found in this verse – to free the slaves (servants) to get married and not to force the girls to commit prostitution. According to this verse, servants (slaves), can be freed from their slavery to get married, and even helped them with money to do so. Had they been legitimate sexual partners of the owner or the guardian, they would not be available for marriage whenever they want to, as this verse teaches. Forcing them to have sex will be prostitution or rape.

4. maa malakat aymanuhunna = Servants (male).

Since our servants are dependent on us in their living, we are responsible for their well-being but they are not our sexual partners. See what the Quranic verses teach us about this category:

[Quran 24:31] And say to the believing women to subdue their eyes, and maintain their chastity. They should not reveal any parts of their bodies, except that which is necessary. They should cover their chests, and shall not relax this code in the presence of other than their husbands, their fathers, the fathers of their husbands, their sons, the sons of their husbands, their brothers, sons of their brothers, sons of their sisters, other women, male servants (maa malakat aymanuhunna) or employees whose sexual drive has been nullified, or the children who have not reached puberty. They should not strike their feet when they walk in order to shake and reveal certain details of their bodies. All of you shall repent to God, O you believers that you may succeed.

There is a great lesson for us in this verse. God teaches us that the believing women may have the same category of people like the men do. Notice that the verse starts by asking the believing women to maintain their chastity.

It is very interesting to note that the male scholars who gave permission to any man to have sex with his servants, did not allow the same right for a woman who owns the same category. These scholars fabricated laws of their own that apply to the men but not to the women. Such fabricated laws have no basis in God’s laws in the Quran. These laws of God apply to all genders without discrimination. God prohibited sexual relationship with those who we possess outside a marriage for both the men and the women alike:

[Quran 33:55] There is no sin upon them (women) around their fathers nor their sons, nor their brothers, nor sons of their brothers, nor sons of their sisters, nor their women, nor what they rightfully possess (their male servants) (maa malakat aymanuhunna). And you (women) shall fear God. Indeed, God is a Witness over all things.
[Quran 24:58] O you who believe, permission must be requested by your servants (maa malakat aymanukum) and the children who have not attained puberty (before entering your rooms). This is to be done in three instances – before the Dawn Prayer, at noon when you change your clothes to rest, and after the Night Prayer. These are three private times for you. At other times, it is not wrong for you or them to mingle with one another. God thus clarifies the revelations for you. God is Omniscient, Most Wise.

It is clear from this verse that your servants, do not have the permission given to your spouse (sexual partner) of freely entering your sleeping quarters. Had your servants been considered your sexual partners, such a permission would not be needed.

[Quran 4:36] You shall worship God alone – do not associate anything with Him. You shall regard the parents, the relatives, the orphans, the poor, the related neighbor, the unrelated neighbor, the close associate, the traveling alien, and your servants (maa malakat aymanukum). God does not like the arrogant show-offs.
[Quran 16:71] God has provided for some of you more than others. Those who are given plenty would never give their properties to their subordinates (maa malakat aymanukum) to the extent of making them partners. Would they give up God’s blessings?
[Quran 30:28] He cites for you herein an example from among yourselves: Do you ever elevate your servants or subordinates (maa malakat aymanukum) to the level where they rival you, and to the point that you pay them as much allegiance as is being paid to you? We thus explain the revelations for people who understand.

5. maa malakat aymanukum = Women who leave their disbelieving husbands during wartime and join the believers camp.

This special category is also protected in the Quran and not exempted as sex slaves. They must be treated like any free woman, asked for permission for marriage and given all the due respect and payments that apply to a legal marriage. This is also clarified in (60:10):

[Quran 4:24] Also prohibited are the women who are already married, unless they flee their disbelieving husbands who are at war with you (maa malakat aymanukum). These are God’s commandments to you. All other categories are permitted for you in marriage, so long as you pay them their due dowries. You shall maintain your morality, by not committing adultery. Thus, whoever you like among them, you shall pay them the dowry decreed for them. You commit no error by mutually agreeing to any adjustments to the dowry. God is Omniscient, Most Wise.
[Quran 60:10] O you who believe, when believing women (abandon the enemy and) ask for asylum with you, you shall test them. God is fully aware of their belief. Once you establish that they are believers, you shall not return them to the disbelievers. They are not lawful to remain married to them, nor shall the disbelievers be allowed to marry them. Give back the dowries that the disbelievers have paid. You commit no error by marrying them, so long as you pay them their due dowries. Do not keep disbelieving wives (if they wish to join the enemy). You may ask them for the dowry you had paid, and they may ask for what they paid. This is God’s rule; He rules among you. God is Omniscient, Most Wise.

God’s law is clear in the Quran. We, as submitters to our Creator, have no choice but to obey His law. Any person breaking His law is not practicing Islam (Submission) and cannot be considered to be a Muslim (Submitter). Indeed, such individuals who do not obey God’s laws are “Objectors” not “Submitters.”

[Quran 24:51] The only utterance of the believers, whenever invited to God and His messenger to judge in their affairs, is to say, “We hear and we obey.” These are the winners.
[Quran 5:7] Remember God’s blessing upon you, and His covenant that He covenanted with you: you said, “We hear and we obey.” You shall observe God; God is fully aware of the innermost thoughts.
[Quran 2:285] The messenger has believed in what was sent down to him from his Lord, and so did the believers. They believe in God, His angels, His scripture, and His messengers: “We make no distinction among any of His messengers.” They say, “We hear, and we obey. Forgive us, our Lord. To You is the ultimate destiny.”

Conclusion

The expression, “maa malakat aymanukum” covers five different categories of people including both men and women. The Quran teaches beyond doubt that these people are part of our families who should be treated with respect as they deserve rights as human beings. It is clear from the Quran that 2, out of 5 categories are allowed for sexual relationship only after being part of a marriage (as a spouse). Thus, under no circumstances does God allow in the Quran either a man or a woman to have sex unless the man and the woman become a husband and wife. The short-term marriage is forbidden by God’s law in the Quran and is prostitution. Even in case of war, all the captured women (and men), fall under the protected category and cannot be considered sex objects. They should be treated with respect and asked for marriage, and given their due dowries. The Quran also teaches that rape of women during war time same as peacetime is a crime while righteousness is defined by an established moral value that is best judged by the words of God in the Quran, and not by war or peace.
Peaceful Friday, salaam and God bless.
Tafazzal (4/17/2015)

http://21stcenturyislam.info/misconception/ma-malakat-aymanukum/

If ma-malakat-aymanukum means person or friend or employee, can you have sex with them?

5:5 prohibits this.

4:24 says you can have sex with them, even if they are married. Zina.

If these women are free then you can’t marry those who are not free.

Sharia

The phrase ma malakat aymanukum - that which your right hand possesses - clarifies that, in Islamic law, slaves are possessions and property of a Muslim free man. Slaves could be bought or sold under Islamic law, according to the Quran and the Hadiths. Pious exhortations from jurists to free men to address their slaves by such euphemistic terms as "my boy" and "my girl" stemmed from the belief that God, not their masters, was responsible for the slave's status. (Buk 3.46.728) The Quran does not explicitly state anywhere that a slave is a spiritual equal of a free Muslim. Quite the opposite, verses 2.178 and 4.176 of Quran explicitly state at least three distinct and unequal categories of human beings: free Muslim males, slaves and women. The inequality is further emphasized in sentences like 16.71 … those who were favored would not hand over their provision to those whom their right hands possess so they would be equal to them therein…

When an individual erred such as missing a day of fasting, they were to free a slave (as punishment).

Regarding rules for having sexual intercourse with ma malakat aymanukum, a man may not have sexual intercourse with a female slave belonging to his wife, but one he owns.[14] Neither may he have relations with a female slave if she is co-owned without the permission of other owners. He may have sex with a female captive who was previously married prior to captivity, provided their Idda (waiting) period had come to an end.[38][39]

If the female slave has a child by her master, she then receives the title of "Ummul Walad" (lit. Mother of the child), which is an improvement in her status as she can no longer be sold and is legally freed upon the death of her master. The child, by default, is born free due to the father (i.e., the master) being a free man. Although there is no limit on the number of concubines a master may possess, the general marital laws are to be observed, such as not having sexual relations with the sister of a female slave.[14][40]

People are told that if they do not have the means to marry free-women, they can marry, with the permission of their masters, slave-women who are Muslims and are also kept chaste. In such marriages, they must pay their dowers so that this could bring them gradually equal in status to free-women.[41][42]

Sharia authorized

- the institution of slavery

- Muslim men could have sexual relations with slaves without her consent

- religious foundation for enslaving non-Muslim women (and men)

- slave's manumission (required that the slave first convert to Islam)

- children were Muslims because the father was

In late 2014 the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant released a pamphlet on the treatment of female slaves which allows sex with them. It includes a discussion of when sex is allowed with a slave who has not yet reached puberty ("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.").

Muhammad took several slaves, eg he took Rayhana as his slave.[30] He presented three women from the conquered Banu Hawazin as slaves to his key supportive close marital relatives in early 630: Reeta, to Ali; Zeinab, to Uthman; and an unnamed third to Umar.

Al-Muminun 6 and Al-Maarij 30 both, in identical wording, draw a distinction between spouses and "those whom one's right hands possess" (female slaves), saying " أَزْوَاجِهِمْ أَوْ مَا مَلَكَتْ أَيْمَانُهُمْ" (literally, "their spouses or what their right hands possess"), while clarifying that sexual intercourse with either is permissible regardless of consent. The female slave may be punished if she does not consent. The purchase of female slaves for sex was lawful from the perspective of Islamic law, and this was the most common motive for the purchase of slaves throughout Islamic history.

Why sex-slaves?

"it satisfied the sexual desire of the female slaves and thereby prevented the spread of immorality in the Muslim community."[33] Most schools restrict concubinage to a monogamous relationship between the slave woman and her master,[34] but according to Sikainga, "in reality, however, female slaves in many Muslim societies were prey for members of their owners' household, their neighbors, and their guests."

Clarence-Smith presents an opposing view in the book "Islam and the Abolition of Slavery", citing Ghulam Ahmed Pervez and Amir Ali who have argued that the Quran should actually read "Ma malakat aymanukum" to be in the past tense. When some demanded that Pakistan should reinstate slavery in the new Islamic country in 1947 upon its independence from the British colonial rule, Pervez argued that "past tense interpretation" means Quran revealed "an unqualified ban" on slavery.

Malik, the founder of the Maliki madhhab, states in Al-Muwatta, that if a man rapes a slave girl, he must pay to the slave-owner the amount by which he diminished her value by raping her.

Koran 2:177

True piety does not consist in turning your faces towards the east or the west - but truly pious is he who believes in God, and the Last Day; and the angels, and revelation, and the prophets; and spends his substance - however much he himself may cherish - it - upon his near of kin, and the orphans, and the needy, and the wayfarer, and the beggars, and for the freeing of human beings from bondage; and is constant in prayer, and renders the purifying dues; and [truly pious are] they who keep their promises whenever they promise, and are patient in misfortune and hardship and in time of peril: it is they that have proved themselves true, and it is they, they who are conscious of God.

23/5+6: “(Those Muslims are good*) Who abstains from sex, Except with those joined to them in the marriage bond, or (the captives) whom your right hand possess (= slaves) - for (in their case) they are free from blame”.

Catch a girl and make her captive - and you are free from any blame if you rape her - or gang-rape her - or make more women your captives and rape them, too - or exchange girls with your mates every half hour or day or week. A slave is a slave - and spoils of war you take “just and good”, according to the Quran and Islam. We sometimes wonder if this is the reason for so much mass rape sometimes when Muslims wage war - Darfur and Bangladesh are/were examples to remember. Forget that the women are humans - take them captive and you are free to rape them without any blame. Really good religion.

Apology: this is what it really says regarding slavery and money:

truly pious is he who spends his substance … for the freeing of human beings from bondage

How many? Why? With what consequences?

Why conquer or buy slaves in the first place?

Why does a hadith say

Bukhari (80:753) - "The Prophet said, 'The freed slave belongs to the people who have freed him.'"

Bukhari (41.598) - Slaves are property. They cannot be freed if an owner has outstanding debt, but can be used to pay off the debt.

16:75

YUSUFALI: Allah sets forth the Parable (of two men: one) a slave under the dominion of another; He has no power of any sort; and (the other) a man on whom We have bestowed goodly favours from Ourselves, and he spends thereof (freely), privately and publicly: are the two equal? (By no means;) praise be to Allah. But most of them understand not.

The Muslim believer is the master and the non-believer the slave without any rights.

Koran 2:178

a freeman for a freeman, and a slave for a slave, and a female for a female

And the most damning of them all:

33:50 O Prophet! Lo! We have made lawful unto thee thy wives unto whom thou hast paid their dowries, and those whom thy right hand possesseth of those whom Allah hath given thee as spoils of war

If the malakat aymanukum is like a wife almost, how can a semi-wife be a gift? How can you be allowed to have sex with your wife – up to 4 of them - and your semi-wife without any numerical limitations?

How can an apologist explain how a semi-wife or non-slave can be married – but only after the permission by their owner?

“whoever among you has not within his power ampleness of means to marry free believing women, then (he may marry) of mā malakat aymānukum (those whom your right hands possess) from among your believing maidens; and Allah knows best your faith: you are (sprung) the one from the other; so marry them with the permission of their masters”

And let those who cannot find a match keep chaste till Allah give them independence by His grace. And such of your slaves as seek a writing (of emancipation), write it for them if ye are aware of aught of good in them, and bestow upon them of the wealth of Allah which He hath bestowed upon you. Force not your slave-girls to whoredom that ye may seek enjoyment of the life of the world, if they would preserve their chastity. And if one force them, then (unto them), after their compulsion, lo! Allah will be Forgiving, Merciful.

Qur'an 24:33

Five forms of slavery

Forced Labour — Describes all types of coerced work that an individual must provide against his or her will. Contemporary forced labourers are treated as property to be exploited commercially, much in the same way African Americans were regarded during the antebellum period in American history.
Bonded Labour or Debt Labour — Describes slavery in which an individual is compelled to work in order to repay a debt. It differs from other forms in that, oftentimes the labourer and the employer initially enter into a mutual agreement. However, contract conditions may be illegal and/or vastly more beneficial to the employer than the labourer. These workers become slaves when they continue working, but cannot pay off their initial debt because of exploitative contract terms and, thus, cannot leave.
Sex Slavery — Describes women, men or children that are exploited in the commercial sex industry, which may include: pornography, prostitution, erotic entertainment, strip clubs, online escort services, residential brothels, hostess clubs, fake massage parlours or any exchange of a sex act for something of value. Money may or may not be exchanged; other things that may be traded for sex acts are drugs, shelter, food or clothes. A person’s initial consent to participate is irrelevant if that person is held in service through psychological manipulation or physical force.
Child Slavery — Describes all child labour obtained from individuals under the age of 18 through the means of force, deception or coercion. Children can be enslaved in debt bondage, forced labour, prostitution, armies, domestic work and other forms of hazardous work. Today, forced child labour exists in nearly every industry around the globe.
Domestic Servitude — Describes slaves that are forced to work in extremely hidden workplaces: private homes. Domestic workers become slaves when their employer uses force, fraud or coercion to control or convince an employee that they have no choice but to continue working. Isolating environments, unfamiliar languages, confiscated travel documents and restricted mobility are often connected to this form of slavery.

Definition slave vs servant

A servant is a person who voluntarily, willingly and usually consciously, at least to a degree, enters into servitude or service to another.

A slave is a person who involuntarily enters into servitude or service to another. It may occur consciously, as by violence or force of some kind, or unconsciously, as by brainwashing, hypnosis, false beliefs or some other method of mind control.

Related words to servant: one in service, employee, worker, light-worker, warrior, zealot, truth-seeker, covenant-keeper, god-fearing, born-again, disciple, apostle, prophet, church-goer, witness, one who is saved or forgiven or testifies, one who is repented, a child of God, a thoughtful one, or one who has found.

Related words to slave: a prisoner, forced worker, captive, dupe, patsy, hooked, one who is controlled by another, or a state of bondage.

A misconception in 16:71

Corpus

And Allah has favored some of you over others in [the] provision. But not those who were favored would hand over their provision to whom possess their right hands, so (that) they (are) in it equal. Then is it the Favor of Allah they reject?

Maududi

Allah has favoured some of you with more worldly provisions than others. Then those who are more favoured do not give away their provisions to their slaves lest they become equal sharers in it. Do they, then, deny the favour of Allah?

Pickthall

And Allah hath favoured some of you above others in provision. Now those who are more favoured will by no means hand over their provision to those (slaves) whom their right hands possess, so that they may be equal with them in respect thereof. Is it then the grace of Allah that they deny?

Sahih Intl

And Allah has favored some of you over others in provision. But those who were favored would not hand over their provision to those whom their right hands possess so they would be equal to them therein. Then is it the favor of Allah they reject?

Maududi - Tafhim al-Qur'an

It will be worthwhile to give deep thought to the meanings of this verse, for some modern commentators of the Qur'an have founded strange economic theories and systems in it.

In their opinion the verse implies this: Those people to whom Allah has given more provisions than others, should share these equally with their servants and slaves: otherwise they shall be guilty of ingratitude to Allah in regard to the wealth with which He had blessed them. This commentary on the verse is obviously wrong and far-fetched because in the context it occurs there is no mention at all of any law of economics.

This interpretation is so patently wrong that those who are well-versed in the teachings of the Qur'an can have no misconception about it. And such verses as these can mislead only those who have a cursory knowledge of the Qur'an.

The whole passage in which this verse occurs deals with the refutation of shirk and proof of Tauhid.

It’s about allah being non-identical to humans as humans are non-identical to slaves.

(30:28) He sets forth for you a parable from your own lives. Do you have among your slaves some who share with you the sustenance that We have bestowed on you so that you become equals in it, all being alike, and then you would hold them in fear as you fear each other? Thus do We make plain the Signs for those who use reason.

Tabarani on the authority of Ibn Abbas: Allah has refuted this kind of shirk in this verse. The argument is to this effect: “When you do not make your own slaves partners in your wealth, how do you think and believe that Allah will make His creatures partners in His Godhead?”

Origins

So how did slaves get into Arabia and how was Islam, and by extension Muslims, involved?

In 2002 the Canadian historian Paul E. Lovejoy wrote about this in his research paper titled “Islam, slavery, and political transformation in West Africa: constraints on the trans-Atlantic slave trade”. It is in a collection of articles on

vieux problèmes, nouvelles perspectives ?

This article examines the relative importance of Muslim merchants in the slave trade of West Africa, including both the trans-Atlantic world and the trans-Saharan Islamic heartlands. It is argued that Muslim involvement in the slave trade limited the development of the Atlantic economy and reinforced an Islamic world that remained largely autonomous. That is, Muslim commercial activity actually constrained the export of slaves across the Atlantic. The Islamic factor, and particularly the political transformations associated with jihad, explains the comparatively low levels of exports to the Americas from Muslim areas, or areas where Muslim merchants were present. Fewer slaves came from areas of Muslim dominance and influence than might otherwise have been expected, since slavery was widespread in these areas, constituting a "mode of production" that integrated enslavement, slave trade and slave use on a large scale.

~~He points out the prices, where female slaves exported from Africa were higher when shipped to Islamic regions and male slaves were higher priced when used in the Americas.~~

He quotes a historian colleague, Patrick Manning, who writes about the huge losses by Muslim slave traders, “there were heavy costs as every stage of the "enslavement process," from the actual act of enslavement itself, through the perils of being traded and traveling great distances, to the exploitation in the types of jobs slaves had to perform.”

He points out that Muslim slave merchants “the promotion of enslavement in an atmosphere already politicized in terms of belief/unbelief and the justification for enslavement on the basis of Islam. Hence it becomes important to identify when and where Muslim merchants were operating in West Africa, and what role they played in the export trade in slaves.

Caveat:

We talked about how Islam did not simply take the roman attitude towards slaves, but it regulated slavery, making improvements for some slaves.

Just as Islam is highly misogynistic, there were some improvements for women. The same goes for slavery, where we have a multi-layered and complex situation we can’t simply label a dichotomy, free vs unfree. It is true, but still more nuanced at the same time. Slaves had the opportunity to free themselves or climb up a social and economic ladder, children were not automatically slaves as well and a whole host of rules were drawn up as jurisprudence based on Shariah.

The problem is that some sentences in the Koran and the Sunnah, as we have seen, point to the traditional and primitive Roman concept of slavery, so many Muslims exploited their property and on the other hand some were able, given the more lenient legislative, to integrate their slaves into society. This makes it impossible to have a “me Tarzan you Jane” view and enables apologists to exploit these rare examples of leniency and ignore the harsh reality of the majority of cases. So we need to get ourselves educated on the specifics, which, in itself, is tough, given the huge taboo of Islamic slavery in today’s society where Muslims just want this hidden under some magic, flying carpet and hope it goes away without anyone noticing.

This is also one of the reasons that unlike slaves in the Americas, slaves in the Islamic world did not increase naturally. Other reasons were the high death rate of abused slaves and the concept of manumission and liberation, while the castration of male domestic workers did not play such a big role since the numbers were relatively low.

But all this does not serve to distract from the fact that slaves were captured, bought, traded, inherited and exchanged like any commodity at the time this was executed.

A very different source of slaves was a novel war strategy employed by Arabs. Warlords like 12/13^th century Genghis Khan simply destroyed. Arabs conquered, but gave the inhabitants in the conquered region a chance to join the army and partake in the booty and return after a few years of service – if they survived. These were military slaves, demonstrating that slavery in the Islamic world is pretty complex and not just simply grabbing girls and raping them – although that was the most common way slavery was practised. And this can be found in the examples we’ve already seen in the sentences of the Koran and which leads us into the next segment, sexual violence.

Sexual violence against women in wartime is epidemic. Muslim troops are by no means unique in violating women and girls. Rape has been used systematically as a weapon of war in Bosnia, Rwanda, and Colombia and, reaching back further into the twentieth century, in China by Japanese soldiers and in Bangladesh by Pakistani soldiers. Muslim women were systematically raped in Bosnia and Bangladesh, by non-Muslims in one case and Muslims in the other.²⁰ U.N. peacekeeping forces have been implicated in patterns of sexual assault.²¹ American soldiers have been guilty of the same around the globe, and within military ranks. Beyond occasional rogue soldiers who rape, U.S. military and intelligence services have routinely used sexualized torture and humiliation.²²

If sexual violence is all too common in conflict zones, leaving aside the deplorable forms it takes in what we might call ordinary life, why emphasize the criminal behavior of Muslim insurgencies? Why not treat the systematic capture and sale of Yazidi women and girls as a form of sex trafficking or wartime rape? By using the term slavery, does one confer legitimacy on IS claims to be following Islamic law? Is taking seriously IS propaganda—even attempts to refute it from within Islam—a concession that Muslim behavior can be explained through religious doctrine?

My aim is not to grant IS propaganda status as a legitimate or full explanation of its actions or motives. Rather, it is to understand a series of attempts at tradition-making, taking slavery as a case study.

http://www.mizanproject.org/journal-post/redeeming-slavery/

Sex with slaves

The Koran is clear that women that are found in the desert if they are not accompanied may be raped. The entire setup of male and female relationships is that women are passive sex recipients of Muslim men. Muhammed stated that wives are the property of men, and they are to be plowed as a farmer plowed their fields.

Chapter 23 verses 5-6 and Chapter 70 verses 29 to 30 state that a man may have sex with his slaves. They are told to guard their “farj” except from those whom their right hands possess. The word Farj literally means “gap” and is somewhat of a crude way of describing a vagina that is also used to describe a man’s sexual organs.

You can see by looking at uses of the word FARJ in the Quran how translators like to translate Farj for women to mean chastity and for men to mean modesty. This is a case of keeping your cake and eating it, women must be chaste with everyone and men must be chaste with everyone except wives and slaves, but this looks bad so for men it is translated as “modesty” – however with classical (and even some modern) exegesis it is easy to see through this...

Al Jalalayn describes FARJ clearly as “private parts” and for 23.6 says

except from their spouses, that is, to their spouses, and what [slaves] their right hands possess, that is, concubines, for then they are not blameworthy, in having sexual intercourse with them.

Maududi (Lived 1903-1979) says

Two categories of women have been excluded from the general command of guarding the private parts: (a) wives, (b) women who are legally in one's possession, i.e. slave-girls. Thus the verse clearly lays down the law that one is allowed to have sexual relations with one's slave-girl as with one's wife. the basis being possession and not marriage. If marriage had been the condition, the slave-girl also would have been included among the wives, and there was no need to mention them separately. Some modern commentators, who dispute the permissibility of having sexual relations with the slave-girl, argue from An-Nisa' (IV) : 25 to prove that one can have sexual relations with a slave-girl only after entering wedlock with her, because that verse enjoins that if a person cannot afford to marry a free Muslim woman, he may marry a Muslim slave-girl. But these commentators have a strange characteristic: they accept a part of a verse if it suits them, but conveniently ignore another part of the same verse if it goes against their wish and whim. The law about marrying the slave-girls as enunciated in IV :25 reads: "....you may marry them with the permission of their guardians and give them their fair dowries." Obviously the person under reference here is not the master of the slave girl himself but the person who cannot afford to marry a free Muslim woman, and therefore , wants to marry a slave-girl, who is in the possession of another person. For if the question had been of marrying one's own slave-girl, who would then be the "guardian" whose permission would have to be sought?

Hadiths

http://quranx.com/Hadith/Bukhari/Book-34/Hadith-176/ - Muhammad was asked about performing coitus interruptus with slave girls they had received as war booty. Muhammad didn’t say “marry them” or did he say “Don’t have sex with them” he said that there is no point in pulling it out because the baby is predestined or it isn’t.

http://quranx.com/Hadith/Bukhari/Book-37/Hadith-23/ Muhammad did however make it illegal to let other people have sex with your slaves for financial gain.

And here is a collection of hadiths related to having sex with captives, including how Muhammad killed the husband of a Jewish lady “Safiyya” and on the way home married her and consummated the marriage. http://quranx.com/Hadiths/4.24

Dear Muslims, do you rape female captives who are married?

Dear Muslims, do you condone slavery and rape of married women?

Would you rape female captives who are married if it was allowed, ie halal, in the Islamic Koran?

We all know that the Islamic Koran is not the nicest of books. But what I came across a few years ago is so horrific that I used only parts of it and only the milder versions at that.

But today, I decided to take a look at a, just one, sentence in the Koran and then analyse it, ok?

4:24 Yusuf Ali

Also (prohibited are) women already married, except those whom your right hands possess:

What I read here is: for a Muslim man, married Muslim women are taboo, married non-Muslim female slaves are not taboo. It is lawful to have sex with a married woman. It can be lawful to rape a married woman.

If you take the ma malakat aymanukum the way it is intended, as sex with a sex-slave, then the 2 sentences in chapter 4 of the Koran are like this:

[4.22-25] And do not have sex with the woman whom your fathers had sex with, except what has already passed; this surely is indecent and hateful, and it is an evil way. Forbidden to you is to have sex with your mothers and your daughters and your sisters and your paternal aunts and your maternal aunts and brothers' daughters and sisters' daughters and your mothers that have suckled you and your foster-sisters and mothers of your wives and your step-daughters who are in your guardianship, (born) of your those to whom you have had sex with, but if you have not had sex with them, there is no blame on you (in having sex with them), and the wives of your sons who are of your own loins and that you should have sex with two sisters together, except what has already passed; surely Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.

And (forbidden to you is to have sex with) all women who are having sex with another man except those whom your right hands possess (this is) Allah's ordinance to you, and lawful for you to have sex are besides those, provided that you seek with your property, taking them for sex and not committing fornication. Then as to those whom you enjoy sex by, give them their dowries as appointed; and there is no blame on you about what you mutually agree after what is appointed; surely Allah is Knowing, Wise. And whoever among you has not within his power ampleness of means to have sex with free believing women, then (have sex with) of those whom your right hands possess from among your believing maidens; and Allah knows best your faith: you are (sprung) the one from the other; so have sex with them with the permission of their masters, and give them their dowries justly, they being chaste, not fornicating, nor receiving paramours; and when they are being used for sex, then if they are guilty of indecency, they shall suffer half the punishment which is (inflicted) upon free women. This is for him among you who fears falling into evil; and that you abstain is better for you, and Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.

This is rape. Plain and simple. No consent required. It is lawful, so go and take what is lawfully yours.

} rape - sexual interaction without consent

Apologist: “Allah recognize SOME men has high sex drives and when they are surrounded by slaves [purchased, owned, captured, etc.] it is very difficult to resist their natural instinctual sex drives. This is why 4:24 provided the exception.”

This is shameful, horrendous, shocking and detestable. In my eyes this is yet another reason why Islam does not belong in the 21^st century.

It’s hypocritical, to say the least. It is immoral, disgraceful, even despicable and atrocious for a book which claims it sets the moral standards for all human beings on the entire planet, yesterday, today and tomorrow, to propagate both, keeping slaves and having sex with them, and to top it off, even if they are married.

The #1 thingy I want to point out here about 4:24: Islam does not prohibit slavery.

Of course Muslim apologists will not care about morality and the inhumane treatment of others, especially if those others are non-Muslims, the kafirs. No, they will attempt to discredit the person pointing this out and then come up with the same old, tired excuses we hear all the time. You don’t speak Arabic, it’s out of context, it was revealed for a specific occasion, you read the wrong translation, it is not literal but allegoric, here it says something different, you don’t understand the rationale behind it, you believe the Universe came from nothing or chance and so on and on. Weak. Feeble. Primitive. Eventually insulting the person and not addressing the claim or question.

Because if there would be a god who was perfect and wanted to create humans and intended them to do something and then went and used human language and human inventions to distribute these commands, that god would be incompetent and a failure. Not perfect. That’s why Islam needs humans to correct the mistakes in the old texts.

But even if I ignore any logics or rational thinking process, there would still be a problem. If this were a perfect book, written and then dictated and revealed as a perfect book, this book would require no explanation or context and would be valid for all times and not address a specific situation 1000 years ago.

So either the stipulation in the Koran to attain salvation that followers may have sex with sex-slaves who are married is not valid today or it is valid today. It can’t be a little bit valid and there are no conditions or limitations mentioned in the text.

But maybe I am reading the word “except” and understand “except” when I see “except”. And maybe, just maybe, the word “except” does not mean or is not intended to mean “except” here in this particular sentence. How would I verify that the words used are intended the way I understand them today?

Well, let’s go a bit beeper, shall we? Let’s see if we can figure this out. Since I thought about this entire concept a few years ago, I came up with the following approach, a sequence of processes:

Look up what words are used, check what ancient and modern Islamic scholars say about this and how they understand the words used in this sentence and then go to the hadiths for verification. If any of these disagree, it is a reason to abort.

So as I always do, let’s first look at the words used in ancient Arabic. In Arabic.

Prohibited

Who are married

Except - illa

Whom you possess

That’s what it says in the Koran, which was memorised by Muhammad, so the story goes, and transmitted to others and finally written down at some stage. If anyone doubts any part of this we can all doubt everything in the Koran, where it says that everything is explained and it is easy to understand.

Just to be thorough, let’s check something else. Does the word “except” the illa ever mean anything else in the Koran?

No, always the same.

So, next step, what did others, the experts, make of this?

Do the Jalalayns disagree with this?

No!, they concur and write, “save (they replace except those with save those) what your right hands own, of captured [slave] girls, whom you may have sexual intercourse with, even if they should have spouses among the enemy camp...”

Very clear, I should think. Also, please note there is no mention of marriage here as the facade of marriage before sex is ignored when it comes to sex. Also, rape is sexual interaction without consent and neither 9-year-old-girls nor sex-slaves are in a position to provide consent, hence, this rape and nothing else.

} definition Rape

Al Qushairi is only worried about the legal aspects and that there is payment for the women the man has sex with, preferably a dowry. A payment to the parents whom you buy their daughter from.

Al Wahidi also says that the Koran thus states “as a result of which we consider it lawful to have a physical relationship with them”. No misunderstanding here.

Ibn Kathir goes a different direction. He explains the words used in the Koran and also says that a Muslim may have lawful sex with women “except those whom you acquire through war, for you are allowed such women after making sure they are not pregnant”

How thoughtful of him to ask them whether they are pregnant. If they nod, are they set free? Hahaha silly me.

Ibn Kathir carefully examines the words and confirms what we have already found out and elaborates on the legal aspects of sex in Islam. He limits the sexual urges of men, but ever so slightly, saying “you are allowed to use your money to marry up to four wives and for (the purchase of) as many female slaves as you like, all through legal means”. How convenient. How horrific. How contemptable, disgraceful and inhumane for the females who are treated like goats.

But I am sure there are vile apologists like the man-with-a-hat and the man-with-a-bow-tie who will now read comforting sentences like mommys “have the paradise under their feet” or “give them from what he eats and wears” or famous last words “Fear Allah concerning your slaves” and think they have somehow cancelled out the horror in these kind of sentences in the Koran and the concept of slavery. This cost between 20 and 100 million lives, depending how you count it.

And no, come on, a woman whose entire family was wiped out, who was dragged all the way to the Middle East from the English coast did not have only one thing in mind - having sex with the man who bought her. It is a slave-market, not a job-fair.

Ibn Abbas agrees word for word with what we have read in the Koran, allowing male Muslims to rape female captives even if they are married.

Al Maududi goes off and does something a bit different. He performs a detailed analysis of what women qualify as sex partners if they also follow the Koran. He does not address women and tell them who is even allowed to knock at their door but addresses only the men.

Even modern scholars such as Muhammad Taqi Usmani agree that that is what it says in the Koran and investigates whether it might have been abrogated, only to find, no, it is valid today.

In Islam there are interpretations which not only allow a man to marry and have sex with his own cousin and grand-mother, but even his daughter and in some instances, father and son can share a woman between them. In other cases and interpretations this is prohibited and he comments on who allows what sex with whom. In my Incest video I’ve demonstrated all the different combinations possible in Islam in detail.

What is interesting here is that he states that a soldier can’t rape a female captive, but needs to hand here over to the government who can ransom her and sell her to someone else to make some bucks out of her. He then goes into whose property a woman is and what proprietary rights they have over the captured women. It is so sick it makes you want to throw up what Muslims must tolerate.

This entire approach is a bit odd because it is the opposite of what we can read what Muhammad said about this. Does that mean Muhammad was not a good Muslim?

None of the experts disagrees with the concept, so thingy #2 is: slavery and the rape of slaves is not prohibited.

Is society and humanity as a whole superior and better than these Koran passages with their despicable and horrific contents? Should they be ignored or updated or even deleted?

The next step is to check the secondary texts, the sunnah.

What exactly does Muhammad say about this?

“we captured some women who had husbands among the idolaters. So some of the men disliked that”

I can carry on and on, showing hadiths which explain what Muhammad said and did and how he did not prohibit Muslims keeping slaves and did not prohibit Muslims from having sex with them even when either was married.

Thingy #3: Muslims can have slaves, can have sex with their slaves and whenever and whatever and even if these women are still married.

But what about the more benevolent hadiths? Well, they contradict others and now a Muslim needs to figure out what they personally can accept and can consolidate within their personality, their morality and acceptance.

All these hadiths do is confirm that there are slaves and that Muslims can have slaves and it is nice if they treat them nicely and even marry them. Does this type of slavery make slavery any better? Should a woman from a poor tribe really be grateful that a Muslim kills her husband, her brother and her father, wipes out her friends and the entire tribe and then drags her 1000 of kilometres all the way to Damascus, rapes her several times on the way and then sells her to a guy who also rapes her and eventually marries her to have more sex and cover her when she is given permission to leave the house? Is that good for a human being? Is that how a human being deserves to be treated and should be treated? Today?

I think not!

But, it gets even worse. You don’t think it can? Believe me, it does.

There are hadiths which show the full depth of contempt Muslims and Muhammad in particular had towards slaves, especially female sex-slaves. Let me try and elucidate this situation and the corresponding actions by Muhammad, the role model, found in the following hadiths.

And these are not obscure sayings but coming straight from Muhammad and Islamic scholars have categorised and classified them as “authentic” which is probably why we see this practised today by Boko Haram and daesh and all those who follow what Muhammad did. Muhammad plundered caravans and small settlements, stealing everything and making off with women and children after the men were massacred. The women were sold on the slave market or were held for ransom. Muslims went all the way up to the coasts of France and England to capture blonde or blue-eyed girls for the Middle Eastern slave markets. These girls would fetch higher prices than black or dark-skinned females would. Pregnant females were worth even less as the outcome of birth was uncertain and the money would be wasted if she died in the process.

So the men would try not to get the women pregnant and would have a guilty conscience, if the women they were raping still had husbands who were alive. But Muhammad told them not to worry. Muhammad, the idol and role-model for millions and billions of Muslims living on this planet today.

Muhammad told the men that they could rape female captives.

Muhammad told the men they could rape female captives even if they were married.

Muhammad even told the men they should enjoy their orgasm when raping female captives who were still married and not to worry about their prices on the slave market.

Only his allah would decide who was going to get pregnant and when, so they could enjoy the rape to the fullest without any worries.

Just so that you don’t accuse me of lying, here’s a selection of hadiths, all categorised and verified as being authentic showing what I just explained.

Bukhari 3.34.432, 46.718, 59.459, 62.137, 77.600, 93.506; Muslim 8.3371, 3372, 3373, 3383, 3384

So thingy #4 is that according to the secondary texts in Islam, Muhammad advised his men to enslave, keep slaves, how to treat their slaves, how to share them, how have sex with those slaves, even if they were married and to enjoy the sex without worrying about getting the slaves pregnant, which would reduce their prices.

There are indications that some slave-owners also kept male sex-slaves but I’ll leave that for another day.

So, dear Muslims, I need to ask: are you better than your god?

Can you really, I mean really and with a long, deep look at your morals and your personalities, admit that you too think that slavery is ok, is acceptable, today? That buying another human, no matter how well you treat them, is good, a commendable action? That human beings should be objects and that these objects can be used - and can be used just for sex - without any rights or mutual agreements? Are you really able to rationalise slavery by looking for nice sounding sentences in Islamic texts? Do you think that if it says you should feed and dress slaves it makes slavery better? Is Islamic slavery better slavery than other slavery? Is it fitting that instead of condemning all forms of slavery you still try and white-wash slavery?

It boils down to this: can you honestly and with a clear conscience allow a Muslim man, your neighbour or colleague or even your friend, your brother to go out and buy a girl who is still married in her home-town and allow this Muslim man to rape her - while saying your god is all for it?

Do you really consider a man, whether messenger or not, one who condones the rape of captives and still encourages this rape and the enjoyment of it, as a role-model in the 21^st century? Without any scruples? Do you seriously admire this man?

If you can really and with conviction say yes to any of this and still look for some sort of justification for any of this, I am sorry, get off this planet, we don’t need you here.

Sources:

Mufti Muhammad Taqi Usmani Hadith CommentaryJanuary 26, 2013

Slavery in Islam

https://www.deoband.org/2013/01/hadith/hadith-commentary/slavery-in-islam/

Ruling on rape

https://islamqa.info/en/72338

rape his slave girl is like saying that a man has the right to rape his wife

http://www.call-to-monotheism.com/does_islam_permit_muslim_men_to_rape_their_slave_girls_

Audio Background:

CyberLink MagicMusic “Global Vibes”, style: Junku

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(711)

Chapter: Regarding Intercourse With Captives

(45)

باب فِي وَطْءِ السَّبَايَا

Abu Sa’id Al Khudri said “The Apostle of Allaah(ﷺ) sent a military expedition to Awtas on the occasion of the battle of Hunain. They met their enemy and fought with them. They defeated them and took them captives. Some of the Companions of Apostle of Allaah (ﷺ) were reluctant to have relations with the female captives because of their pagan husbands/in the presence of their husbands who were unbelievers. So, Allaah the exalted sent down the Qur’anic verse “And all married women (are forbidden) unto you save those (captives) whom your right hand possess.” This is to say that they are lawful for them when they complete their waiting period.

حَدَّثَنَا عُبَيْدُ اللَّهِ بْنُ عُمَرَ بْنِ مَيْسَرَةَ، حَدَّثَنَا يَزِيدُ بْنُ زُرَيْعٍ، حَدَّثَنَا سَعِيدٌ، عَنْ قَتَادَةَ، عَنْ صَالِحٍ أَبِي الْخَلِيلِ، عَنْ أَبِي عَلْقَمَةَ الْهَاشِمِيِّ، عَنْ أَبِي سَعِيدٍ الْخُدْرِيِّ، أَنَّ رَسُولَ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم بَعَثَ يَوْمَ حُنَيْنٍ بَعْثًا إِلَى أَوْطَاسٍ فَلَقُوا عَدُوَّهُمْ فَقَاتَلُوهُمْ فَظَهَرُوا عَلَيْهِمْ وَأَصَابُوا لَهُمْ سَبَايَا فَكَأَنَّ أُنَاسًا مِنْ أَصْحَابِ رَسُولِ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم تَحَرَّجُوا مِنْ غِشْيَانِهِنَّ مِنْ أَجْلِ أَزْوَاجِهِنَّ مِنَ الْمُشْرِكِينَ فَأَنْزَلَ اللَّهُ تَعَالَى فِي ذَلِكَ ‏{‏ وَالْمُحْصَنَاتُ مِنَ النِّسَاءِ إِلاَّ مَا مَلَكَتْ أَيْمَانُكُمْ ‏}‏ أَىْ فَهُنَّ لَهُمْ حَلاَلٌ إِذَا انْقَضَتْ عِدَّتُهُنَّ ‏.‏

Grade : Sahih (Al-Albani) صحيح (الألباني) حكم :

Reference : Sunan Abi Dawud 2155

In-book reference : Book 12, Hadith 110

English translation : Book 11, Hadith 2150

Islam is dying/shrinking

youtu.be/-sIDphS0R6c

Incest

youtu.be/zBGf2KbLCMQ

Manussa Tract No. 5

Slavery and the Infidel in Islam

Essays on Islamic Theory and Practice considered from a Humanist Perspective

by Victor A. Gunasekara

CONTENTS

1. Introduction

2. Islam and Slavery

* (a) Sources on Islamic Slavery

* (b) Slavery in the Koran

* (c) Aspects of Islamic Slavery

* (d) Apologetics for Islamic Slavery

3. Islam and the Infidel

* (a) Literature on Islam and the Infidel

* (b) Umma, Dhimmi and Kaffir

* (c) War and Jihad in Islam

* (d) Islamic Expansion into Asia

* (e) Final Comments

4. Conclusion

PUBLISHER'S NOTE

The essays collected in this booklet derive from different sources. That on slavery has not been published before. It originated as a reply to a criticism of a claim by the author that the Koran "permits slavery".

That on the Infidel is a reprint of an article that appeared in the Queensland Humanist Vol 33:1 January 1999. It has the form of a review article surveying some books written on this subject. It has been slightly amended by the author.

These two essays, despite their different origins, share a common theme. This is explained in the introductory section to this work. The conclusion gives some additional comments.

1. Introduction

This work deals with the treatment of two important issues by a major world religion. It is written primarily from the standpoint of humanism(1). The religion concerned is Islam and the issues are slavery and the treatment of non-believers. Both issues are very important for humanists. They deal with two kinds of freedom, in one case the freedom of the human person himself or herself and in the other the freedom of belief. Slavery is the worst kind of denial of human freedom and human rights essentially making one individual the property of another. It is now regarded with the greatest horror but this has not always been the case. The denial of the freedom of belief is only slightly less important. Here too the traditional practice in many countries has been to deny this freedom, especially in the area of religion or belief. Here what is important is not only the freedom to believe in a religion of one's choice but also the freedom to be free of religious belief.

Humanists have been in the forefront in the fight against slavery and servitude of all forms, and in the fight for freedom of belief and opinion. Both are now considered as important aspects of human rights. The denial of such rights has historically come from many sources. In the immediate context it is the State which determines the rights and liberties of its inhabitants. But in the formulation of state policy religion has played an important part. In theocratic states religion is the basis of jurisprudence and state policy and so is directly responsible for the freedoms, or lack of them, of its citizens. The rise of secularism in many countries has reduced but not completely eliminated the power of religion..

This work deals with Islam. This is not because Islam is the worst offender in the denial of these freedoms (even though it could well be) but because it provides a classic example of civil law based on religious jurisprudence. In a fully Islamic state there is no possibility of the separation of religion and the state. Thus an examination of the Islamic attitude to these questions can provide a classic instance of how religious principles could be used to influence basic human rights in these, and several other, areas. It can also provide useful conclusion to apply to states which are not completely theocratic but in the past have been theocratic whose traces still linger.

Islam arose in the seventh century CE, more precisely in 632 CE, in Mecca, the principal city of Arabia, when a trader called Muhammad received a "revelation" which he claimed to be from God. He communicated this revelation first to his wife and then other members of his family. From this humble beginning Islam was able, within a few centuries after Muhammad's death, to carve out an empire extending from the Atlantic Ocean to the Indian subcontinent. From there it spread to South-East Asia, Central Asia and Africa and thus becoming a world religion. With the rise of European colonialism Islam went into decline. More recently with the demise of colonialism there has been a resurgence of Islam. This has been enhanced by the economic wealth going to many Muslim countries as a result of the exploitation of their oil wealth.

From its beginning slavery was an integral part of Islam. It was inherited from the Arabs who like other ancient peoples practiced it. But Islam sanctioned it in the Koran which is the basic religious text of Islam. However it is not the only religious text to sanction it. It is also sanctioned in the Old Testament and also by implication in the New Testament because of Jesus' statement that the "law" as set out in the O.T. should be honoured by his followers(2). Hinduism too sanctions various kinds of servitude including slavery. Of the major religions it is only Buddhism which denounces this practice. The Buddha included trade in humans as a Wrong Livelihood, and of course without this commerce there would be no slavery.

The second theme discussed in this work is the position of the non-believer in Islam. In this area too Islam more than most other religions took a firm position. Islam made a distinction between people on the basis of their religious belief with non-Muslims being subjected to various penalties. This subject is taken up in the third section of this work. Once again it is not only Islam that has been guilty of this. The record of Christianity on this question has been hardly better. The numbers of people who have been killed, burned, tortured, imprisoned or otherwise punished for heresy by the various Christian sects is legion. From the conversion of Constantine to Christianity until the Nineteenth Century Europe was virtually closed for all non-Christians. The only other religious group permitted was the Jews and they were subjected to severe discrimination.

It may be argued that the issue of slavery is now dead. This is of course not strictly true as the Anti-Slavery Society will easily testify. Most of the instances they have documented in recent years have come from Islamic countries even though there have been other examples as well.

It is shown in the second section of this work that slavery is sanctioned in the Koran which is the principal religious text of Islam. Moreover this religious text is still held to be literally correct. It is not just any religious text but one said to be inscribed for all time in a tablet preserved in Paradise. Besides it is supposed to be the word of an omniscient and omnipotent being. So it enshrines what the believers of this text would consider an eternal principle(3).

There is an increasing tendency for Muslim countries to go back to Islamic fundamentals. Not only is Islam the official dogma in countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran but it is increasingly adopted by other Muslim countries like Pakistan (which under British rule had abolished it). Even so-called moderate Muslim countries like Indonesia and Malaysia are increasingly coming under the sway of extreme Muslim groups. Thus we cannot write off slavery as belonging to a forgotten period in human history.

The denial of the freedom of opinion, the other theme of this booklet, is of course an all too familiar story. Today this denial ranges from censorship of political opinion imposed by dictators to the policies of religious hierarchies not only in suppressing dissent within their own jurisdictions but also by abetting Governments to maintain such laws such as anti-blasphemy legislation on the Statute book. Hardly a day passes without some group demanding some form of censorship to protect its own privileges, or errors. This is an area where eternal vigilance is truly needed.

Thus the subjects dealt with in this work are not mere matters of historical interest but are also issues of current concern especially to humanists.

2. Islam and Slavery

(a) Sources on Islam and Slavery

The primary source of Islam is the Koran. This document is said to have been communicated to Muhammad by the angel Gabriel from a copy created in heaven by God himself(4). It refers to slavery quite openly in several places without any attempt to conceal what it means(5). These matter-of-fact references indicate that Muhammad did not find anything unusual in this institution. We shall examine ten of the principal references to slavery in the next section of this chapter. There is also a second layer of Islamic jurisprudence. These related to the deeds and words on Muhammad when he was not making the prophetic utterances recorded in the Koran. They too have been compiled into a series of Books called the Hadith(6). In the Hadith, which are regarded almost as important as the Koran, there is quite unabashed reference to Muhammad as a slave owner. He is even held as an exemplar in this regard. Both the Koran and the Hadith are treated extremely reverentially by Muslims and there is always the cry of "Back to the Koran and Hadith" whenever enterprising theologians try to give an altered meaning. That is why we have to look at the attitude to slavery as shown in these two primary sources of Islam.

A third source lies in the interpretation and expansion of the sayings in the Koran and the Hadith by a number of Islamic jurists and scholars. They too deal with subjects of slavery and the treatment of non-Muslim people in the areas ruled by Muslims. However there is no new insight that is added, indeed it is not possible to add such new insights to a revelation that is considered closed. It is this codification that is now referred to as the Sharia law. Today there is a clamor for the re-institution of the Sharia Law in Muslim countries as many of them under modern influences have departed from the strict Sharia law. This has not so far led to a call to revive the institution of slavery, perhaps because of the extreme disgust with which this practice is now regarded by civilised society. But it is not inconceivable that it could happen if Islam secures the military means to expand its conquests as it did in its heyday. On the other aspects, denial of freedom of belief to non-Muslims in Muslim countries (except for the limited freedom given to the "People of the Book") there has been only a little relaxation.

A large number of books have been published on Islam by Muslims and non-Muslims alike. But very few of them deal with the subjects of slavery and the denial of freedom of belief. This is true of both modern Islamic writers as well as of Western scholars. This is surprising because such reticence is not seen in the classic writings of Islam. The reluctance of modern authors to deal with this question can be easily explained. The institution of slavery is now seen as one of most detestable institutions ever devised by man. To claim that this institution is sanctioned in sacred scriptures said to represent the word of God is highly embarrassing to those advancing these scriptures as a kind of divine revelation coming from an omniscient, omnipotent and totally benevolent source. It must be pointed that slavery is permitted not only in the Koran but also in the Bible(7). This latter fact may explain the reluctance of modern Christian critics to deal with the subject of Islamic slavery. But at one time Christian writers were quite open in their criticism of what they regarded as wrong in Islam. This included the great prominence given to slavery in the Koran. But this was the time when Christian countries were dominant and had colonised most of the non-Western world. They were also engaged in an anti-slavery campaign. Modern Christian writers have departed from this practice. This is not however a concession to a greater sense of tolerance. It has more to do with the fact that they themselves are guilty of the things they accuse the Muslims of. It is simply a matter of people in glass houses not throwing stones. Also the economic power of Muslim countries has greatly increased and many Western countries are dependent on them for raw materials like oil which is critically important for their economies. So they feel that they should not antagonize the Muslims too much. This matter will be dealt at greater length in the section on apologetics for Islamic slavery

(b) Slavery in the Koran

It is to the Koran that we have to go to find Muhammad's attitude to slavery. The subject is treated at many places in the Koran. We shall consider some of these statements in the order that they appear in the Koran, quoting the relevant part of the verse concerned(8).

(i) Sura 2 (The Cow) Verse 178

2.178: O you who believe! retaliation is prescribed for you in the matter of the slain, the free for the free, and the slave for the slave, and the female for the female, but if any remission is made to any one by his (aggrieved) brother, then prosecution (for the bloodwit) should be made according to usage, and payment should be made to him in a good manner; this is an alleviation from your Lord and a mercy; so whoever exceeds the limit after this he shall have a painful chastisement.

Retaliation for murder and other crimes was sanctioned by Arabian usage and accepted by Muhammad. Here it is said that a free(man) could be killed for the murder of a free(man) and similarly for a (free) woman and a slave. The mention of these three categories quite casually indicates that slavery is accepted along with the other two categories as an acceptable state for a human being. What is not clear is whether the person put to death is the person responsible for the killing. While this may be true of free persons this is not necessarily true of slaves. Thus if a slave is killed then it is not the killer of the slave that has to be killed but a slave of the killer! What this shows is that slaves are treated as pure merchandise of the slave owner. If a slave is killed then it is a loss to its owner and the retaliation for this is the killing of a slave belonging to the offender. Of course the slave killed may be quite innocent.

Of course it may be argued that the free people may have been responsible for the crime but to a kill an innocent slave for the crime of his master is truly a perversion of justice. The casual way in which slaves as a category of humans are mentioned along with free men and women in the application of this law shows that Muhammad completely accepted the slave status of humans to be a perfectly normal status.

(ii) Sura 4 (The Women), Verse 92.

4.92: And it does not behoove a believer to kill a believer except by mistake, and whoever kills a believer by mistake, he should free a believing slave, and blood-money should be paid to his people unless they remit it as alms; but if he be from a tribe hostile to you and he is a believer, the freeing of a believing slave (suffices), and if he is from a tribe between whom and you there is a covenant, the blood-money should be paid to his people along with the freeing of a believing slave; but he who cannot find (a slave) should fast for two months successively:

This verse has been adduced by Muslim apologists who claim that Muhammad urged the general freeing of slaves. This is certainly not the case. What this verse tells is that manslaughter (killing by mistake) of a Muslim (presumably by another Muslim) could be paid for by freeing one slave for each act of manslaughter. The freeing of the slave is a kind of penalty imposed on the offending Muslim for his act of manslaughter. It could be compared to imposing a fine on the person. Slaves are seen as a kind of legal tender - instead of being fined for the misdemeanor the offender is forced to free a slave. Surely this is a far cry from a requirement that slaves should be freed as a general principle.

To free a slave the person concerned must own slaves; this Sura therefore assumed implicitly that slavery is permitted in the Koran. There are some peculiarities that deserve notice. It is only a "believing slave" (i.e a slave who is a Muslim) that can be freed. A non-Muslim slave does not have even this route of escape from slavery. This verse is laying down penalties for killing, not trying to free slaves.

The verse also says that if a slave cannot be found the punishment is a two month fast(9). This is perhaps a case of extending the fast at Ramadan from one to two months. It gives some idea of the value attached to a slave in Islam.

(iii) Sura 5 (The Dinner Table), Verse 89

5.89: Allah does not call you to account for what is vain in your oaths, but He calls you to account for the making of deliberate oaths; so its expiation is the feeding of ten poor men out of the middling (food) you feed your families with, or their clothing, or the freeing of a neck; but whosoever cannot find (means) then fasting for three days; this is the expiation of your oaths when you swear; and guard your oaths. Thus does Allah make clear to you His communications, that you may be Fateful.

The expression "freeing of a neck" in this verse has been cited by some Muslim apologists as showing that Muhammad urges slave-owners to free their slaves. This does nothing of the sort. In the first place it is not clear whether the phrase in question refers to slavery at all. It could refer to the freeing of a man condemned to capital punishment,(10) because under Islam the relatives if the dead man can waive the execution of the murderer for a sum of money. Even if considered as freeing a slave it is another penalty for a transgression (the making of a deliberate oath), As in Sura 4.92 we are looking at penalties for various infringements (manslaughter, oaths) and the setting-free of a slave is used as a kind of payment or retribution for offence dealt with.

This kind of penalty can be prescribed only if slavery is permitted as a legal institution, which it is in Islam. This kind of penalty can even be considered as encouraging slavery as people might think it prudent to have a stock of slaves so that they can be used to pay off various penalties.

(iv) Sura 12 (Yusuf), Verses 29-30

12.29: O Yusuf! turn aside from this; and (O my wife)! ask forgiveness for your fault, surely you are one of the wrong-doers.

12.30: And women in the city said: The chief's wife seeks her slave to yield himself (to her), surely he has affected her deeply with (his) love; most surely we see her in manifest error.

This is the story of the slave Joseph who was bought by a person simply described as an Egyptian. The Egyptian's wife tried to induce the slave to have sexual relations with her, which though tempted Joseph resisted. The Egyptian believed the slave and asked the wife to apologize. This is only important as highlighting the complex relations that developed between slaves and their owners. In Islam male owners of slaves were entitled to have sexual relations with their slave women whether the women liked it or not, but this incident shows that the reverse was not necessarily true. It is perhaps another example of the discriminatory treatment of women as against men.

(v) Sura 16 (The Bee), verse 71

16.71: And Allah has made some of you excel others in the means of subsistence, so those who are made to excel do not give away their sustenance to those whom their right hands possess so that they should be equal therein; is it then the favor of Allah which they deny?

This requires that those Muslims who are better off should share some of their "subsistence" with their slaves. While this is a good maxim it presupposes that the ownership of slaves is a normal state of affairs.

(vi) Sura 16 (The Bee), verse 75

16.75 Allah sets forth a parable: (consider) a slave, the property of another, (who) has no power over anything, and one whom We have granted from Ourselves a goodly sustenance so he spends from it secretly and openly; are the two alike? (All) praise is due to Allah!

This is one of the clearest instances where the institution of slavery is justified in the Koran as a divine dispensation. It deserves close scrutiny. This "parable" contrasts two people a slave who is owned by another and is completely powerless and a freeman on whom Allah has granted "a goodly sustenance" which he can spend openly or secretly as he pleases (perhaps acquiring slaves for himself). Since Allah claims for himself the position of the granter of all benefits (or lack of them) both the freeman's fortune and the slave's misfortune are ultimately determined by Allah. By his rhetorical question "Are the two alike?" Muhammad is actually justifying the inequality between the slave and the freeman as if it was a natural thing. Thus a Muslim will have no compunctions or qualms in employing and exploiting slaves (subject only to any conditions that Muhammad may have imposed) because it is what Allah has ordained and "all praise is due to Allah".

(vii ) Sura 23 (The Believers), Verses 1-6

23.1-6: Successful indeed are the believers, Who are humble in their prayers, And who keep aloof from what is vain, And who are givers of poor-rate, And who guard their private parts, Except before their mates or those whom their right hands possess, for they surely are not blameable.

This is the Sura which gives the slave owner the right of sexual access to u\his female slaves. The term "guarding the private parts" is a synonym for sexual intercourse, and it is said that this is not blameable if indulges with wives and slaves.

(viii) Sura 24 (The Light), Verse 31

24.31: And say to the believing women that they cast down their looks and guard their private parts and do not display their ornaments except what appears thereof, and let them wear their head-coverings over their bosoms, and not display their ornaments except to their husbands or their fathers, or the fathers of their husbands, or their sons, or the sons of their husbands, or their brothers, or their brothers' sons, or their sisters' sons, or their women, or those whom their right hands possess, or the male servants not having need (of women), or the children who have not attained knowledge of what is hidden of women; and let them not strike their feet so that what they hide of their ornaments may be known; and turn to Allah all of you, O believers! so that you may be successful.

This is the famous Sura enjoining the veiling of women.(11) Amongst those before whom the women need not be covered are slaves (who under included in those that "the right hand possess" a term that is used throughout in the Koran as a synonym for slaves). This is probably because slaves were such a common occurrence in Muslim households that they are taken for granted and women need not use the dress code prescribed for outside wear while they are at home even in front of their slaves.

(ix) Sura 24 (The Light), Verse 32

24.32: And marry those among you who are single and those who are fit among your male slaves and your female slaves; if they are needy, Allah will make them free from want out of His grace; and Allah is Ample-giving, Knowing.

This is said to sanction marriages of slaves with slaves and slaves with free persons (including the owner). Owners did not usually marry slaves as they could use them for sexual purposes at will. This dispensation has been used to make slaves marry other slaves. In Islam a child born to a slave couple also is a slave from birth, so this verse gives a great incentive to slave owners to breed slaves. This is another obnoxious aspect of Islamic slavery. Whatever be the other circumstances in which people are made into slaves to make a new-born infant a slave is one of the most cruel and callous. Ye this did not evoke a protest from the Prophet and has been extensively resorted to by Muslims.

(x) Sura 24 (The Light), Verse 33

24.33: And let those who do not find the means to marry keep chaste until Allah makes them free from want out of His grace. And (as for) those who ask for a writing from among those [slaves] whom your right hands possess, give them the writing if you know any good in them, and give them of the wealth of Allah which He has given you; and do not compel your slave girls to prostitution, when they desire to keep chaste, in order to seek the frail good of this world's life; and whoever compels them, then surely after their compulsion Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.

This is another verse often quoted by apologists for the Prophet. There are two references to slaves here. One is that a "good" slave could be freed by the slave owner.(12) However it is not a simple ex gratia freedom that is meant but one subject to a formal agreement ("writing"). This document lays down the conditions attached to the freeing of the slave, and usually involves the payment of a sum of money by the slave who is to be freed. Since a slave would not normally have a lot of money, someone else (perhaps a relative of the slave) has to put up the money, or the slave himself agrees to pay the money out of future income. What really happens is that the slave becomes an indentured worker for the former owner. How this can be described as complete freedom for the slave is difficult to see. It is simply a monetary transaction with the slave buying his own freedom, or somebody else doing it for him. It may actually be to the advantage of the slave-owner depending on the actual terms of the contract.

Even if no conditions are attached what this Sura says is that owners can free slaves who have been good slaves and not given any trouble. But slaves being the absolute property of their masters can be disposed of at the master's will just as he can give away any other of his property. So this "dispensation" given in the Koran does not really amount to much; it cannot be seen as a move towards the elimination of slavery. There is no obligation for any slave owner to follow that is recommended in this Sura. There is also the question whether a "bad" slave can be freed even if the owner wants to free this slave subject to the stipulated conditions.

The verse also states that women slaves should not be used for prostitution. While we must be grateful to the Prophet for this tender mercy it must also be remembered that the Prophet did not restrict the master's access to his female slaves for his own sexual gratification! This is the implication of this prohibition against prostitution; if the Prophet wanted to protect female slaves from sexual exploitation by their owners he would have said so. Nowhere is this restriction put on slave owners and they have liberally used this to their advantage.

(xi) Sura 33 (The Clans), Verse 50

33.50: O Prophet! surely We have made lawful to you your wives whom you have given their dowries, and those [slaves] whom your right hand possesses out of those whom Allah has given to you as prisoners of war, and the daughters of your paternal uncles and the daughters of your paternal aunts, and the daughters of your maternal uncles and the daughters of your maternal aunts who fled with you; and a believing woman if she gave herself to the Prophet, if the Prophet desired to marry her -- specially for you, not for the (rest of) believers; We know what We have ordained for them concerning their wives and those whom their right hands possess in order that no blame may attach to you; and Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.

Here, as elsewhere, the term "possessions of the right hand" mean slaves. It is expressly stated that Muhammad's slaves are given to him by Allah himself to be taken out of his share of the captives in war. It also records the special dispensation given to Muhammad, not available to other Muslims, in the number of wives(13).

(xii) Sura 39 (The Companions), Verses 29

39.29: Allah sets forth an example: There is a slave in whom are (several) partners differing with one another, and there is another slave wholly owned by one man. Are the two alike in condition? (All) praise is due to Allah. Nay! most of them do not know.

The example set out here compares joint ownership of a slave by many owners and the single ownership by one person. Muhammad asks rhetorically whether the two cases are the same. Of course they are not and it is clear that Muhammad prefers single ownership. In fact this is why he established the rule that after a military campaign the captives were allocated to each of his soldiers individually not collectively, with himself keeping a fifth of the captives as his personal slaves.

(xiii) Sura 70 (The Ways of Ascent) verses 29-35

70: 29-35 And those who guard their private parts, Except in the case of their wives or those whom their right hands possess -- for these surely are not to be blamed, But he who seeks to go beyond this, these it is that go beyond the limits -- And those who are faithful to their trusts and their covenant And those who are upright in their testimonies, And those who keep a guard on their prayer, Those shall be in gardens, honored.

These verses are similar to Sura 23.93-96 and gives the right to slave owners to have sexual relation with female slaves. The only difference is that the earlier reference may leave some doubt as to whether both males and female slaves are meant. These verses clearly show that it is only female slaves that are meant.

(xiv) Sura 90 (The City)

Sura 90. In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful. Nay! I swear by this city. And you shall be made free from obligation in this city -- And the begetter and whom he begot. Certainly We have created man to be in distress. Does he think that no one has power over him? He shall say: I have wasted much wealth. Does he think that no one sees him? Have We not given him two eyes, And a tongue and two lips, And pointed out to him the two conspicuous ways? But he would not attempt the uphill road, And what will make you comprehend what the uphill road is? (It is) the setting free of a slave, Or the giving of food in a day of hunger To an orphan, having relationship, Or to the poor man lying in the dust. Then he is of those who believe and charge one another to show patience, and charge one another to show compassion. These are the people of the right hand. And (as for) those who disbelieve in our communications, they are the people of the left hand. On them is fire closed over.

The meaning of this verse is very cryptic but has been made clearer by various commentators. The city is Mecca and this Sura is said to have been revealed after Muhammad's taking of that city. The "I" in line 1 is Allah and the "you" in line 2 is Muhammad but there is some debate as whom "he" in line 4 means. Some take it to be al Walid Ebn al Mogheira, one of Muhammad's Meccan opponents, others as Abu'l Ashadd Ebn Calsa, another opponent. Whoever this opponent may have been it is clear that he has not understood "the uphill path" which involves doing the things mentioned, one of which is the freeing of a slave. So this is similar to verse 24.33 considered earlier. It is good to free a slave, just as it is good to give to charity, but having slaves is not prohibited just as having money is not prohibited.

This Sura applies to the specific individual referred to as "he" and therefore cannot be taken as a general rule applying to all Muslims(14).

(i) Recruitment of Slaves in Islam

We have already mentioned that newborn children could be recruited into Islamic slavery if the parents of the infant were slaves. But the most common method of getting slaves was capture (see Sura 33.50 given above). Sometimes this takes place on the battlefield, but as soldiers were usually men women could rarely be enslaved in this way. Thus in the Battle of Badr, the first of Muhammad's victories, all the captives were males. Some of these captives were released after a bounty was paid by their relatives others were freed if they converted and joined Muhammad's army

Males of mature age were not always desirable as slaves as the primary use of slaves in that pre-industrial society was to do domestic chores, and men did not excel in this. Thus Muslims always prized females not only because they could be used to do domestic work, but also because they could be used to satisfy their carnal appetites of their owners and also be used as breeding stock to breed more slaves. Children were also prized because they could be converted into Islam by their captors without requiring their consent.

So in course of time the Prophet shifted his tactics and when an army was defeated the entire community which the army defended was enslaved. This ensured a supply of women and children the most prized of slaves. This was often combined with the wholesale slaughter of the men. The classic example of this is what the Prophet did after he defeated the Jewish tribe of Banu Quraiza. All 700 men left in the tribe were slaughtered in one day the unfortunates being forced to dig their own graves before their heads were struck off. So it was not simply a question of killing people in the heat of battle. All the women and children of the tribe were then enslaved.

Later on Muslims conducted organised raids into Africa to enslave Negroes. These were then sold in the slave bazaars of Mecca, Baghdad, Tripoli and other places in the Islamic world. This trade was only stopped by the European powers in the nineteenth century.

(ii) Muhammad as a Slave Owner

A stumbling block to those want to present Muhammad as a potential liberator of slaves is the he himself was a slave owner. We have already seen in Sura 33.50 that Allah says that he has given Muhammad slaves. Since the main route to servitude was capture in war Allah gives a fifth of the spoils of war to the Prophet to be used as he wishes:

8.41: And know that whatever thing you gain, a fifth of it is for Allah and for the Apostle and for the near of kin and the orphans and the needy and the wayfarer, if you believe in Allah and in that which We revealed to Our servant, on the day of distinction, the day on which the two parties met; and Allah has power over all things

According to this Sura a fifth share of the booty was taken by Muhammad some of which was distributed to near kin, etc. as stipulated in the Sura. But this distribution was at Muhammad's discretion. The booty included the captives who were made slaves. After the first successful campaign, the Battle of Badr, Muhammad released the captives who were not ransomed by the Meccans. This clemency had been opposed by some Muslim leaders like Umar who wanted them executed. However in later battles the general rule was that the men who refused to convert were executed while women and children were taken into slavery.(15)

(iii) Position of Women Slaves

One of the worst aspects of Islamic slavery is the sexual exploitation of women slaves by their masters. Some Muslims try to deny this but as we have seen there are at least three Suras in the Koran which give the slave owner the power to cohabit with his female slaves at will. Even without the taint of slavery the plight of women was deplorable under Islam. If on top of this slavery is attached their plight is magnified manifold.

Amongst those who try to assert that concubinage with female slaves was not permitted in Islam is Maulana Muhammad Ali (The Religion of Islam, pp. 6667-670). His main argument is that Muhammad allows slave owners to marry female slaves (e.g. in Sura 24.32-33 which we have considered above)(16). But the fact that marriage is allowed does not mean that concubinage was not. In Islam a girl was given in marriage with the consent of her guardian (usually the father). But a slave has no guardian other than the slave-owner so the slave-owner marrying his own slave cannot be a free contract. A Muslim can have only four wives but he can keep an unlimited number of slave concubines; that is why marriage to one's slave was rather rare. Finally even Maulana Muhammad Ali is forced to admit that in the Islamic jurisprudence (the Fiqh) "we find the rule laid down that a master may have sexual relations with his slave girl simply because of the right of ownership which she has in her" (p. 670).

The sexual exploitation of women slaves has also existed in other countries, e.g. in the United States with respect to Negro slavery. But never so extensively and commonly as under Islam, and never under the sanction of divine command. The harems and seraglios of the richer Islamic potentiates became massive and they were replenished regularly by slave women. This is amply documented in the cases of the Moghul and Ottoman rulers as well as the smaller Arab sheiks.

Muhammad himself accumulated a small harem of women for each of whom he built an apartment around the Mosque at Medina. Most were wives, the number greatly exceeding the number of four which was allowed for ordinary Muslims(17). The extra wives were generally authorised by a special dispensation from God granted through the archangel Gabriel.

One of Muhammad's concubines, Mary the Copt, was a slave as she was a gift from the ruler of Abyssinia. Even though Mary refused to give up her Christian religion she became one of Muhammad's favorites (giving him one of his rare children) and was involved in one of the scandals in Muhammad's married life(18).

After the slaughter of the men of the Jewish tribe of Quraiza, and the enslavement of the women and children, Muhammad took Rihana, the wife of the chief of the Clan as a concubine. Of this incident Gairdner asks: "What of Rihana, the beautiful Jewess, taken to Muhammad's tent on the very night of the slaughter, she with a face yet wet for a husband massacred in cold blood, he with a soul newly stained by the blood of that husband?".(19) Rihana later tried to poison Muhammad.

(d) Apologetics for Islamic Slavery

In this section we review some representative opinions on the subject expressed by scholars and commentators usually involving some kind of defence of the institution of slavery in Islam. As we have mentioned earlier many writers on Islam ignore this question entirely(20). This could be described as the defence of Islamic slavery by silence. But it probably indicates that we are dealing with an obvious fact which needs no further elaboration. However silence can be misconstrued as absence of slavery and sometimes the silence may be deceptively used.

However many writers do refer to this institution, often in passing, but sometimes acknowledging its infamy but also trying to provide some justification of it. No one can be found who expressly states that Islam does not permit slavery for this is too obvious in almost every aspect of the religion. We cannot be exhaustive in a survey like this. We shall first look at a few books on Islam written by non-Muslims and then consider the defence of Islam on this question by Muslim writers.

Jacques Jomier's book How to Understand Islam(21) is partly critical partly apologetic. We are told "Islam accepted slavery as a social fact and no one felt the need to react against it immediately." Muhammad had no compunction in denouncing "social facts" that he did not agree with (e.g. infanticide, some arrangements relating to marriage and divorce) so the fact that he accepted the "social fact" of slavery must mean that he approved of it. And as to the lack of immediate reaction there is no evidence of any important Muslim reacting against it even several centuries later. The abolition of slavery was imposed on Muslim rulers by the Western colonial powers in the nineteenth century. Jomier writes:

But the question has been inflamed by an anti-Muslim apologetic which seeks to heap on Islam all the shame for a practice which has now been abolished. It may indeed have been the case that the raids of Muslim slavers were the last to take place when elsewhere this kind of traffic had already disappeared. However, it is for those whose ancestors have never practised slavery to cast the first stone.

Even if slavery is now abolished it does not prevent us from studying how it was treated by Muhammad, the apostle of God. It is not a matter of heaping shame because even modern Muslims try to device some kind of apologetic for this institution. As to Jomier's reference to casting stones, this is also an argument advanced by Jesus who said that "he who is without sin should cast the first stone". Bu this is a dubious argument. If taken seriously it would mean that many criminals will have to be allowed to go free because there may be no one who is "without sin". The modern judicial principle is to judge people on the evidence, not the morals of the judge, and it is this test that has to be applied to the Koran.

After saying that Christianity too had accepted slavery Jomier says: "The main difference between Christianity and Islam was that in Islam sexual relations with female slaves are officially permitted in addition to legitimate marriage; hence there was a supplementary traffic to supply the harems." Jomier also states: "... female slaves who gave a child to their masters were put in a separate legal category. They are called umm walad (mother of a child) and cannot be sold. They have to be freed on the death of their master".(22)

Another difference that is claimed was that Christian slavery was used for economic purposes while Islamic slavery was mainly domestic. While there is some truth in this it does not in any way mitigate the infamy of slavery. Also slaves had been used for economic purposes in Islamic countries, and there have been some noted slave revolts under Islam, e.g. the Zanj revolt in ninth century Iraq when slaves transported from East Africa to work plantations revolted. This is scarcely different to the transportation of Negro slaves to work in the plantations of the United States.

A more recent book put out by a leading academic publisher is David Waines' An Introduction to Islam (Cambridge University Press, 1995), which has a section on "dhimmis and slaves". It says very much less than what has been considered in this work. Waines says that "the slave, was not recognized by the law as fully responsible as a free Muslim" which is something of an understatement. He says: "A slave was either born to his or her station or was a non-Muslim who fell into captivity, most often as a consequence of war. Slaves were also purchased by Muslim rulers ..." Here he is on sound ground.

John Espisoto's Islam the Straight Path, while mentioning slavery tries to minimise its import. Thus referring to the enslavement of the women and children of the Qurayza Jewish tribe he says: "... the motivation for this was political rather than racial or theological". This is wrong; it was religious to the extent that it fell under Muhammad's grand plan of ridding Arabia of all non-Muslims.

The opinion of D. S. Margoliouth on this subject is as follows: "How the doctrine of the equality of all Moslems was to the reconciled with this institution [slavery] was not obvious; for it might seem that a slave had merely to adopt Islam in order ipso facto to become free; and indeed the doctrine that no one already a Moslem may be enslaved seems to be orthodox. Omar is said to have advanced the that no Arab might be enslaved and in the main these living chattels came from other races" (Mohammedanism, pp 88-89). Clearly this refers to Muslims becoming slaves but as we have seen Muslims were indeed made slaves.

On the defense of slavery by Muslims we can quote two writers Maulana Mohammad Ali and Muhammad Qutb.

Maulana Mohammad Ali's The Religion of Islam (Lahore 1936) is a substantial scholarly volume which contains a section on slavery. He cannot however deny outright that Islam does not permit slavery. He writes:

"Slavery was an institution recognised by all people before Islam. To Islam lies the credit of laying down principles which if developed on the right lines, would have brought about its destruction" (pp 661-2)

Unfortunately for Maulana Islam did not try to destroy slavery but perpetuated it for a longer period than otherwise would have been the case. The principles it added were of the most obnoxious and vile kind.

The Muslim writer who has set out to provide the longest defence of Islam on the score of slavery that I am aware of is Muhammad Qutb. His book is entitled Islam the Misunderstood Religion(23). The longest chapter in this book (some 50 pages long) is entitled "Islam and Slavery". His arguments however are not too cogent but they deserve consideration. Much of the book is written as a diatribe against Communism as if all those who accuse Islam of slavery are Communists.

Qutb's line of argument is given by this quotation:

"Now as Islam came to the world at a time when the stage of slavery was coming to an end and that of feudalism just beginning, it brought with itself laws, creeds and a discipline of life all of which were in concord with the prevalent circumstances of economic existence. That is why it approved of slavery as well as permitted feudalism, for Islam could not anticipate the next stage of economic development nor give any system to the world for which the economic circumstances were not ripe..." (p. 64-5)

At least Qutb does not try to deny that Islam permitted slavery, as some of the more ignorant Muslims do. According to Qutb when Islam arose slavery was ending. Why then did it embrace a dying system and give it a new lease of life? Muhammad rejected many other economic institutions prevalent in his day, e.g. loans on interest, gambling, etc. So there was no reason for him to accept anything simply because it was there. In fact Muslims take pride in saying that Muhammad rejected some current practices like infanticide. So why did he not reject slavery? The plain fact is that he approved of it and indeed used it both for his personal benefit and that of the Muslim community.

Qutb's claim that Islam could not anticipate the next stage of economic development may be accepted if the official line is that the Koran is the work of Muhammad. But it is claimed that it is Allah's work. If so the alleged power of omniscience attributed to Allah would have enabled him to see all of the past and of the future. So the Koran's justification of the institution of slavery must be God's design. Qutb then goes into a long digression on how bad slavery was under the Romans and claiming that Islamic slavery was "better" than that of Rome, Persia, India, etc. This kind of argument of course is puerile. In any slave system one may be able to find slave owners who acted better than those in another system and some who are worse. Even if it were possible to compare evil systems, the degradation in Islamic slavery may well be amongst the worst. There is unanimous agreement that in respect of the carnal exploitation of slave women by their masters Islamic slavery was infinitely worse than any other system.

Qutb also claims that as slavery in Islam was domestic slavery while elsewhere slaves were used in industry or agriculture it was better. The domestic nature of slavery arose from the economic circumstance of Arabia; it was pre-industrial and the dessert nature of the country prevented large-scale agriculture. But when Islam moved to other areas it did employ slaves in plantations (e.g. the ninth century slave revolt in Iraq). Also domestic slavery leads to the odious institution of sexual exploitation of slaves. Thus Qutb's argument here is not sound.

Qutb then cites two aspects of Islamic slavery which he says "signified a great practical advancement achieved by Islam in the history of slavery" (p. 79). These institutions are: (1) Al Itq or the voluntary freeing of slaves and (2) Mukatabah or freedom by written agreement. The first of these is simply not enough. Slavery is a violent institution and it cannot be ended voluntarily, especially if it has divine sanction. The source cited for this is Sura 4.92 which we have examined earlier and shown not to be a voluntary freeing but the payment of a restitution for manslaughter. The second one is the "written agreement" we have discussed above in connection with Sura 24.33 where its limitations were exposed. Thus Qutb's "advancements" prove to be no advancements at all. The only advancement in slavery is to abolish the institution altogether and this Muhammad signally failed to do.

Qutb finds great difficulty in answering the question why Islam did not abolish slavery. His answer is that because slavery was deep rooted at the time "its abolition required a far longer period of time than the life of the Holy Prophet". But the brevity of his life did not prevent the Prophet from introducing other reforms of institutions equally deep-rooted. Besides there was not even a declaration of intention, and as we have seen the Prophet fully used the advantages of the institution both personally and communally for his group. Not only the prophet but none of his successors attempted to abolish slavery. Surely Qutb cannot argue that the many centuries of Muslim power was not long enough to abolish this institution. The sad fact is that slavery increased in its scope as the power of Muslim empires grew.

Qutb illustrates very well the futility of many Muslims in trying to justify an unjustifiable institution. Above all an institution which more than anything else condemns Islam.

3. The Infidel in Islam

(a) Literature on Islam and the Infidel

Books on Islam tend to be of three types. There are those by Muslims and they are frankly apologetic trying to justify the practices of Islam. At the opposite end we have books by those who have been its opponents or victims and are thus frankly critical in tone. Thirdly there are books by scholars of religion and Islam specialists. We would normally expect this third category of books to be objective. Unfortunately this is not the case. Many scholars become apologists for the religions they study. Also unlike other academics they are not interested in determining the accuracy of claims made in religious texts they study but confine themselves largely to describing those claims and practices based on them. There are, of course, a few scholars who are truly objective but this is altogether rather rare for Islam, and indeed for other religions as well.

The five books(24) on Islam considered here provide a sampling of these different approaches. The book by Muhammad Qutb is frankly apologetic. It was originally published in Arabic in Cairo and this translation has been published by the Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs of Kuwait in order to "dispel the doubts cast against Islam by its enemies". It is thus useful in finding out what the official defence of the religion is. The books by Ghosh and Burns, who are not Muslims, provide an undisguised critique of Islam, but for the most part they tend to be as objective as possible. The books by Espisoto and Peters may be taken as representative of scholarly works, the former sympathetic to Islam and latter more objective.

(b) Umma, Dhimmi and Kaffir

In this article we do not seek to present an analysis of Islam as a whole, but to concentrate on a particular aspect, viz. the treatment of the Infidel in Islam. Islam divides mankind into three categories - the Muslims (umma), the people of the Book (ahl al-Kitab) and the unbelievers (kafir). The umma consists of all those who have made the profession of faith of Islam (the Sahada). This is the statement that "there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his prophet". They come under the jurisdiction of Islamic law, and retreat from this is impossible, for in Islam apostasy is a capital offence. The people of the Book are Jews and Christians, who according to Islam, also received the revelation from God, but in an imperfect form and in any case they soon departed from its correct interpretation. Even though the Koranic revelation supercedes that of the "people of the Book" they are tolerated in Islamic countries and worship of their religions allowed (except in Arabia proper where the Muhammad decreed that only the worship of Islam be permitted).

Studies of Islam by Christians and Jews lack in objectivity as they cannot criticise the dogmas of Islam without exposing themselves also to the same charges as their beliefs are not too different. They also seem to revel in the special position accorded to them in Islam (though subject to a financial penalty) and Muslim rulers had usually employed them in high positions in the administration of conquered peoples. Christian and Jewish writers on Islam have generally ignored the position of the Kafir in Islam. Quite apart from the affinity they share with Islam their own attitude to "pagans" has been hardly different especially in the medieval period.

The historic conflict of Christian with Muslims best typified by the Crusades has been long forgotten. Recently the Pope has made overtures to Muslims and even praised them for the regularity with which they pray to God.

It must be remembered that humanists also belong to the category of Kafirs. This is because they do not believe in a revealed text, which is the defining characteristic of the people of the Book. There is no evidence that Muhammad encountered any atheists. Most of his fury was directed against "idolaters" by which he meant those who worshipped traditional divinities and goddesses. There is a category of people described in the Koran as "hypocrites" often taken to be the worst of the unbelievers. These would include atheists, humanists and freethinkers. As far as their ultimate fate is concerned there is very little difference between the kaffir and the hypocrite.

Muhammad initially hoped that the Jews would convert to Islam and only when they did not did he undertake his miliary actions against them either killing them or expelling them from Arabia.

Three of the books considered in this article deal exclusively with the topic of the kafir in Islam, the other two contain passing references.

Almost every page of the Koran is replete with imprecations against the Kafir and vivid descriptions are given of the terrible fate that awaits him. The post-death destination of a person begins as soon as he is buried (we shall assume a male even though a female is treated similarly). Two Angels (Monker and Nakir) interrogate him in the grave as to his beliefs. If he is an unbeliever he is beaten mercilessly then and there. His terrible cries are heard in all directions, but not upwards so that people on the ground do not hear them (how convenient!) How a cremated body is treated is not specifically detailed, but the Angels can resurrect it even from the minutest particle to administer the beating. Muhammad got this idea from Judaism where the newly buried is subjected to the Hibbût Hakkeber or "beating of the sepulchre".

But this is nothing compared to the fate that awaits the Infidel in the Islamic Hell. The torments in this hell, so vividly described in the Koran, are no different from those in the Jewish hell in which Jesus also believed. This notion of an eternal Hell, common to the three religions, is most destructive to the psychological well-being of people, especially children on whom this absurd notion is inculcated quite early by religionists. It is also one of the strongest fears binding the follower to the religion, often for life, however contrary it may be to common sense.

But the Hell of Islam, like its Paradise, only exists in the tortured minds of its believers. As against the fantasy the reality of what Muhammad and his successors have done to non-Moslems is what is of consequence in history.

That Muhammad felt justified in the use of force in the expansion of Islam cannot be doubted. There is the statement in the Koran which is often quoted by apologists: "There is no compulsion in religion" (Sura 2.256). The context does not explain what is meant by this statement and it does not recur again in the Koran or the Hadith. It comes from one of the early Suras, given in Mecca or just after the flight to Yathrib. At that time the Muslims were persecuted by the Meccan elite and an appeal for tolerance may appear reasonable. The situation changed when Muhammad triumphed in Medina, and finally conquered Mecca itself. Then the urge is to fight the non-believer becomes paramount, e.g. Sura 9 Verse 29:

9.29: Fight those who do not believe in Allah, nor in the latter day, nor do they prohibit what Allah and His Apostle have prohibited, nor follow the religion of truth, out of those who have been given the Book, until they pay the tax in acknowledgment of superiority and they are in a state of subjection.

And again:

9.73: O Prophet! strive hard [make war] against the unbelievers and the hypocrites and be unyielding to them; and their abode is hell, and evil is the destination.

Qutb says of this that this refers to "non-Muslims who wage war against Islam", but this is a fanciful reading and refuted by what happened in the early history of Islamic expansion. In fact Abu Bakr, the first Caliph, is quite explicit on this. He is reported as saying in the Hadith: "I have been ordered to fight the people until they profess that there is no god but God and that Mohammad is the messenger of God" (Peters, p. 127). Once again the apologetic defence that "people" here means the pagan Arabs attacking the Muslims is without foundation. By Abu Bakr's time Islam was no longer on the defensive and the pagan Arabs had all converted either voluntarily or by fear.

The only exception to this was for Jews and Christians (called the dhimmis) who have to pay a special tax (the Jizya) "with willing submission and feel themselves subdued". This qualification is important for even in Arabia during Muhammad's rule the fate of the defeated dhimmis was inevitably death, enslavement or exile. A notorious incident was how Muhammad dealt with the Jewish tribe of Banu Qurayza where all the 700 men of the defeated tribe were slaughtered in one day in 627 CE and the women and children enslaved with the wife of the Chief recruited into Muhammad's harem. A similar slaughter took place two years later after the Jews lost the Battle of Khaybar.

The institution of the Jihad, or Holy War, underpinned the military basis of the expansion of Islam. There is no discussion of Jihad in Qutb's book but the subject is well treated by Rudolph Peters. There is a modern apologia, first used by the Sufis, that Jihad refers to the internal struggle against evil. As Peters shows this is not what it meant in classical Islam. He says: "In the books on Islamic law, the word [Jihad] means armed struggle against the unbelievers, which is also a common meaning in the Koran". This usage greatly exceeds its meaning as an internal striving, and is also the way in which the word is used in the modern context as when various Islamic groups declare Jihad against Western interests or Israel.

Another defence of Jihad interpreted as literal war, particularly advanced by modernists, is that it refers to "justified war". The notion of bellum justum is common to Judaism and Christianity as well. The attack on Iraq in 1998 is a good example of this as interpreted by the church-going Clinton and the mass-attending Blair. But this notion was already been well recognised in pre-Islamic Arabia. Islam's innovation is to introduce the notion of offensive war for Islam. The modernists quote such statements as "Fight them until there is no persecution and the religion is God's entirely" (Koran 8:39). But the second part of this statement is used by fundamentalists to justify offensive war in the cause of Islam.

The expansion of Islam out of Arabia took place during the early Caliphates mainly through Jihad. The initial thrust was Westward and the first important country in this direction was Egypt which at that time was largely Christian. Alexandria fell in 643. The conquered population was so large that the early solution of extermination was clearly impossible. The conversion of Egypt is well described by Robert Burns.

The Jizya was set at a level that it was impossible for the Christians to pay, and in addition the maintenance of churches was not allowed despite the theoretical freedom to practice their religion as an approved one in the Koran. In addition outright persecution was also practiced. It did not take long for Egypt to convert to Islam (except for the Copt minority).

The Islamic expansion westward from Egypt was temporarily stopped by the Berbers, but their resistance was overcome and Islam crossed over to the Iberian peninsula in 711 when Islam again encountered a Christianized population. It did not take long for the Moslems to conquer the country Toledo falling the following year. But the conquest of the province proceeded swiftly and it became the seat of one of later Islamic dynasties. The Westward advance of Islam was only stopped near Poitiers in France in 732, and a few years later the Muslims were pushed south of the Pyrenees.

Islam also advanced into Christendom through the Balkans. This was spearheaded by the Ottomans who had embraced Islam without much resistance. This advance too was stopped at the gates of Vienna, but it has left a legacy which is not without its modern consequences.

(d) Expansion into Asia

But it is in the Eastward expansion of Islam that the principles of Jihad were put into full operation. Here there were no "people of the Book" for whom some dispensation had been given in the Koran. The key link here was the conquest of Iran in 643, a non-Arabic people. The last Persian emperor was killed in 651, but the conversion of Iran was to have grave consequences for Islam later on as it produced the first schism in Islam.

But the expansion East of Iran through Afghanistan, Kabul falling in 664, south-east into India and north-east into Central Asia and China was clearly into Kaffir territory. If some restraint was shown in the Westward expansion into Christian territory now the gloves were well and truly off. The full rigour of what the Koran has to say on Jihad and the Infidel was about to unroll in history.

The infidels in the new territories were mainly Buddhists and Hindus. The Buddhists with their pacifist philosophy offered no resistance and were the first to go. The destruction of the monasteries, the killing of the monks and the rape of nuns is well-known even though there is still no book documenting this episode in all its horror. In particular the destruction of the Buddhist universities of Taxila and Nalanda are particularly heinous crimes. The burning of the Library of Nalanda ranks with the destruction of the Library of Alexandria as the two most notorious acts of vandalism in the course of Islamic expansion.

Ghosh's book gives many examples how these Islamic principles were carried out in succeeding centuries in India against the Hindus. Hinduism had a military tradition, cf. Khrishna's exhortation to Arjuna to fight given in the Bhagavat Gita. But Hindu warfare lacked the fanaticism of the Muslim and theirs was not to convert subject populations. Indeed Hinduism as an ethnic religion meant that people could not come within its confines except by birth. The Hindus were able to offer some resistance but not to the extent of preventing the establishment of Muslim rule over large parts of India.

The fate of Rajasthan was typical. Ghosh writes: "The Rajputs houses of worship were destroyed, their women raped and carried away, their children taken away as bonded labour, and all non-combatants murdered. The Rajputs soon came to know the ways of the Moslems. If it appeared that the battle could not be won, then they themselves killed their women and children, Masada style, and then went to fight the Moslems until death. In many cases the Rajput women took their own lives by taking poison and then jumping into a deep fiery pit (so that their bodies could not be desecrated)".

As with other areas under Islamic conquest sex was used not only to satisfy the carnal appetites of the conquerors but also as some sort of population policy. Ghosh writes: "The Arabs not only imposed their ruthless rule and totalitarian creed on the countries they conquered; they also populated these countries with a prolific progeny which they procreated on native women. Every Arab worth his race 'married' scores, sometimes hundreds of these helpless women after their menfolk had all been killed. Divorce of a wedded wife had been made very easy by the 'law' of Islam. A man could go on marrying and divorcing at the rate of several women during the span of a single day and night. What was more convenient, there was no restriction on the number of concubines a man could keep. The Arab conquerors used these male privileges in full measure." Ghosh sees this as the main cause why the population of territories conquered rapidly became within decades Moslem.

The most cruel treatment was reserved to the religious leaders of the Hindus who refused to convert. In 1645 the Sikh guru Tegh Bahadur was tortured for his resistance to the forcible conversion of the Hindus in Kashmir. His followers were killed before him and when this did not make him yield he was finally beheaded..

(e) A Final Word

Some would argue that modern Islam is quite changed from its historical record. This is a view propagated by the more sanitised views of Islam that appear in "scholarly" accounts. The book by John Espisoto, which we have taken as typical of modern scholarly works, is typical of this approach. Here Islam is considered purely internally in terms of what is meant to its adherents and even here only the "positive" sayings in the Koran are considered. Sas the author says the objective of the book is "to enable readers to understand the faith and practice of Muslims".

The first chapter "Muhammad and the Quran" gives a sanitized account of Muhammad as a holy man. There is no mention of his private life, his wives, his military campaigns, his robbery of caravans, etc. all of which are essential to a true evaluation of the Prophet. All these negative aspects are indirectly attributed to the practice of the times, ignoring the fact as God's chosen apostle he should be able to rise above the infirmities of his age.

Thus Espisoto's chapter on "The Muslim Community in History" does not deal with how this community impacted on the non-Muslim world, but on the internal history within the Muslim umma. A great deal of attention is paid to the genesis of the Sunni-Shia split, and the rivalries between the various caliphates. If any attention is paid to external groups it is only to the Christian-Muslim relationship. As we have seen this was not the true of the Islamic interaction with the kaffir. There is a great deal of apologia for the Crusades, for in this respect Christianity was no better than Islam.

Espisoto's chapters on modern interpretations of contemporary Islam focus on those reform movements during the phase of the decline of Islam when apologists realised that the high-handed reliance on the sword will not fit a period when the balance of power has effectively shifted away from Islam. But what it ignores is that the old classical notions have not be been supplanted and continue to lie dormant.

Today with the economic power of Islam restored by the oil wealth the situation is again changing. What is called the revival of fundamentalism is nothing more than an attempt to revert to the practices of classical Islam. The only difference is that while some of the more extreme Muslims are reviving the classical conflict with Judaism and Christianity others are seeking to forge closer relations with these "religions of the Book".

An indication of the former tendency is the increased resort to Sharia law in many Muslim countries. The latest to adopt the Sharia system is Pakistan (although the legislation has still to pass the second chamber). When one considers that Pakistan is the first Muslim country to produce the nuclear bomb the consequences are somber for the rest of the world, especially for the kaffir nations.

4. Conclusions

The two subjects considered in this booklet are fundamental for humanists. Islam helps to focus these issues better than most other religions. This is what gives special importance for a study of this subject in relation to Islam. But they are implicit in all theistic religion. The revival in theistic religion in modern times, even presenting it as something of an improvement, is thus a timely moment to remind ourselves what these principles have led to at a time when they were in full force.

Today slavery is outlawed by international conventions like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But these covenants still lack the full force of international law. They are not ratified in many countries, and now there is a demand for their amendment. Of course there are many shortcoming in the present declaration. But the demand for the revision of the Declaration is not to strengthen it but to weake3n it. While open slavery may not exist except in isolated pockets other forms of servitude have arisen to replace it.

The question whether the most common method of payment for labour, viz. the wage system amounts to a system of slavery is a moot point. Karl Marx called it wage slavery to indicate that the worker has only a nominal choice. Fortunately labour institutions like trade unions have sprung up to increase the bargaining power of labour.

On the question of censorship we cannot say that the problem has been resolved even to the extent that the slavery problem has been resolved. An insidious form of censorship introduced by the religiously inclined is to oppose the criticism on the ground that it would lead to "vilification". It is true that this is argued mostly in connection with ethnic groups. Racial vilification is an increasingly common feature as many countries in the world are becoming multi-ethnic and multi-racial. Whatever the merits of such a prohibition may be it should not be allowed to become a smoke-screen for the legitimate critique of religion.

There has not been a special demand to outlaw "vilification" of religion other than the blasphemy laws which adorn the statute books of many countries. These laws have been introduced at the instigation of religious groups and do not generally extend to other religions than the dominant religion. In the U.K. there has been a demand that the laws originally introduced to defend the Christian religion be extended to cover Islam as well. This arguments supportive of blasphemy laws have little validity. Their complete repeal has been demanded by many humanists.

We can hope that a study of Islam on the subjects of slavery and its treatment of non-believers will be of use and relevance to the current debate. One can only hope that scholars will devote more attention to this subject than has been the case so far.

1. Humanism is the philosophy that asserts the primacy of the human being over a supernatural entity like God, that asserts that reason should be the foundation of all beliefs, and which affirms that ethical precepts need not be grounded on religious dogmas. Humanist groups have agitated for the separation of church and state, for the defence of human rights, for the freedom of belief and opinion, for reproductive rights for women, for voluntary euthanasia, and many similar goals.

2. Paul rejected the notion that the Jewish Law should be followed by Christians but he did not reject the Old Testament as part of the divine revelation. Since Pauline Christianity is now the basis of most modern Christian denominations one can argue that slavery has ceased to be fundamental to it. However Negro slavery in the United States had been justified on Biblical grounds. It is, of course, Christian powers who took a leading part in suppressing Islamic slavery in the nineteenth century.

3. The Christian texts too have been presented as the word of God but this claim is now not as vigorously advocated as it has been in the past. Their human authorship is now freely admitted. But this has not happened with respect to the Koran. Here it is claimed that Muhamad was only a mouthpiece for a message that came from high.

4. The Koran was not actually written by Muhammad who is said to have recited its various sections (called Suras) at various times in his prophetic career. These were compiled by his successor Abu Bakr, the first Caliph, into a book. In course of time this too got corrupted with several versions circulating in various parts of the Islamic empire. A later Caliph issued an authoritative version burning all other copies.

5. Slaves are invariably referred to in the Koran as "possessions of the right hand". That this refers to slave is universally agreed by all interpreters of the Koran.

6. The Hadith consists of anecdotes of the sayings and doings of Muhammad (called matn) and were compiled several centuries after Muhammad's death. Each matn is authenticated by its pedigree (called its isnard ) going back to the person who originally heard or saw the event described. The most authentic of the hadiths are those ascribed to al-Bukhari and Muslim, both of whom lived in the ninth century CE.

7. This work will not deal with slavery in the Jewish and the Christian traditions. It is hoped to rectify this in a later publication.

8. The translation of the Koran maintained in the Electronic Text Center of the University of Virginia Library has been used throughout. This is by no means the best translation. Indeed it may be difficult to find a translation that could be described as the most accurate. However this version has the advantage that it is the most accessible and could be consulted on the Internet.

9. It must be remembered that the Muslim fast is from dawn to dusk. Thus if the breakfast is taken before dawn breaks and the dinner after dusk has set in the person fasting misses only one meal!

10. A common method of execution was beheading, so "freeing a neck" might refer to not executing someone.

11. Muslim jurists are divided over the interpretation of this verse. Some regard it as requiring the whole face and head to be covered (except for the eyes) hence the chador (Iran, Saudi Arabia, etc.) This may be the reasonable interpretation as it is said that the head covering must come all the way to the bosom. Others consider that only the top of the head need be covered (Malaysia, Pakistan, etc.) Some women completely disregard this verse, but then they may not be "believing" women!

12. There are other verses (e.g. Sura 2, verse 177) where it is stated that a righteous person will give away wealth "for (the emancipation of) the captives". As usual this is not an obligatory requirement but one that the pious may do.

13. This Sura was given to justify Muhammad's desire to wed Zainab the wife of this freed slave Zaid whom Muhammad had adopted as a son. On a visit to Zaid Muhammad had seen Zainab in a semi-dressed state and had coveted her. Zaid hearing this divorced her, but it was still contrary to Arab custom. Hence the need for a special Sura to justify it. Zaid has the distinction of being the only one of Muhammad's followers to be named individually in the Koran.

14. There are several Suras which are specific to particular individuals, usually to the Prophet himself.

15. This was validated by Allah in a convenient revelation (Sura 8, The Accessions): " It is not fit for a prophet that he should take captives unless he has fought and triumphed in the land" (Verse 67). Some translate the latter part of this as "made slaughter in the land".

16. He also interprets Sura 24.32 to mean that marriage was obligatory for a slave. As we have seen this Sura does not entail such an obligation.

17. After the death of his first wife Khadija Muhammad married in turn Sauda, Ayesha, Hafsa, Habiba, Salma, Safia, Moyumuna, Zainab bint Jahsh, Zainab bint Khuzaimah and Juwairya. At his death he left ten widows, none of whom were permitted to marry again by a special revelation he had laid down..

18. Muhammad had no quarters of his own and spent each night in one of the houses of his consorts. One day when it was Hafsa's "turn" he was discovered with Mary , to make matters worse, in Hafsa's own quarters. This violated Muhammad's own rule to treat each wife equally and led to some dissension amongst his household. Muhammad's favourite wife was Ayesha whom he married when she was nine and he was in his fifties.

19. Reproach of Islam, p. 96-7.

20. We may cite such well-known and prolific writers on Islam like Montgomery Wyatt or the writers mentioned later in footnote .

21. (SCM Press, 1989). All references are to pp. 84-85 of this book which deals with this subject. The author is described as a "Dominican with long experience of Islam in many parts of the world".

22. While Jomier is technically correct here there was a way out for a slave-owner which Jomier does not mention. This was simply to deny paternity! Since under Islam the master's word alone counts, not that of the slave woman, he can evade the obligation of freeing the slave woman on whom he fathered the child.

23. This book was first published in Cairo in Arabic in 1964 and an English translation has been Dept of Islamic Affairs of the Government of Kuwait in January 1976. The book has been specifically written to "dispel the doubts cast against Islam by its enemies.

24. A. Ghosh. The Koran and the Kaffir: Islam and the Infidel. Houston, Texas: A.Ghosh, 1983; Robert E. Burns. The Wrath of Allah. Houston, Texas: A.Ghosh, 1994; Mohammad Qutb. Islam the Misunderstood Religion. Kuwait: Ministry of Islamic Affairs, n.d.; John L. Esposito. Islam: the Straight Path. N.Y: Oxford University Press, 1991; Rudolph Peters. Jihad in Classical and Modern Islam. Princeton: Markus Wiener, 1996

Volume 3, Book 46, Number 693 :

Narrated by Abu Huraira

The Prophet said, "Whoever frees a Muslim slave, Allah will save all the parts of his body from the (Hell) Fire as he has freed the body-parts of the slave." Said bin Marjana said that he narrated that Hadith to 'Ali bin Al-Husain and he freed his slave for whom 'Abdullah bin Ja'far had offered him ten thousand Dirhams or one-thousand Dinars.

Volume 3, Book 46, Number 694 :

Narrated by Abu Dhar

I asked the Prophet, "What is the best deed?" He replied, "To believe in Allah and to fight for His Cause." I then asked, "What is the best kind of manumission (of slaves)?" He replied, "The manumission of the most expensive slave and the most beloved by his master." I said, "If I cannot afford to do that?" He said, "Help the weak or do good for a person who cannot work for himself." I said, "If I cannot do that?" He said, "Refrain from harming others for this will be regarded as a charitable deed for your own good."

Volume 3, Book 46, Number 695 :

Narrated by Asma' bint Abu Bakr

The Prophet ordered us to free slaves at the time of solar eclipses.

Volume 3, Book 46, Number 696 :

Narrated by Asma' bint Abu Bakr

We were ordered to free slaves at the time of lunar eclipses.

Volume 3, Book 46, Number 697 :

Narrated by Ibn 'Umar

The Prophet said, "Whoever manumits a slave owned by two masters, should manumit him completely (not partially) if he is rich after having its price evaluated."

Volume 3, Book 46, Number 698 :

Narrated by 'Abdullah bin 'Umar

Allah's Apostle said, "Whoever frees his share of a common slave and he has sufficient money to free him completely, should let its price be estimated by a just man and give his partners the price of their shares and manumit the slave; otherwise (i.e. if he has not sufficient money) he manumits the slave partially."

Volume 3, Book 46, Number 699 :

Narrated by Ibn 'Umar

Allah's Apostle said, "Whoever manumits his share of a slave, then it is essential for him to get that slave manumitted' completely as long as he has the money to do so. If he has not sufficient money to pay the price of the other shares (after the price of the slave is evaluated justly), the manumitted manumits the slave partially in proportion to his share.

Volume 3, Book 46, Number 700 :

Narrated by 'Ubaidullah

As above (briefly).

Volume 3, Book 46, Number 701 :

Narrated by Ibn 'Umar

The Prophet said, "He who manumits his share of a slave and has money sufficient to free the remaining portion of that slave's price (justly estimated) then he should manumit him (by giving the rest of his price to the other co-owners)." Nafi' added, "Otherwise the slave is partially free." Aiyub is not sure whether the last statement was said by Nafi' or it was a part of the Hadith.

Volume 3, Book 46, Number 702 :

Narrated by Ibn 'Umar

That he used to give his verdict regarding the male or female slaves owned by more than one master, one of whom may manumit his share of the slave. Ibn 'Umar used to say in such a case, "The manumitted should manumit the slave completely if he has sufficient money to pay the rest of the price of that slave (which is to be justly estimated) and the other share-holders are to take the price of their shares and the slave is freed (released from slavery)." Ibn 'Umar narrated this verdict from the Prophet.

Volume 3, Book 46, Number 703 :

Narrated by Abu Huraira

That the Prophet said, "Whoever frees his portion of a (common) slave."

Volume 3, Book 46, Number 704 :

Narrated by Abu Huraira

The Prophet said, "Whoever frees his portion of a common slave should free the slave completely by paying the rest of his price from his money if he has enough money; otherwise the price of the slave is to be estimated and the slave is to be helped to work without hardship till he pays the rest of his price."

Volume 3, Book 46, Number 705 :

Narrated by Abu Huraira

The Prophet said, "Allah has accepted my invocation to forgive what whispers in the hearts of my followers, unless they put it to action or utter it." (See Hadith No. 657 Vol. 8)

Volume 3, Book 46, Number 706 :

Narrated by 'Umar bin Al-Khattab

The Prophet said, "The (reward of) deeds depend on intentions, and every person will get the reward according to what he intends. So, whoever migrated for Allah and His Apostle, then his migration will be for Allah and His Apostle, and whoever migrated for worldly benefits or for marrying a woman, then his migration will be for what he migrated for." (See Hadith No. 1, Vol. 1)

Volume 3, Book 46, Number 707 :

Narrated by Qais

When Abu Huraira accompanied by his slave set out intending to embrace Islam they lost each other on the way. The slave then came while Abu Huraira was sitting with the Prophet. The Prophet said, "O Abu Huraira! Your slave has come back." Abu Huraira said, "Indeed, I would like you to witness that I have manumitted him." That happened at the time when Abu Huraira recited (the following poetic verse):-- 'What a long tedious tiresome night! Nevertheless, it has delivered us From the land of Kufr (disbelief).

Volume 3, Book 46, Number 708 :

Narrated by Abu Huraira

On my way to the Prophet I was reciting:-- 'What a long tedious tiresome night! Nevertheless, it has saved us From the land of Kufr (disbelief).' I had a slave who ran away from me on the way. When I went to the Prophet and gave the pledge of allegiance for embracing Islam, the slave showed up while I was still with the Prophet who remarked, "O Abu Huraira! Here is your slave!" I said, "I manumit him for Allah's Sake," and so I freed him.

Volume 3, Book 46, Number 709 :

Narrated by Qais

When Abu Huraira accompanied by his slave came intending to embrace Islam, they lost each other on the way. (When the slave showed up) Abu Huraira said (to the Prophet), "I make you witness that the slave is free for Allah's Cause."

Volume 3, Book 46, Number 710 :

Narrated by 'Aisha

Utba bin Abi Waqqas authorized his brother Sad bin Abi Waqqas to take the son of the slave-girl of Zam'a into his custody, telling him that the boy was his own (illegal) son. When Allah's Apostle went (to Mecca) at the time of the Conquest, Sad took the son of the slavegirl of Zam'a to Allah's Apostle and also brought 'Abu bin Zam'a with him and said, "O Allah's Apostle! This is the son of my brother 'Utba who authorized me to take him into my custody." 'Abu bin Zam'a said, "O Allah's Apostle! He is my brother, the son of Zam'a' slave-girl and he was born on his bed." Allah's Apostle looked at the son of the slave-girl of Zam'a and noticed much resemblance (to 'Utba). Allah's Apostle said, "It is for you, O 'Abu bin Zam'a as he was born on the bed of your father." Allah's Apostle then told Sauda bint Zam'a to observe veil in the presence of the boy as he noticed the boy's resemblance to 'Utba and Sauda was the wife of the Prophet.

Volume 3, Book 46, Number 711 :

Narrated by Jabir bin 'Abdullah

A man amongst us declared that his slave would be freed after his death. The Prophet called for that slave and sold him. The slave died the same year.

Volume 3, Book 46, Number 712 :

Narrated by Ibn 'Umar

Allah's Apostle forbade the selling or donating the Wala' of a freed slave.

Volume 3, Book 46, Number 713 :

Narrated by 'Aisha

I bought Buraira but her masters put the condition that her Wala' would be for them. I told the Prophet about it. He said (to me), "Manumit her as her Wala' will be for the one who pays the price." So, I manumitted her. The Prophet called Buraira and gave her the option of either staying with her husband or leaving him. She said, "Even if he gave me so much money, I would not stay with him," and so she preferred her freedom to her husband.

Volume 3, Book 46, Number 714 :

Narrated by Anas

Some men of the Ansar asked for the permission of Allah's Apostle and said, "Allow us to give up the ransom from our nephew Al-'Abbas. The Prophet said (to them), "Do not leave (even) a Dirham (of his ransom)."

Volume 3, Book 46, Number 715 :

Narrated by Hisham

My father told me that Hakim bin Hizam manumitted one-hundred slaves in the pre-lslamic period of ignorance and slaughtered one-hundred camels (and distributed them in charity). When he embraced Islam he again slaughtered one-hundred camels and manumitted one-hundred slaves. Hakim said, "I asked Allah's Apostle, 'O Allah's Apostle! What do you think about some good deeds I used to practice in the prelslamic period of ignorance regarding them as deeds of righteousness?' Allah's Apostle said, "You have embraced Islam along with all those good deeds you did."

Volume 3, Book 46, Number 716 :

Narrated by Marwan and Al-Miswar bin Makhrama

When the delegates of the tribe of Hawazin came to the Prophet and they requested him to return their properties and captives. The Prophet stood up and said to them, "I have other people with me in this matter (as you see) and the most beloved statement to me is the true one; you may choose either the properties or the prisoners as I have delayed their distribution." The Prophet had waited for them for more than ten days since his arrival from Ta'if. So, when it became evident to them that the Prophet was not going to return them except one of the two, they said, "We choose our prisoners." The Prophet got up amongst the people and glorified and praised Allah as He deserved and said, "Then after, these brethren of yours have come to us with repentance, and I see it logical to return them the captives. So, whoever amongst you likes to do that as a favor, then he can do it, and whoever of you likes to stick to his share till we recompense him from the very first war booty which Allah will give us, then he can do so (i.e. give up the present captives)." The people unanimously said, "We do that (return the captives) willingly." The Prophet said, "We do not know which of you has agreed to it and which have not, so go back and let your leaders forward us your decision." So, all the people then went back and discussed the matter with their leaders who returned and informed the Prophet that all the people had willingly given their consent to return the captives. This is what has reached us about the captives of Hawazin. Narrated Anas that 'Abbas said to the Prophet, "I paid for my ransom and Aqil's ransom."

Volume 3, Book 46, Number 717 :

Narrated by Ibn Aun

I wrote a letter to Nafi and Nafi wrote in reply to my letter that the Prophet had suddenly attacked Bani Mustaliq without warning while they were heedless and their cattle were being watered at the places of water. Their fighting men were killed and their women and children were taken as captives; the Prophet got Juwairiya on that day. Nafi said that Ibn 'Umar had told him the above narration and that Ibn 'Umar was in that army.

Volume 3, Book 46, Number 718 :

Narrated by Ibn Muhairiz

I saw Abu Said and asked him about coitus interruptus. Abu Said said, "We went with Allah's Apostle, in the Ghazwa of Barli Al-Mustaliq and we captured some of the 'Arabs as captives, and the long separation from our wives was pressing us hard and we wanted to practice coitus interruptus. We asked Allah's Apostle (whether it was permissible). He said, "It is better for you not to do so. No soul, (that which Allah has) destined to exist, up to the Day of Resurrection, but will definitely come, into existence."

Volume 3, Book 46, Number 719 :

Narrated by Abu Huraira

I have loved the people of the tribe of Bani Tamim ever since I heard, three things, Allah's Apostle said about them. I heard him saying, These people (of the tribe of Bani Tamim) would stand firm against Ad-Dajjal." When the Sadaqat (gifts of charity) from that tribe came, Allah's Apostle said, "These are the Sadaqat (i.e. charitable gifts) of our folk." 'Aisha had a slave-girl from that tribe, and the Prophet said to 'Aisha, "Manumit her as she is a descendant of Ishmael (the Prophet)."

Volume 3, Book 46, Number 720 :

Narrated by Abu Musa

Allah's Apostle said, "He who has a slave-girl and educates and treats her nicely and then manumits and marries her, will get a double reward."

Volume 3, Book 46, Number 721 :

Narrated by Al-Ma'rur bin Suwaid

I saw Abu Dhar Al-Ghifari wearing a cloak, and his slave, too, was wearing a cloak. We asked him about that (i.e. how both were wearing similar cloaks). He replied, "Once I abused a man and he complained of me to the Prophet . The Prophet asked me, 'Did you abuse him by slighting his mother?' He added, 'Your slaves are your brethren upon whom Allah has given you authority. So, if one has one's brethren under one's control, one should feed them with the like of what one eats and clothe them with the like of what one wears. You should not overburden them with what they cannot bear, and if you do so, help them (in their hard job)."

Volume 3, Book 46, Number 722 :

Narrated by Ibn 'Umar

Allah's Apostle said, "If a slave is honest and faithful to his master and worships his Lord (Allah) in a perfect manner, he will get a double reward."

Volume 3, Book 46, Number 723 :

Narrated by Abu Musa Al-Ashari

The Prophet said, "He who has a slave-girl and teaches her good manners and improves her education and then manumits and marries her, will get a double reward; and any slave who observes Allah's right and his master's right will get a double reward."

Volume 3, Book 46, Number 724 :

Narrated by Abu Huraira

Allah's Apostle said, "A pious slave gets a double reward." Abu Huraira added: By Him in Whose Hands my soul is but for Jihad (i.e. holy battles), Hajj, and my duty to serve my mother, I would have loved to die as a slave.

Volume 3, Book 46, Number 725 :

Narrated by Abu Huraira

The Prophet said, "Goodness and comfort are for him who worships his Lord in a perfect manner and serves his master sincerely."

Volume 3, Book 46, Number 726 :

Narrated by 'Abdullah

The Prophet said, "If a slave serves his Saiyid (i.e. master) sincerely and worships his Lord (Allah) perfectly, he will get a double reward."

Volume 3, Book 46, Number 727 :

Narrated by Abu Musa

The Prophet said, "The Mamluk (slave) who worships his Lord in a perfect manner, and is dutiful, sincere and obedient to his Saiyid (master), will get a double reward."

Volume 3, Book 46, Number 728 :

Narrated by Abu Huraira

The Prophet said, "You should not say, 'Feed your lord (Rabbaka), help your lord in performing ablution, or give water to your lord, but should say, 'my master (e.g. Feed your master instead of lord etc.) (Saiyidi), or my guardian (Maulai), and one should not say, my slave (Abdi), or my girl-slave (Amati), but should say, my lad (Fatai), my lass (Fatati), and 'my boy (Ghulami)."

Volume 3, Book 46, Number 729 :

Narrated by Ibn 'Umar

The Prophet said, "If one manumits his share of a common slave (Abd), and he has money sufficient to free the remaining portion of the price of the slave (justly estimated), then he should free the slave completely by paying the rest of his price; otherwise the slave is freed partly."

Volume 3, Book 46, Number 730 :

Narrated by 'Abdullah

Allah's Apostle said, "Everyone of you is a guardian and is responsible for his charges. The ruler who has authority over people, is a guardian and is responsible for them, a man is a guardian of his family and is responsible for them; a woman is a guardian of her husband's house and children and is responsible for them; a slave ('Abu) is a guardian of his master's property and is responsible for it; so all of you are guardians and are responsible for your charges."

Volume 3, Book 46, Number 731 :

Narrated by Abu Huraira and Zaid bin Khalid

The Prophet said, "If a slave-girl (Ama) commits illegal sexual intercourse, scourge her; if she does it again, scourge her again; if she repeats it, scourge her again." The narrator added that on the third or the fourth offence, the Prophet said, "Sell her even for a hair rope."

Volume 3, Book 46, Number 732 :

Narrated by Abu Huraira

The Prophet said, "When your servant brings your meals to you then if he does not let him sit and share the meals, then he should at least give him a mouthful or two mouthfuls of that meal or a meal or two meals, as he has prepared it."

Volume 3, Book 46, Number 733 :

Narrated by 'Abdullah bin 'Umar

That he heard Allah's Apostle saying, "Everyone of you is a guardian and is responsible for his charge; the ruler is a guardian and is responsible for his subjects; the man is a guardian in his family and responsible for his charges; a woman is a guardian of her husband's house and responsible for her charges; and the servant is a guardian of his master's property and is responsible for his charge." I definitely heard the above from the Prophet and think that the Prophet also said, "A man is a guardian of his father's property and responsible for his charges; so everyone of you is a guardian and responsible for his charges."

Volume 3, Book 46, Number 734 :

Narrated by Abu Huraira

The Prophet said, "If somebody fights (or beats somebody) then he should avoid the face."

Volume 3, Book 46, Number 735 :

Narrated by 'Urwa

That 'Aisha told him that Buraira came to seek her help in her writing of emancipation (for a certain sum) and that time she had not paid anything of it. 'Aisha said to her, "Go back to your masters, and if they agree that I will pay the amount of your writing of emancipation and get your Wala', I will do so." Buraira informed her masters of that but they refused and said, "If she (i.e. 'Aisha) is seeking Allah's reward, then she can do so, but your Wala' will be for us." 'Aisha mentioned that to Allah's Apostle who said to her, "Buy and manumit her, as the Wala' is for the liberator." Allah's Apostle then got up and said, "What about the people who stipulate conditions which are not present in Allah's Laws? Whoever imposes conditions which are not present in Allah's Laws, then those conditions will be invalid, even if he imposed these conditions a hundred times. Allah's conditions (Laws) are the truth and are more solid."

Volume 3, Book 46, Number 736 :

Narrated by 'Abdullah bin 'Umar

Aisha wanted to buy a slave-girl in order to manumit her. The girl's masters stipulated that her Wala' would be for them. Allah's Apostle said (to 'Aisha), "What they stipulate should not stop you, for the Wala' is for the liberator."

Volume 3, Book 46, Number 737 :

Narrated by Aisha

Buraira came (to 'Aisha) and said, "I have made a contract of emancipation with my masters for nine Uqiyas (of gold) to be paid in yearly installments. Therefore, I seek your help." 'Aisha said, "If your masters agree, I will pay them the sum at once and free you on condition that your Wala' will be for me." Buraira went to her masters but they refused that offer. She (came back) and said, "I presented to them the offer but they refused, unless the Wala' was for them." Allah's Apostle heard of that and asked me about it, and I told him about it. On that he said, "Buy and manumit her and stipulate that the Wala' should be for you, as Wala' is for the liberator." 'Aisha added, "Allah's Apostle then got up amongst the people, Glorified and Praised Allah, and said, 'Then after: What about some people who impose conditions which are not present in Allah's Laws? So, any condition which is not present in Allah's Laws is invalid even if they were one-hundred conditions. Allah's ordinance is the truth, and Allah's condition is stronger and more solid. Why do some men from you say, O so-and-so! manumit the slave but the Wala will be for me? Verily, the Wala is for the liberator."

Volume 3, Book 46, Number 738 :

Narrated by Amra bint 'AbdurRahman

Buraira went to Aisha, the mother of the faithful believers to seek her help in her emancipation Aisha said to her, "If your masters agree, I will pay them your price in a lump sum and manumit you." Buraira mentioned that offer to her masters but they refused to sell her unless the Wala' was for them. 'Aisha told Allah's Apostle about it. He said, "Buy and manumit her as the Wala' is for the liberator."

Volume 3, Book 46, Number 739 :

Narrated by 'Abdul Wahid bin Aiman

I went to 'Aisha and said, "I was the slave of Utba bin Abu Lahab. "Utba died and his sons became my masters who sold me to Ibn Abu Amr who manumitted me. The sons of 'Utba stipulated that my Wala' should be for them." 'Aisha said, "Buraira came to me and she was given the writing of emancipation by her masters and she asked me to buy and manumit her. I agreed to it, but Buraira told me that her masters would not sell her unless her Wala' was for them." 'Aisha said, "I am not in need of that." When the Prophet heard that, or he was told about it, he asked 'Aisha about it. 'Aisha mentioned what Buraira had told her. The Prophet said, "Buy and manumit her and let them stipulate whatever they like." So, 'Aisha bought and manumitted her and her masters stipulated that her Wala' should be for them." The Prophet;, said, "The Wala' will be for the liberator even if they stipulated a hundred conditions."

Qur'an, Hadith and Scholars: Slavery

From WikiIslam, the online resource on Islam

Quotations Index

Islamic Theology
Qur'an, Hadith and Sunnah
Corruption of the Qur'an
Satanic Verses • Previous Scriptures
Muhammad
Bribery • Cross-Dressing‎ • Deception
Hypocrisy • Lying • Plundering
Privilege • Violence • Mass Murder
Terrorism • Torture • Warmongering
Wives • White Complexion • Death
Women
Al-'Azl • Beauty • FGM • Hijab • Honor Killing
Mahr • Rape • Violence • Wife Beating
Jihad
Pacifism Promoted
Defensive Fighting Permitted then Mandated
Offensive Fighting Mandated
Fighting Kuffar • Miscellaneous Verses
Peaceful Muslims • Jihadists
Forced Conversion • Scholars on Jihad
Non-Muslims
Apostates • Atheists • Christians & Jews
Characteristics • Friendship • Damned to Hell
Miscellaneous
Aisha • Alcohol • Amputation • Animals
Banu Qurayza • Cosmology • Creation
Dhimmitude • Forbidden Things • Homosexuality
Heaven • Hell • Hygiene • Jizyah • Lying
Mischief • Music • Pedophilia • Pictures
Predestination • Punishments • Racism • Sexuality
Slavery • Stoning • Toilet Etiquette • Urine
Witchcraft‎ • Zakat • Islamic Silliness

"Slavery is a part of Islam...(those who argue that slavery is abolished are) ignorant, not scholars. They are merely writers. Whoever says such things is an infidel."

Saudi Sheikh Saleh Al-Fawzan, member of the Senior Council of Clerics, 2003

Contents

1 Qur'an

2 Hadiths

2.7 Miscellaneous

Qur'an

Allah's Opinion of Slaves

The common Muslim epithet 'slave of Allah' suggests that, according to Islam, slavery is in fact humanity's natural state. Moreover Allah plainly takes a dim view of slaves:

Allah sets forth the Parable (of two men: one) a slave under the dominion of another; He has no power of any sort; and (the other) a man on whom We have bestowed goodly favors from Ourselves, and he spends thereof (freely), privately and publicly: are the two equal? (By no means;) praise be to Allah. But most of them understand not.

Qur'an 16:75

And Allah hath favored some of you above others in provision. Now those who are more favored will by no means hand over their provision to those (slaves) whom their right hands possess, so that they may be equal with them in respect thereof. Is it then the grace of Allah that they deny?

Qur'an 16:71

Rape of Female Slaves or Captives

See the article Rape in Islam

Prohibited to you (For marriage) are:- Your mothers, daughters, sisters; father's sisters, Mother's sisters; brother's daughters, sister's daughters; foster-mothers (Who gave you suck), foster-sisters; your wives' mothers; your step-daughters under your guardianship, born of your wives to whom ye have gone in,- no prohibition if ye have not gone in;- (Those who have been) wives of your sons proceeding from your loins; and two sisters in wedlock at one and the same time, except for what is past; for Allah is Oft-forgiving, Most Merciful;-Also (prohibited are) women already married, except those whom your right hands possess: Thus hath Allah ordained (Prohibitions) against you: Except for these, all others are lawful, provided ye seek (them in marriage) with gifts from your property,- desiring chastity, not lust, seeing that ye derive benefit from them, give them their dowers (at least) as prescribed; but if, after a dower is prescribed, agree Mutually (to vary it), there is no blame on you, and Allah is All-knowing, All-wise.

Qur'an 4:23-24

Successful indeed are the believers Who are humble in their prayers, And who shun vain conversation, And who are payers of the poor-due; And who guard their modesty - Save from their wives or the (slaves) that their right hands possess, for then they are not blameworthy

Qur'an 23:1-6

O Prophet! Lo! We have made lawful unto thee thy wives unto whom thou hast paid their dowries, and those whom thy right hand possesseth of those whom Allah hath given thee as spoils of war, and the daughters of thine uncle on the father's side and the daughters of thine aunts on the father's side, and the daughters of thine uncle on the mother's side and the daughters of thine aunts on the mother's side who emigrated with thee, and a believing woman if she give herself unto the Prophet and the Prophet desire to ask her in marriage - a privilege for thee only, not for the (rest of) believers - We are Aware of that which We enjoined upon them concerning their wives and those whom their right hands possess - that thou mayst be free from blame, for Allah is ever Forgiving, Merciful.

Qur'an 33:50

And those who guard their chastity, Except with their wives and the (captives) whom their right hands possess,- for (then) they are not to be blamed,

Qur'an 70:29-30

Slave masters determine who their slaves may marry

And marry such of you as are solitary and the pious of your slaves and maid-servants. If they be poor, Allah will enrich them of His bounty. Allah is of ample means, Aware.

Qur'an 24:32

This, on the other hand, can be interpreted as a slave will have the same spiritual value before god. Because the Koran is so vague and ambiguous. Note that here the word “imaikum” is used, female slave.

The Koran recommends kindness towards a slave and their liberation by purchase or manumission instead of simply prohibiting the ownership of human beings.

http://self.gutenberg.org/article/WHEBN0003140575/Islamic%20views%20on%20slavery

Freeing slaves is a good deed

As is ancient Rome and the Zoroastrian religion, manumission of slaves was a good deed in Islam. However, it is clear in the verses quotes above and hadiths below that this does not mean that Muhammad or Islam disapproved of slavery:

It is not righteousness that ye turn your faces to the East and the West; but righteous is he who believeth in Allah and the Last Day and the angels and the Scripture and the prophets; and giveth wealth, for love of Him, to kinsfolk and to orphans and the needy and the wayfarer and to those who ask, and to set slaves free; and observeth proper worship and payeth the poor-due. And those who keep their treaty when they make one, and the patient in tribulation and adversity and time of stress. Such are they who are sincere. Such are the Allah-fearing.

Qur'an 2:177

And what can make you know what is [breaking through] the difficult pass? (It is) to free a slave And to feed in the day of hunger. An orphan near of kin, Or some poor wretch in misery, And to be of those who believe and exhort one another to perseverance and exhort one another to pity.

Qur'an 90:12-17

As in earlier and contemporary near eastern cultures^[1], a slave could agree a contract to purchase his or her freedom:

Qur'an 24:33

Compassionate Islam and Ma malakat aymanukum (Right hand holds)

T.O. Shanavas. MD

[Author is a native of Kerala, but is now based in the USA. He is the author of “Islamic Theory of evolution of Evolution The Missing Link Between Darwin and The Origin of Species.” Co-author of the book, And God Said, "Let There Be Evolution!": Reconciling The Book Of Genesis, The Qur'an, And The Theory Of Evolution. Edited by Prof. Charles M. Wynn and Prof. Arthur W. Wiggins]

The phrase “Ma malakat aymanukum” in Surat Al-Ma`ārij: 30-31 and other verses is translated as “And those who guard their private parts, except from their spouses or those their right hands possess” and most classical exegetes it means slaves.

According to Muhammed Asad, most of the commentators assume unquestioningly that Ma malakat aymanukum stands for slaves and it is permissible to have free sex with them. He continues, “This conventional interpretation is, in my opinion, inadmissible inasmuch as it is based on the assumption that sexual intercourse with one's female slave is permitted without marriage.” So, he translate "Ma malakat aymanukum" to “those whom they rightfully possess [through wedlock).

I mostly agree with Muhammad Asad with few modifications and but emphatically disagree with the universal Muslim passive acceptance of the ruling by traditional Muslim scholars on free sex with slave women.

A close study of the Qur’anic phrase, "Ma malakat aymanukum" and the history of the marriage practices during the life of Prophet Muhammad (s) yield a companionate Islam.

"Ma malakat aymanukum" means the “women under contract in temporary marriages but not equal to wife of traditional marriage.” such marriages were very common during Jahilliah (pre-Islamic time) and also most of Prophet’s (s) lifetime. The temporary marriage was forbidden by Prophet (s) during the Khyber war or by Ummer ibn Kathab (ra) as stated in this Hadiths:

HADITH, BUKHARI Book #59, Hadith #527

“Narrated 'Ali bin Abi Talib: On the day of Khaibar, Allah's Apostle forbade the Mut'a (i.e. temporary marriage) and the eating of donkey-meat.”

HADITH, MUSLIM Book #007, Hadith #2874

"Abd Nadra reported: While I was in the company of Jibir, a person came and said: There is difference of opinion among Ibn Abbas and Ibn Zubair about two Mut'as (benefits, Tamattul in Hajj and temporary marriage with women), whereupon jibir said: We have been doing this during the lifetime of Allah's Messenger (way peace be upon him), and then 'Umar forbade us to do so, and we never resorted to them”

The following characteristics of true believers laid out by the Quran and the Hadiths compatible with the Quran discredit the traditional scholars and their religious ruling on the meaning of “Ma malakat aymanukum.”

1. Keep chastity outside marriage.

2. Accept sex outside marriage: a sin

3. Cannot be a fornicator

4. Cannot claim to be a adulterer and believer simultaneously

5. Raise slave girl/boy as the way he/she raise her own kids.

6. Will marry a slave woman or man instead of fornicate her/him or keep as concubine.

7. Will remain celibate if he has no means to give Mahr.

8. Will not approve or practice prostitution

1. Chastity is a characteristic of male and female believers:

Indeed, the Muslim men and Muslim women, the believing men and believing women, the obedient men and obedient women, the truthful men and truthful women, the patient men and patient women, the humble men and humble women, the charitable men and charitable women, the fasting men and fasting women, the men who guard their private parts and the women who do so, and the men who remember Allah often and the women who do so - for them Allah has prepared forgiveness and a great reward. (33:35)

2. Sex outside marriage is sin.

Quran 17:32

“And come not near to unlawful sex. Verily, it is a Faahishah (i.e. anything that transgresses its limits: a great sin, and an evil way that leads one to hell unless Allaah Forgives him)”

Quran 24:2-3

“The [unmarried] woman or [unmarried] man found guilty of sexual intercourse - lash each one of them with a hundred lashes,..The woman and the man guilty of illegal sexual intercourse, flog each of them with a hundred stripes….”

Narrated by al-Bukhaari (2475) and Muslim (57).

“And the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: “No adulterer is a believer at the time when he is committing adultery” Narrated by al-Bukhaari (2475) and Muslim (57).

3. Believers cannot be adulterers and vice versa

The fornicator does not marry except a [female] fornicator or polytheist, and none marries her except a fornicator or a polytheist, and that has been made unlawful to the believers.” 24:2-3.

4. BELIEVERS: Impossible to be a fornicator and believer simultaneously

Quran 83:1-4

“Woe to those... who, when they have to receive by measure from men, they demand exact full measure, but when they have to give by measure or weight to men, give less than due”

(Book #2, Hadith #12)

"None of you [truly] believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself." Nawawi Hadith Narrated Anas: The Prophet said, "None of you will have faith till he wishes for his brother what he likes for himself."

So a believer cannot desire one thing for his wife or husband or children, the opposite for unrelated family.

5. Treatment of slave girls by believer

Bukhari Book #46, Hadith #720

“Narrated Abu Musa: Allah's Apostle said, "He who has a slave-girl and educates and treats her nicely and then manumits and marries her, will get a double reward."

6. Marriage relationship with slave, not with concubine.

“And marry the unmarried among you and the righteous among your male slaves and female slaves. …” (24:32)

7. Believers without financial means must remain celibate and not to force slaves for sex.

Quran 24:33

And let those who find not the financial means for marriage keep themselves chaste, until Allah enriches them of His Bounty. And such of your slaves as seek a writing (of emancipation), give them such writing, if you know that they are good and trustworthy. And give them something yourselves out of the wealth of Allah which He has bestowed upon you…..”

8. Believer cannot be a flesh-peddler

Quran 24:33

“……And force not your maids to prostitution, if they desire chastity, in order that you may make a gain in the (perishable) goods of this worldly life. But if anyone compels them (to prostitution), then after such compulsion, Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful (to those women, i.e. He will forgive them because they have been forced to do this evil action unwillingly).

Slavery and Islam

--Anna Akasoy, Professor of Islamic Intellectual History

Mā malakat aymānukum ("what your right hands possess", Arabic: ما ملكت أيمانکم‎) is a Quranic expression referring to slaves. Without rights. Without human rights. Making them available for their master as sex-objects.

"The term generally used in the Qur’ān for maids is ما ملكت ايمانكم mā malakat aimānukum, “that which your right hands possess.”" Hughes, T. P. (1885). In A Dictionary of Islam: Being a Cyclopædia of the Doctrines, Rites, Ceremonies, and Customs, together with the Technical and Theological Terms, of the Muhammadan Religion. London: W. H. Allen & Co.

The expression ma malakat aymanukum and its variants are found in several Quranic passages.

According to Jonathan E. Brockopp, the use of the phrase ma malakat aymanukum and the Cognate term mamluk (possessed) makes it clear that slaves in the Quranic discourse are regarded as property.

Bernard Lewis translates ma malakat aymanukum as "those whom you own." Abdullah Yusuf Ali translates it as "those whom your right hands possess", as does M. H. Shakir. N. J. Dawood translates the phrase more idiomatically as "those whom you own as slaves."

Examples of ma malakat aymanukum, "those whom you own" used in the Koran:

[4:3] If ye fear that ye shall not be able to deal justly with the orphans, Marry women of your choice, Two or three or four; but if ye fear that ye shall not be able to deal justly (with them), then only one, or (a captive) that your right hands possess, that will be more suitable, to prevent you from doing injustice.

[4:24] And (also forbidden are) all married women except those whom your right hands possess (this is) Allah's ordinance to you, and lawful for you are (all women) besides those, provided that you seek (them) with your property, taking (them) in marriage not committing fornication. Then as to those whom you profit by, give them their dowries as appointed; and there is no blame on you about what you mutually agree after what is appointed; surely Allah is Knowing, Wise.

[4:25] And whoever among you has not within his power ampleness of means to marry free believing women, then (he may marry) of those whom your right hands possess from among your believing maidens; and Allah knows best your faith: you are (sprung) the one from the other; so marry them with the permission of their masters, and give them their dowries justly, they being chaste, not fornicating, nor receiving paramours; and when they are taken in marriage, then if they are guilty of indecency, they shall suffer half the punishment which is (inflicted) upon free women. This is for him among you who fears falling into evil; and that you abstain is better for you, and Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.

[16:71] And Allah hath favoured some of you above others in provision. Now those who are more favoured will by no means hand over their provision to those (slaves) whom their right hands possess, so that they may be equal with them in respect thereof. Is it then the grace of Allah that they deny?

[23:5–6] Who abstain from sex, except with those joined to them in the marriage bond, or (the captives) whom their right hands possess,- for (in their case) they are free from blame.

[24:33] And let those who do not find the means to marry keep chaste until Allah makes them free from want out of His grace. And (as for) those who ask for a writing from among those whom your right hands possess, give them the writing if you know any good in them, and give them of the wealth of Allah which He has given you; and do not compel your slave girls to prostitution, when they desire to keep chaste, in order to seek the frail good of this world's life; and whoever compels them, then surely after their compulsion Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.

[24:58] O ye who believe! let those whom your right hands possess, and the (children) among you who have not come of age ask your permission (before they come to your presence), on three occasions: before morning prayer; the while ye doff your clothes for the noonday heat; and after the late-night prayer: these are your three times of undress: outside those times it is not wrong for you or for them to move about attending to each other: Thus does Allah make clear the Signs to you: for Allah is full of knowledge and wisdom.

[33:50] O Prophet! We have made lawful to thee thy wives to whom thou hast paid their dowers; and those whom thy right hand possesses out of the prisoners of war whom Allah has assigned to thee; and daughters of thy paternal uncles and aunts, and daughters of thy maternal uncles and aunts, who migrated (from Makka) with thee; and any believing woman who dedicates her soul to the Prophet if the Prophet wishes to wed her;- this only for thee, and not for the Believers (at large); We know what We have appointed for them as to their wives and the captives whom their right hands possess;- in order that there should be no difficulty for thee. And Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.

Slaves are mentioned in at least twenty-nine verses of the Qur'an, most of these involving the legal status of slaves. The exact number of verses referring to slaves is contested by scholars because the words and phrases have multiple possible meanings and translation is thus subjective. The Quranic verses on slaves are expressed in variants of three phrases: 'Abd (male slave or servant, feminine: amah), ma malakat aymanukum (that which your right hand possesses, used to highlight right to force sex on female slaves), and raqabah (the neck, captive, used to highlight the process of manumission).

Today, the 21^st century, this is embarrassing for some Muslims. For modern Muslims. Not all Muslims. The ones who object are trying to get away from the perception of men keeping sex-slaves and competing over the size of their harem and display of wealth as is happening in the real world, maybe even today, but definitely a few decades ago.

They try and turn slaves into voluntary workers or poor people who are being taken in as a social act of kindness – without actually changing the Koran, but actually changing the Koran.

I will show that Islam clearly condones slavery, in its worst form, and the only improvement lies in that it is regulated and integrated into jurisprudence, not abolished. The Koran clearly knows about and describes different types of humans:

2:178 Retribution is prescribed for you regarding the slain: freeman for freeman, slave for slave, and female for female. (using abd)

23:6 Except from their wives or those their right hands possess

33:50 We have made lawful to you your wives … and those your right hand possesses

70:30 Except from their wives or those their right hands possess

If you hire a worker, this does not entitle you to have sex with that worker whenever it pleases you, even if the worker you hired is married. But this is exactly what the Koran states in 4:24 “married women except those your right hands possess”.

Islamic scholars agree that sexual intercourse is permitted with both, a man’s spouse and those his right hand possesses. A man must guard his private parts except when in the presence of his spouses and those his right hand possesses. So there is a very clear distinction between these groups or types of women.

An even more serious distinction with grave implications is that a man can have sex with the woman he duly paid for, his wife, plus those his right hand possesses, even if these are themselves married.

Koran 16:75 explicitly says that a slave (abd) has no power and the master, who is provided with gifts by his god, these two are unequal. In 71 it elaborates that the “have” will not give to the “have-not”, ie a master will not endeavour to make the slave an equal.

It gets a lot worse when it gets to female sex-slaves, where in the Koran we get multiple sentences like the ones above, 23:6, 33:50 or 70:30, all telling men they are welcome to have sex with your wives and, in addition, to an unspecified and unlimited number of slaves.

A man should not force his own female slaves in to prostitution as a pimp – but if he does, allah is understanding, merciful and forgiving in this case.

What is not allowed is a man having sex with his wife’s slave girls. That seems to have been the limit for Muhammad and his men.

Sorry, but I find this sick. And so do some Muslims, who now try and put a different spin on the words, ignoring the bigger picture, blind in their attempt at white-washing the really bad idea of slavery in Islam. Where it would have been incredibly easy for a god to insert a command that not only is sex outside of marriage forbidden, but also that with all concubines and slaves, including the concept of owning another human being along with it. The Islamic god, I know I would and you would too, have clarified this and had Muhammad come out and instead of having sex with his slaves, trading slaves and regulating some aspects of slavery simply had him prohibit the owning of human beings.

Instead, Islam apologists whine and complain about my blunt and direct statements. They try to make these women out to be close to a married women, your wives. Allowing an unregulated number of women, but almost wives. Does this improve things? Not in my eyes. Apologists try and make Muhammad and his sexcapades seem like a legitimate husband wife relationship and not the brutal rape it actually was.

I’ll include the story of Muhammad here, who has sex with his female slave, a Copt, a present given to him.

Missing

MUHAMMAD'S SEXUAL SCANDAL (QUR'AN 66)

Muhammad – the best example to follow for mankind had sexual intercourse with his slave/property (mamlukat) Mariyah Al-Qibtiyyah in Hafsas house and was caught red handed by Hafsah and all hell breaks loose. Ouch!

- Tafsir Al-Tabari (Jami' Al-Bayan)

- Tafsir Al-Qurtubi

- Tafsir Al-Baghawi

Mariyah Al-Qibtiyyah is called as "mamlukat" (slave/property) and "jariyatuhu" (his slave).

Hafsah, the daughter of Umar called her "Jariyatuka" (your slave).

I can add more sources.

Folks! This is the sexual scandal of the prophet claimed to have the best moral standards and an example for mankind. ??

Bukhari volume 3, book 43 number 648

we noticed that the Ansari women had the upper hand over their men

One-day Muhammad goes to his wife’s house Hafsa the daughter of Omar and finds her maid Mariyah attractive. He sends Hafsa to Omar’s house, telling her that he wanted to see her. When Hafsa leaves, Muhammad takes Mariyah to bed and has intercourse with her. Meanwhile Hafsa, who finds out that her father was not expecting her, returns home much sooner than expected, and to her chagrin finds her illustrious husband in bed with her maid.

She becomes hysteric and forgetting the station of the prophet she shouts and causes a scandal. The prophet pleads with her to calm down and promises not to sleep with Mariah anymore and begs her also not to divulge this secret to anyone else.

However, Hafsa would not control herself and relays everything to Aisha who also turns against the prophet and jointly with his other wives cause him much anguish. So the prophet decides to punish all of them and not sleep with any one of his wives for one month. Depriving one’s wives sexually is the second grade of punishment recommended in Qur'an. The first level is admonishing, the second level is depriving them of sex and the third level of punishment is beating them. Quran 4:34

Of course when a man decides to punish a wife with sexual deprivation he can satisfy himself with his other wives. But Muhammad’s anger had made him make the oath not to sleep with any of them for one month. That of course would have been too much of hardship for the beloved messenger of God (peace be upon his immaculate soul), therefore God in his mercy came to the aid of his prophet and revealed the Surah Tahrim (Banning). In this Surah Allah rebukes Muhammad for being hard on himself and for depriving himself from what he really likes and has been made lawful for him, in order to please his wives.

This is the text of the Surah Tahrim: 66:1-5.

1. O Prophet! Why do you ban (for yourself) that which Allâh has made lawful to you, seeking to please your wives? And Allâh is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.

2. Allâh has already ordained for you (O men), the dissolution of your oaths. And Allâh is your Maula (Lord, or Master, or Protector, etc.) and He is the All-Knower, the All-Wise.

3. And (remember) when the Prophet (SAW) disclosed a matter in confidence to one of his wives (Hafsah), so when she told it (to another i.e. 'Aishah), and Allâh made it known to him, he informed part thereof and left a part. Then when he told her (Hafsah) thereof, she said: "Who told you this?" He said: "The All-Knower, the All-Aware (Allâh) has told me".

4. If you two (wives of the Prophet SAW, namely 'Aishah and Hafsah turn in repentance to Allâh, (it will be better for you), your hearts are indeed so inclined (to oppose what the Prophet SAW likes), but if you help one another against him (Muhammad SAW), then verily, Allâh is his Maula (Lord, or Master, or Protector, etc.), and Jibrael (Gabriel), and the righteous among the believers, and furthermore, the angels are his helpers.

5. It may be if he divorced you (all) that his Lord will give him instead of you, wives better than you, Muslims (who submit to Allâh), believers, obedient to Allâh, turning to Allâh in repentance, worshipping Allâh sincerely, fasting or emigrants (for Allâh's sake), previously married and virgins. “

Quran 66:1-5

Although Muhammad gave his word to Hafsa, not to have sex with her maid he could not resist the temptation. Especially now that he had taken another oath not to sleep with all of his wives. It was a difficult situation and no one but Allah could help him. Well, nothing is impossible when you are the prophet of Allah. Leave everything in the hands of the Almighty and let him take care of it. And that is exactly what happened. Allah himself intervened and gave him the green light to follow his heart's desire. In the Surah Tahrim God licensed his beloved prophet to have his flings and not pay attention to his wives. What can a prophet ask more? Allah was so concerned about Muhammad's carnal pleasures that he even allowed ALL MEN to break their oaths as a bounty. Isn't Allah great?

It is also worthy of mention that Muhammad who came to know that Hafsa did reveal the secret to Aisha, lied to her by pretending that it was Allah who told him so (Ayat 3) while he actually learned it from Ayisha. But of course Muhammad is not the author of the Qur'an. It is Allah himself who is lying for his prophet.

In reaction to the above verses, Aisha, who was not only young and pretty but also clever, is reported to have said to Muhammad, "Your God indeed rushes in coming to your aid!"

The above story must have been also embarrassing for Muhammad’s followers even when they gobbled mindlessly everything he told them that they made other hadiths to explain away those verses of the Qur'an that were already explained by Omar.

'A'isha (Allah be pleased with her) narrated that Allah's Apostle (may peace be upon him) used to spend time with Zainab daughter of Jahsh and drank honey at her house. She ('A'isha further) said: I and Hafsa agreed that one whom Allah's Apostle (may peace be upon him) would visit first should say: I notice that you have an odour of the Maghafir (gum of mimosa). He (the Holy Prophet) visited one of them and she said to him like this, whereupon he said: I have taken honey in the house of Zainab bint Jabsh and I will never do it again. It was at this (that the following verse was revealed): 'Why do you hold to be forbidden what Allah has made lawful for you... (up to). If you both ('A'isha and Hafsa) turn to Allah" up to:" And when the Holy Prophet confided an information to one of his wives" (lxvi. 3). This refers to his saying: But I have taken honey.

Sahih Muslim 9:3496

The existence of the above Hadith and its difference with the one narrated by Omar reveals yet another fact that the companions of Muhammad were willing to lie, (as Muslims are today) to save the image of their prophet from blemish. It would be foolish to accept the excuse of drinking honey to justify those Ayat. First of all honey does not smell bad. But above all it is inconceivable that a trivial incident like drinking honey could cause such an upheaval in the household of Muhammad to the extend that he decides to divorce all of his wives or to punish them for one month by not sleeping with them. Could such an insignificant incident like drinking honey provoke so much uproar that the creator of this universe be forced to intervene with a warning to Muhammad’s wives that he would divorce all of them and He (Allah) would give him virgin and faithful wives? This explanation is absurd unless honey is a code name for what Muhammad drank from between the legs of Mariyah, which incidentally is very likely when you consider the following hadith:

Narrated Aisha, Ummul Mu'minin: The Apostle of Allah (peace be upon him) was asked about a man who divorced his wife three times, and she married another who entered upon her, but divorced her before having intercourse with her, whether she was lawful for the former husband. She said: The Prophet (peace be upon him) replied: She is not lawful for the first (husband) until she tastes the honey of the other husband and he tastes her honey.

Sunan Abu Dawud 12:2302

Yet some Muslims still claim that the Hadiths quoted above narrated by Abdullah bin 'Abbas are false and the correct version is the one about honey. This is a nonsense. This hadith is recorded by both Bukahri and by Muslim. Furthermore it is the only logical explanation of the sha'ne nozool (context) of the Surah Tharim. According to Muslim scholar Asif Iftikhar "a Hadith can be regarded as a source of religious guidance only `if the basis of that Hadith exists in the Quran or the Sunnah or the established principles." We can clearly see that the Qur'an allows having sex with the "right hand possessions" i.e. slaves (Quran 4:24) and it was Muhammad's habit to have sex with his slave women. The text of the Surah makes it also clear that it is about having sex and not eating honey which is a silly explanation. Asif Iftikhar writes:

"Imam Ibni Ali Jauzee is reported to have said: "If you find a Hadith against the dictates of common sense or contrary to a universal rule, consider it a fabrication."

The story of honey is ludicrous and makes no sense.

The scholars that write for the website www.islamqa.com received a question regarding whether Mariyah was Muhammad’s wife to which they answered:

Question:

There is no doubt that Mariyah al-Qibtiyyah was the concubine of the Messenger (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him), and she bore him his son Ibraaheem. Can the title of "Mother of the Believers" be given to Mariyah al-Qibtiyyah or not?

Answer:

Praise be to Allaah.

The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) DID NOT MARRY MARIYAH AL-QIBTIYYAH, RATHER SHE WAS A CONCUBINE who was given to him by al-Muqawqis, the ruler of Egypt. That took place after the treaty of al-Hudaybiyah. Mariyah al-Qibtiyyah was a Christian, then she became Muslim (may Allaah be pleased with her).

Ibn Sa’d said:

The Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) lodged her – meaning Mariyah al-Qibtiyyah and her sister – with Umm Sulaym bint Milhaan, and the Messenger of Allaah (S) entered upon them and told them about Islam. He took Mariyah AS A CONCUBINE and moved her to some property of his in al-‘Awaali… and she became a good Muslim.

Al-Tabaqaat al-Kubra, 1/134-135

Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr said:

Mariyah died during the caliphate of ‘Umar ibn al-Khattaab, in Muharram of 16 AH. ‘Umar gathered the people himself to attend her funeral, and he led the funeral prayer for her. She was buried in al-Baqee’.

Al-Isti’aab, 4/ 1912

Mariyah (may Allaah be pleased with her) WAS ONE OF THE PROPHET’S CONCUBINES, NOT ONE OF HIS WIVES. The Mothers of the Believers are the wives of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him). Allaah says (interpretation of the meaning):

"The Prophet is closer to the believers than their ownselves, and his wives are their (believers’) mothers (as regards respect and marriage)"

[al-Ahzaab 33:6]

The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) had four concubines, ONE OF WHOM WAS MARIYAH.

Ibn al-Qayyim said:

Abu ‘Ubaydah said: HE HAD FOUR (CONCUBINES): MARIYAH, who was the mother of his son Ibraaheem; Rayhaanah; another beautiful slave woman whom he acquired as a prisoner of war; and a slave woman who was given to him by Zaynab bint Jahsh.

Zaad al-Ma’aad, 1/114

For more information of the wives of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) – the Mothers of the Believers – please see the answer to question no. 47072

And Allaah knows best.

Islam Q&A (www.islam-qa.com)

(Question #47572: Was Mariyah al-Qibtiyyah one of the Mothers of the Believers?)

Here are Ibn al-Qayyim's words taken from his own book:

The Prophet's Slave-Girls

Abu 'Ubaidah said that the Prophet had four slave girls, MARIYAH, who gave birth to Ibrahim, the Prophet's last son, Ra'ihanah, another slave-girl he got during one of his battles and another slave-girl whom Zainab bint Ja'hsh gave to him as a gift. (Zad-ul Ma'ad, translated by Jalal Abualrub, edited by Alan Mencke & Shaheed M. Ali [Madinah Publishers & Distributors, Orlando Florida: First Edition, December 2000], Volume I, p. 178; capital emphasis ours)

The website Islamic Question Online with Mufti Ebrahim Desai says that:

Because of the prevalence of slavery in the initial stages of Islam the necessity of educating the people about the treatment of slaves also arose. Rasulullah Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam taught his followers how the slaves should be treated with kindness, etc. In fact, Rasulullah Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam himself possessed slave girls. In this way, he was able to demonstrate practically how kindly and politely the slave should be treated. Because it is relevant to the topic, it would be appropriate to mention here that Rasulullah Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam also had four slave girls. One was Hazrat Maria Qibtiyya Radhiallahu Anha who was the mother of Rasulullah Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam's son, Ibrahim Alayhis Salaam who passed away in infanthood. The others were, Hazrat Rayhaan binte Samoon; Hazrat Nafisa and a fourth, whose name has not been recorded in History.

(Question 17298 from South Africa: what is the Islamic law with regard to slave-women? Was It permissible to have relations with these slave-women without a formal marriage ceremony?; source; bold and underline emphasis ours)

And:

Maariya al-Qibtiyya was a slave female and was given as a gift to Rasulullah (Sallallaahu Alayhi Wasallam) by the Roman king. She bore the son of Rasulullah (Sallallaahu Alayhi Wasallam) who passed away during infancy. (Question 1071, Maariya al-Qibtiyyah; source)

Another online Islamic Fatwa site also concurs with Mariyah being a slave whom Muhammad enjoyed:

Fatwa # 20780
Fatwa Title: His wives "Alayhi wa-Salat wa-Salam" who were slaves
Fatwa Date: 04 Jumady al-Thania 1423

Question

There are two slave women that the messenger (SAW) married, who are they?

Fatwa

Thanks be to Allah and prayer and peace be upon the messenger of Allah and on his family and companions. As to this:

If the questioner meant that Allah’s messenger (SAW) married two slave women while they were still slaves? This cannot be of the messenger of Allah (SAW), and this is not permitted in Islam except to those who cannot marry a free woman and fears immorality.

And if he meant that he [Muhammad] married those women after they were freed from slavery? Hence Juwayrah bint al-Harith al-Mustaliqia was from those who were enslaved (captured) from Bani al-Mustaliq (the tribe of Mustaliq), and she was the daughter of their leader, the prophet (SAW) freed her and married her. Same with Safiyah bint Huyay bin Akhtab who was one of the slaves of Khaybar, and the prophet (SAW) freed her and married her.

But if he meant the slaves that the messenger used to enjoy (ya ta sarra behina), meaning sleeping with them by virtue of their being his right hand possession? It was said four: Mariyah al -Qibtiyah, and Rayhanah from Bani Quraytha (the tribe of Quraytha), and a third slave woman whom he slept with during her slavery, and a fourth one who was given to him by Zaynab bint Jahsh. (Arabic source; translated by Mutee’a Al-Fadi)

After mentioning his eleven wives, The Concise Encyclopaedia of Islam (ed. Cyril Glassé, San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1989), says under Wives of the Prophet, p. 419:

In addition, the Prophet had at least two concubines, Rayhanah, captured from the Banu Qurayzah, who was originally Jewish, and Maryah, a Christian slave wo was a gift from the Muqawqis, the Byzantine viceroy ruling the Copts in Egypt. She bore the Prophet a son, Ibrahim, who died before his second year.

Here is a modern Muslim biographer who lists Mariyah as one of Muhammad's slave women:

Besides these, he had two concubines. The first was Mariyah, the Coptic (an Egyptian Christian), a present gift from Al-Muqauqis, vicegerent of Egypt - she gave birth to his son Ibrâhim, who died in Madinah while still a little child, on the 28th or 29th of Shawwal in the year 10 A.H., i.e. 27th January, 632 A.D. The second one was Raihanah bint Zaid An-Nadriyah or Quraziyah, a captive from Bani Quraiza. Some people say she was one of his wives. However, Ibn Al-Qaiyim gives more weight to the first version. Abu 'Ubaidah spoke of two more concubines, Jameelah, a captive, and another one, a bondwoman granted to him by Zainab bint Jahsh. [Za'd Al-Ma'ad 1/29] (Ar-Raheeq Al-Makhtum (THE SEALED NECTAR) Biography of the Noble Prophet, Saif-ur-Rahman al-Mubarakpuri [Maktaba Dar-us-Salam Publishers & Distributors, First Edition 1995], "The Prophetic Household", p. 485; online edition; bold and underline emphasis ours)

Another scholar who clearly listed Mariyah as Muhammad's concubine was the late Mufti Shafi Uthmani:

... (And those (bond women) whom you own out of the captives Allah has given you as spoils of war)

The word ... used here for the spoils of war is fai' which in its technical sense is restricted to the wealth acquired from the enemy without actual fighting. But at times it is used for the spoils of war acquired through actual fighting. Here the word is used in a general sense. Moreover, it does not mean that only those slave-girls will be lawful for him who would come to him as a share in the spoils of war, but the permissibility covers those bondwomen also who were purchased by him. But, apparently, in this injunction, there is nothing particular for the Holy Prophet because this is a rule for all Muslims and the whole Ummah that those bondwomen whom they own as their share in the spoils of war or those who are purchased for a price are lawful for them. At the same time the style of the context indicates that the injunctions contained in these verses should have some special applications for the Holy Prophet. As such it is stated in Ruh ul-Ma'ani' as a particularity of the Holy Prophet that just as the nikah of any of his wives with any other Muslim is not lawful after him, similarly any of his bondwomen is not lawful for any Muslim after him. Accordingly, the nikah of Sayyidah Mariyah al-Qibtiyyah who was sent by the Roman Emperor Muqauqis as gift to the Holy Prophet WAS NOT LAWFUL FOR ANYONE AFTER HIM.

At the age of fifty, after the death of Sayyidah Khadijah, he married Sayyidah Sawdah who was also a widow.

After the migration to Madina, at the age of fifty-four, in the second year of Hijrah, Sayyidah 'A'isha came to the Holy Prophet's home as a wife. He married Sayyidah Hafsah a year later and Sayyidah Zaynab bint Khuzaymah a few days after that, who expired a few months later. He married Sayyidah Umm Salamah, a widow with children, in the year 4 of Hijrah. In the year 5 when he was fifty eight years old, he marred Zaynab bint Jash in accordance with Allah's order, as detailed in the beginning of the present surah. The rest of the blessed wives entered his house in the last five years. (Maariful Quran, Volume 7, pp. 191-192, 197-198; source; capital emphasis ours)

Sunni Muslim writer G.F. Haddad answers to the question:

Was Mariya al-Qibtiyya ever a spouse?

No. Mariya al-Qibtiyya was never a spouse but rather a surriyya - with tashdid of the ra and its kasr - until the passing of the Prophet, upon him blessings and peace, as explicitly stated by al-Zubayr ibn Bakkar in his al-Muntakhab min Kitab Azwaj al-Nabi salla Allahu `alyhi wa-Sallam (Risala 1983 ed. p. 60):

„Wa-tuwuffiya Rasulullah (salla Allahu `alayhi wa-Sallama) wa-Mariyatu fi mulkih, fa`ataqat, fa`taddat `alayhi thalatha hiyadin ba`dah.“

„The Messenger of Allah passed away as Mariya was in his possession (as a slavewoman), whereupon she became free then observed, after her widowhood of him, three menstrual periods of home seclusion.“
Important notes:

1- The Prophet, upon him blessings and peace, made her wear hijab (contrary to the normal ruling for slaves).

2- At one time, because of one of his wives‘ complaint, he swore that he would stay away from Mariya then Allah Most High ordered him to cancel that oath without kaffara. (This may have been confused with a revocable divorce by some; in reality it confirms that a self-pronounced tahrim of mulk al-yamin is inconsequential. Imam Malik said: „Haram is halal with regard to slavewomen.“)

3- When Ibrahim, alyhi as-Salam, was born the Prophet said of her, upon him blessings and peace: „Her son freed her.“ (This may have been interpreted as a cancellation of her slavehood tantamount to a declaration of marriage but is confirmed by the narrations to apply to her status after the passing of the Holy Prophet, upon him blessings and peace.)

4- When the Prophet died, upon him blessings and peace, she observed three menstrual periods of `idda in complete home seclusion (contrary to the normal ruling for slaves because at that time she became a freedwoman).

5- Our liege-lords Abu Bakr and `Umar in their caliphates spent lavishly on her (in resemblance of the duty to support the Mothers of the believers) until she died in Muharram of the year 16. `Umar gathered the people himself, she was buried in al-Baqi`, and he prayed over her. Allah be well-pleased with her.

6- The Prophet, upon him blessings and peace, did free and marry the surriyya Rayhana bint Zayd ibn `Amr of the Banu al-Nadir. This case may have been confused with that of Mariya. And Allah knows best.
Sources:

- The Hafiz, Qadi of Makka, and genealogist al-Zubayr ibn Bakkar (172-256) in his al-Muntakhab min Kitab Azwaj al-Nabi salla Allahu `alyhi wa-Sallam.

- Hafiz Sharaf al-Din al-Dimyati (613-708), Nisa‘ Rasul Allah salla Allahu `alayhi wa-Sallam.

- Hafiz Muhibb al-Din al-Tabari (615-694), al-Samt al-Thamin fi Manaqib Ummahat al-Mu‘minin.

- Hafiz Muhammad ibn Yusuf al-Salihi (d. 942), Subul al-Huda wal-Rashad fi Sirat Khayr al-`Ibad.

gibril (Was Mariya al-Qibtiyya ever a spouse?; bold emphasis ours)

And:

12. Marya al-Qibtiyya, she was a surriyya (concubine). She gave birth to Ibrahim. (Who are Ahl al-Bayt?)

Here is what one modern commentary says regarding Sura 33:52:

74. It means handmaid. Two handmaids of the Holy Prophet are well known:

(i) Maria Qibtia … of whose womb Hazrat Ibrahim was born;
(ii) Rehana …

(Noble Qur’an: Tafseer-E-Usmani by Allama Shabbir Ahmad Usmani, English translation by Mohammad Ashfaq Ahmad, M.A.M.Sc. [Idara Isha’at-e-Dinyat (P) Ltd., New Delhi, India 1992], p. 1854)

In an article found at the Understanding Islam site, Mr. Amar Ellahi Lone says:

As far as the slave girl Hadhrat Maria Qibtia (ra) is concerned, the Prophet (pbuh) kept her as a slave girl because he was barred from marrying those slave girls who were not part of the booty of war, in the same verse that governed his marriage regulations. Hadhrat Maria Qibtia (ra) was presented to the Prophet (pbuh) by the ruler of Egypt. He loved her very much and treated her very well, in order to set an example for the Muslims in treatment of their slaves.

It should be kept in mind that although Islam condemned slavery, it did not abolish it instantly. The institution of slavery was so deep rooted in the society that it was not possible to do away with it at once. In fact Islam adopted a gradual approach towards it by giving incentives to free slaves in return for reward in the hereafter or by treating them fairly and respectably. It was during this intermediary period that the Prophet (pbuh) set an example of good treatment of the slaves, in the case of Hadhrat Maria Qibtia (ra), for the Muslims to follow. The other example of the he set in relation to slaves was in the case of Hadhrat Zayed (ra), whom he freed and made his adopted son. There is no strong evidence of any other slave girl in the household of the Prophet (pbuh). (The Marriages of the Prophet (pbuh); source; bold and capital emphasis ours)

Moiz Amjad of Understanding Islam writes:

Nevertheless, the Prophet (pbuh) could indeed have freed Maria Qibtia and subsequently married her, yet this is not supported by the historical accounts. (Maria Qibtia (RA); source; bold emphasis ours)

A companion of Mr. Amjad concurs:

Maria the Coptic
Question asked by Mumtaz Ahmad.
Posted on: Tuesday, December 07, 2004 - Hits: 404

Question:
I am confused about the Status of Maria the Coptic. She was a gift to the Prophet from Egypt. She gave birth to male children of the Holy Prophet. In books written about the Prophet or his wives, or on 'Sahabiat', Maria the Coptic is neither mentioned in the list of wives nor in the list of Sahabiat. Kindly explain the status of the lady.

Answer:
Please refer to: The Case of Maria the Coptic and http://www.understanding-islam.com/related/text.asp?type=question&qid=371

Maria the Coptic was not taken in marriage by the Prophet (sws). However, she was, of course, a companion of his. She embraced Islam and lived with the Prophet (sws) as his slave girl for a considerable time. Some authors may have left her for they might have considered her in the list of his slaves. But we do not think that a slave girl or man cannot be considered a Companion of the Prophet (sws).

Regards,
Tariq Mahmood Hashmi
Research Assistant, Studying Islam (Source; bold and underline emphasis ours)

The famous Sunni commentator and historian al-Tabari wrote:

God granted Rayhanah bt. Zayd of the Banu Qurayzah to his Messenger [as booty]. Mariyah the Copt was presented to the Messenger of God, given to him by al-Muqawqis, the ruler of Alexandria, and she gave birth to the Messenger of God’s son Ibrahim. These were the Messenger’s wives; six of them were from the Quraysh. (The History of Al-Tabari: The Last years of the Prophet, translated and annotated by Ismail K. Poonawala [State University of New York Press (SUNY), Albany 1990], Volume IX, p. 137)

At first sight, Tabari seems to agree with Ali Sina’s Muslim detractors since he says that Mariyah was Muhammad’s wife. Yet, this impression is wrong, and changes when we read his later comments:

An Account of the Messenger of God’s
Slave Concubines

They were Mariyah bt. Sham‘un, the Copt, and Rayhanah bt. Zayd al-Quraziyyah who, it is said, was of the Banu al-Nadir. An account of them has been given above. (Ibid., p. 141)

The Messenger of God also had a eunuch called Mabur, who was presented to him by al-Muqawqis WITH TWO SLAVE GIRLS, ONE OF THEM WAS CALLED MARIYAH, WHOM HE TOOK AS A CONCUBINE, and the other [was called] Sirin, whom he gave to Hassan b. Thabit after Safwan b. al-Mu‘attal had committed an offense against him. Sirin gave birth to a son called ‘Abd al-Rahman b. Hassan. Al-Muqawqis had sent this eunuch with the two slave girls in order to escort them and guard them on their way [to Medina]. He presented them to the Messenger of God when they arrived. It is said that he was the one [with whom] Mariyah was accused of [wrongdoing], and that the Messenger of God sent ‘Ali to kill him. When he saw ‘Ali and what he intended to do with him, he uncovered himself until it became evident to ‘Ali that he was completely castrated, not having anything left at all of what men [normally] have, so [Ali] refrained from killing him. (Ibid., p. 147)

And:

Mariyah, the Prophet’s CONCUBINE and the mother of his son, Ibrahim.

Al-Muqawqas, lord of Alexandria, gave her with her sister Sirin and other things as a present to the Prophet.

According to Ibn ‘Umar [al-Waqidi] – Ya‘qub b. Muhammad b. Abi Sa‘sa‘ah – ‘Abdallah b. ‘Abd al-Rahman b. Abi Sa‘sa‘ah: In the year 7/May 11, 628-April 30, 629, al-Muqawqas, lord of Alexandria, sent to the Prophet Mariyah, her sister Sirin, a thousand gold coins, twenty fine robes, his mule Duldul, and his donkey ‘Ufayr, or Ya‘fur. With them was Mariyah’s brother, a very old eunuch called Mabur. Al-Muqawqas sent all this [to the Prophet] with Hatib b. Abi Balta‘ah. The latter suggested to Mariyah that she embrace Islam and made her wish to do so; thus she and her sister were converted, whereas the eunuch adhered to his religion until he was [also] converted later in Medina, while the Prophet was [still] alive.

The Prophet admired Umm Ibrahim ["Mother of Ibrahim," Mariyah’s title], who was fair-skinned and beautiful. He lodged her in al-‘Aliyah, at the property nowadays called of Umm Ibrahim. He used to visit her there and ordered her to veil herself, [but] he had intercourse with her BY VIRTUE OF HER BEING HIS PROPERTY… (The History of Al-Tabari: Biographies of the Prophet’s Companions and Their Successors, translated by Ella Landau-Tasseron [State University of New York Press (SUNY) Albany 1998], Volume XXXIX, pp. 193-194; bracketed statements ours)

845. That is, Mariyah was ordered to veil herself as did the Prophet’s wives, BUT HE DID NOT MARRY HER … (Ibid., p. 194)

It is obvious what Tabari meant when saying that Mariyah was one of Muhammad’s wives. He wasn’t denying she was his slave girl, his concubine, but was using "wife" in the sense of one whom Muhammad slept with and who mothered his child.

The Tafsir al-Jalalayn ("Commentary of the Two Jalals") is another source which states that Mariyah was a concubine. Here is what the commentary says in reference to Sura 33:52:

"It is not lawful for thee women after this" after the nine who have chosen you
"nor to change them for wives," by divorcing all or some of them to marry others
"even though their beauty attract thee except any thy right hand should possess" of female slaves they are lawful for you and the prophet possessed Mariyah after them who gave birth to his son Ibrahim who died in his life time.
"and Allah does watch over all things." (Arabic source; bold emphasis ours)

After mentioning Khadijah, Muhammad’s first wife, this next Muslim site lists his wives at ten, a number which excludes Mariyah:

AFTER 50 YEARS
He married Hadhrat Sawdah and Ãaisha (Radhiallaahu Ãnhuma). Sawda (Radhiallaahu Ãnha) lived with him immediately but Ãaisha (Radhiallaahu Ãnha) came to live with him in the year 2 AH. when he was approximately 54 years of age.

55 YEARS (3 AH.)
He married Hadhrath Hafsa (Radhiallaahu Ãnha). After a few months, he married Hadhrat Zaynab bin Khuzaymah (Radhiallaahu Ãnha) who lived with him for only 3 or 18 months (as recorded in different narrations) before she passed away.

56 YEARS (4 AH.)
He married Umme Salma (Radhiallaahu Ãnha)

57 YEARS (5 AH.)
He married Zaynab (Radhiallaahu Ãnha)

58 YEARS (6 AH)
He married Hadhrat Juwayriyah (Radhiallaahu Ãnha)

59 YEARS (7 AH.)
First he married Umme Habibah then Safiyyah then Maymoonah (Radhiallaahu Ãnhunna) in one year. (Polygamy in Islam, Jamiatul Ulama; source)

More importantly, both Bahagia and Zawadi quoted Ibn Kathir and gave the impression that he denied that Mariyah was Muhammad’s slave. Notice the quotation provided by these Muslims:

Maria al-Qibtiyya (may Allah be pleased with her) IS SAID TO HAVE MARRIED the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) and certainly everyone gave her the same title of respect as the Prophet's wives, 'Umm al Muminin' 'Mother of the Believers'. Maria was born in upper Egypt of a Coptic father and Greek mother and moved to the court of the Muqawqis when she was still very young. She arrived in Medina to join the Prophet's household just after the Prophet returned from the treaty with Quraish which was contracted at al-Hudaybiyya.

The careful reader will see Ibn Kathir’s qualification, "IS SAID", which shows uncertainty on his part whether she did indeed become his wife. Now here is what Ibn Kathir does explicitly say, which the authors again failed to share with their readers:

<those (slaves) whom your right hand possesses whom Allah has given to you,> means, ‘the slave-girls whom you took from the war booty are also permitted to you.’ He owned Safiyyah and Juwayriyah, then he manumitted them and married them, AND HE OWNED Rayhanah bint Sham`un An-Nadariyyah AND MARIYAH AL-QIBTIYYAH, the mother of his son Ibrahim, upon him be peace; THEY WERE BOTH AMONG THE PRISONERS, may Allah be pleased with them. (Ibn Kathir’s Commentary on Sura 33:50; online edition)

Ibn Kathir expressly says that whereas Muhammad owned and then married Safiyyah and Juwayriyah he doesn’t say this for Mariyah. He simply says that Mariyah was one of those prisoners whom he owned.

In fact, Ibn Kathir in his biography of Muhammad reiterated his position that Mariyah was a concubine, not a wife:

Besides these, the Prophet HAD TWO CONCUBINES. The first was Mariyah Bintu Sham'un the Coptic, Umm Ibraheem. She was a present from Al-Muqawqis, the commander of Alexandria and Egypt, along with her sister Shereen, a horse named Mabur and a mare named Adduldul. The Prophet offered Shereen to Hassan Ibn Thabit and she gave birth to their son Abderahman. Mariyah died in the month of Muharram in year 16 A.H. and it was Omar Ibn Al-Khattab who assembled people for her funeral, performed Salat for her and buried her in Al-Baqee'. As for the second concubine, she was Rahanah Bintu 'Amru, and it was said Bintu Zaid, he chose her among the captives from Bani Quraidha, and he later set her free to join her people. (The Seerah of Prophet of Muhammad (S.A.W.), abridged by Muhammad Ali Al-Halabi Al-Athari [Al-Firdous Ltd., London, 2001: First Edition], Part II, pp. 32-33; capital and underline emphasis ours)

This should now make it abundantly clear what Ibn Kathir’s position was regarding Mariyah’s status.

Finally, al-Tabari’s date poses major problems for those who wish to assert that Muhammad married Mariyah. According to Sura 33:52 Muhammad was forbidden from taking on anymore wives with the exception of concubines:

It is not allowed to you to take women afterwards, nor that you should change them for other wives, though their beauty be pleasing to you, except what your right hand possesses and Allah is Watchful over all things. Shakir

According to the late scholar Sayyid Abu Ala’ Maududi this Sura was compiled in A.H. 5 or A.D. 627/628:

Period of Revelation

The Surah discusses three important events which are: the Battle of the Trench (or Al-Ahzab: the Clans), which took place in Shawwal, A. H. 5; the raid on Bani Quraizah, which was made in Dhil-Qa'dah, A. H. 5; and the Holy Prophet's marriage with Hadrat Zainab, which also was contracted in Dhil-Qa'dah, A. H. 5. These historical events accurately determine the period of the revelation of this Surah. (Source)

Tabari says that al-Muqawqis sent Mariyah as a gift to Muhammad in the year A.H. 7, or roughly two years after the composition of Sura 33. The Muslim authors quote one online source which places Mariyah’s arrival to Medina after the signing of the treaty of Hudaibiyah, also implying that she arrived roughly around the time of A.H. 7:

Maria al-Qibtiyya (may Allah be pleased with her) is said to have married the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) and certainly everyone gave her the same title of respect as the Prophet's wives, 'Umm al Muminin' 'Mother of the Believers'. Maria was born in upper Egypt of a Coptic father and Greek mother and moved to the court of the Muqawqis when she was still very young. She arrived in Medina to join the Prophet's household just after the Prophet returned from the treaty with Quraish which was contracted at al-Hudaybiyya. Maria gave birth to a healthy son in 9 AH, the same year that his daughter Zaynab died, and the Prophet named his new son Ibrahim, after the ancestor of both the Jews and the Christians, the Prophet from whom all the Prophets who came after him were descended. Unfortunately, when he was only eighteen months old, Ibrahim became seriously ill and died. Even though he knew that his small son would go to the Garden, the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) could not help shedding some tears. When some of his Companions asked him why he was weeping, he replied, "It is my humanness." (Muhammad’s Life: The Wives of the Prophet Muhammad, "MARIA al-Qibtiyya"; source)

Thus, if Muhammad did marry Mariyah he did so in clear violation of the Quranic command forbidding him from taking any more wives!

Maududi even emphatically denied that Mariyah was Muhammad’s wife:

(1) The woman who came into his possession from among the slave-girls granted by Allah. According to this the Holy Prophet selected for himself Hadrat Raihanah from among the prisoners of war taken at the raid against the Banu Quraizah. Hadrat Juwairiyyah from among the prisoners of war taken at the raid against the Bani al-Mustaliq, Hadrat Safiyyah out of the prisoners captured at Khaiber, and Hadrat Mariah the Copt who was presented by Maqauqis of Egypt. Out of these he set three of them free and married them, but had conjugal relations with Mariah on the ground of her being his slave-girl. In her case THERE IS NO PROOF that the Holy Prophet set her free and married her. (Maududi, The Meaning of the Qur’an, English rendered by the Late Ch. Muhammad Akbar, edited by A.A. Kamal, M.A. [Islamic Publications (Pvt.) Ltd., Lahore Pakistan, 4^th edition, August 2003], Volume IV, fn. 88, p. 124)

In light of the foregoing, it is time to return to the comments made by one of Sina’s detractors. Bahagia stated that:

Now, if Mariyah (RA) really was just a maid, THAT WOULD CERTAINLY BE A PROBLEM.

Since we have documented that Mariyah was indeed Muhammad’s maid, his slave or concubine, this means that we certainly do have a problem. Mr. Sina stands vindicated at least in regard to her status as a maid, even though he mistakenly assumed that she was Hafsah’s maid.

https://www.answering-islam.org/Shamoun/mary_concubine.htm

Lady Maria the Coptic

Under category : The Prophet's Wives

41378 2007/11/02 -0001/11/30

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Article translated to :

lady maria – may allah the almighty be pleased with her – came to al-madina after the event of al-hudaibiah treaty, in the seventh year after hijra. the explainers & scholars mentioned that her name was: maria d/o shamoun, the coptic. after making al-hudaibiah treaty between the prophet – peace be upon him – and the polytheists in makkah, the prophet – peace be upon him – started the propagation to the islamic religion, and sent several letters to the kings worldwide inviting them to embrace islam. the prophet – peace be upon him – has paid a great attention in this regard, and elected the most experienced and skilful persons of his companions and assigned them with the task of delivering the message of islam to the kings worldwide, such as hercules; king of rome, kisra; king of persia, al-moqawqas; king of egypt, and al-najashi (negus); king of habasha (abyssinia). those kings have received the letters of the prophet – peace be upon him – kindly and replied kindly except kisra – king of persia – who has torn the letter.

the prophet – peace be upon him – assigned hateb bin abi balta'ah, may allah be pleased with him, who was well-known of his wisdom, eloquence and fluency, to deliver his letter to al-moqawqas, ruler of alexandria and the general deputy of the byzantine empire in egypt. hateb took the letter of the prophet – peace be upon him – to egypt, and entered to al-moqawqas who welcomed him and heard his speech and replied saying: "we have our own religion and we will not convert to another religion if not better than ours"

al-moqawqas has admired the speech of hateb and said: "i thought in the affair of this prophet and found that he does not guide to bad things and does not prevent good things, he is neither magician nor soothsayer. i found the signs of prophethood in him such as telling the hidden things and the confidential talk, so i will think".

al-moqawqas has taken the letter of the prophet, stamped it, and wrote the following reply to the prophet – peace be upon him:

"in the name of allah; most gracious, the most merciful

to muhammad bin abdullah, from al-moqawqas; the king of the copts. firstly, peace be upon you. after complements,

i have read your letter, understood the meaning thereof, realized what you are propagating for, and knew that there is still a prophet to be sent, but i thought he will come from ash-sham region. i entertained your messenger and sent you two slave girls of a high dignity for the copts, clothes and a mule to ride it. peace be upon you".

the gift was two slave girls: mariah d/o shamoun, the coptic, and her sister sirin. in their way to madina, hateb, may allah be pleased with him, told them about islam and encouraged them to be muslims; therefore, they embraced islam under the blessings of allah the almighty.

in madina, the prophet – peace be upon him – elected maria to himself, and gave her sister sirin to his great poet; hassan bin thabit al ansari – may allah be pleased with him. maria – may allah be pleased with her – was beautiful with white skin, and her arrival made aisha – may allah be pleased with her – jealous, and made her all the time watching the signs of interest & care by the prophet – peace be upon him – toward her. aisha – may allah be pleased with her – said: "i was jealous of no woman except maria, she was beautiful, and the prophet – peace be upon him – admired her. he accommodated her firstly in the house of haritha bin al no’man – may allah be pleased with him – therefore, she was our neighbour, and the prophet – peace be upon him – was staying with her day and night until we prepared a room for her in the house of prophethood , but she was afraid; therefore, the prophet – peace be upon him – moved her to the upper room and was going there every time and then, but this was even more difficult for us".

maria giving birth to ibrahim

one year after her arrival to madina, maria – may allah be pleased with her- became pregnant. the prophet – peace be upon him – was very happy to hear that; because he was in the sixties of his age and lost all his sons & daughters except fatima al-zahra, may allah be pleased with her. maria – may allah be pleased with her – gave birth in the month of thul hijja of the eighth year after hijra, to a beautiful child looking like the prophet – peace be upon him- who named him ibrahim "following the example of his forefather prophet ibrahim- peace be upon him – and after this birth mariah became free from slavery.

ibrahim, the son of the prophet – peace be upon him – lived one year and few months under the care of the prophet – peace be upon him – but he got sick before completing the second year of his life, and the disease became more severe and caused his death while still eighteen months old. he died on tuesday, 10^th day of rabi al awal, ten years after hijra" and marria was very sad for the death of ibrahim.

the dignity of maria in the holy quran

maria – may allah be pleased with her – has a great dignity in the verses of the holy quran and the biography of the prophet, peace be upon him. allah the almighty has revealed the sura of at tahrim because of maria the coptic as mentioned by the scholars, jurists, narrators and explainers in their narrations and books. the prophet – peace be upon him – died while being pleased of maria – may allah be pleased with her – therefore, she was honored of being in the honorable house of prophethood, and was considered a member in that blessed house. maria – may allah be pleased with her – was keen to gain the pleasure of the prophet – peace be upon him – and was known of her piety, worship and devoutness.

her death

maria – may allah be pleased with her – lived five years in the era of the righteous caliphs and died in the month of moharram, sixteen years after hijrah. omar bin al khattab – may allah be pleased with him – invited all people to perform prayer on her, and a large number of the companions – the immigrants and the local companions in madina – gathered to witness the funeral of maria the coptic, may allah be pleased with her. omar bin al khattab – may allah be pleased with him – performed prayer with the companions on her in al baqie'

https://rasoulallah.net/en/articles/article/257/

The Kuwaiti Fiqh Encyclopedia reads:

"The jurists agreed that it is permissible for a man to marry a Muslim slave woman if he is not financially able to marry a free woman, and he fears to commit illegal sexual intercourse (i.e. Zina). Ibn Qudaamah

said: 'This is the view of most scholars and there is no difference of opinion between them.'"

Just as it is permissible for a Muslim man to own female slaves, it is also permissible for a Muslim woman to own male slaves; however, it is impermissible for her to have intercourse with her male slave according to the consensus of scholars. Verily, this is unlawful. Al-Mawsoo‘ah Al-Fiqhiyyah (Fiqh Encyclopedia) reads, “It is impermissible for a female slaveholder to take her male slave as a sexual partner, engage in intimacy with him or allow him sexual enjoyment of her person. It does not matter whether she is married or not. This is according to the scholarly consensus, as reported by Al-Qurtubi

.”

It is also prohibited for the female slaveholder to marry her male slave with a valid marriage contract. Ibn Qudaamah wrote: “It is forbidden for the male slave to marry his female owner. Ibn Al-Munthir said: ‘Muslim scholars unanimously agreed that the female slaveholder’s marriage to her male slave is invalid.’ Al-Athram reported from Abu Az-Zubayr, ‘I asked Jaabir about a male slave marrying his female owner and he said, ‘A woman was brought to ‘Umar ibn Al-Khattaab at Al-Jaabiyah, and she had married her male slave. ‘Umar admonished her harshly and was about to stone her to death; he said, ‘It is unlawful for you (to marry your owned slave).’” [Al-Mughni]

It is Haram for a Muslim to have sex with a woman who is not his wife nor one of his female slaves.
So, whoever maintains or manages affairs of a Muslim or non-Muslim woman, this does not entitle him to possess her even though she accepts, since the concept of Mulk al-Yameem means what your right hands possess, i.e. those captives and slaves possessed through one of the following channels:
1) Non-Muslim captives - males and females - due to Jihad.
2) A baby of female slave, whose father is not her master, whether his/her father was free or slave.
3) A slave possessed by purchasing, present or bequest.
Therefore, no one is permitted to take delight in woman on the plea of Mulk al-Yameen unless he possessed her through one of the above-mentioned ways.

https://www.islamweb.net/en/fatwa/85190/cohabiting-with-a-woman-outside-of-marriage

The slave owner has the right to be intimate with his female slave (who is a Muslim, Christian, or a Jew) because she is his “milk yameen” (that which his right hand possesses) but he cannot marry her. If he wishes to marry her, he has to set her free and then marry her like the Prophet, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, did with Safiyyah bint Huyayy

. He, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, set her free and then married her.

Al-Mawsoo‘ah Al-Fiqhiyyah (Fiqh Encyclopedia) reads: “The slave owner is not allowed to marry his slave woman. The author of Al-Hidaayah says: ‘This is because the marriage contract in Islam is established on a basis of partnership and exchange of matrimonial rights and obligations among the spouses and this is incompatible with ownership in case of a slave owner and his slave woman; so there will be no matrimonial rights and obligations in this case.’ Ibn Qudaamah said: ‘This is because the master-slave bond entails deeming it lawful for the slave owner to benefit from the service of his slave woman and to be intimate with her; it cannot be combined with a weaker contract, i.e. marriage…. Therefore, if the man was given the ownership of his wife as a slave (like if he married her as a slave woman, then he bought her from her master), their marriage contract is annulled.’ Ibn Qudaamah asserted that there is no disagreement among scholars concerning this.”

That said, you should know that there is no disagreement among the scholars regarding the following:

1) It is permissible for the Muslim man to marry a free woman from the People of the Book (Christian or Jew), as underlined by Ibn Qudaamah: “There is no disagreement among scholars regarding the permissibility of marrying the free women from the People of the Book.” [Al-Mughni]

2) There is no disagreement among scholars regarding the impermissibility of the Muslim man’s marriage to a disbelieving woman who is not Christian or Jewish. Al-Mawsoo‘ah Al-Fiqhiyyah reads: “It is impermissible for the Muslim man to marry a disbelieving woman who is not from the People of the Book; Allaah, The Exalted, says (what means): {And do not marry polytheistic women until they believe…} [Quran 2:221] This is according to the scholarly consensus. Ibn Qudaamah said: ‘There is no disagreement among scholars that it is impermissible for the Muslim to marry their women or eat their slaughtered animals.’”

As for having lawful intercourse with one’s idolatrous/pagan slave woman (i.e. a non-Muslim slave woman who is not from the People of the Book), jurists held different opinions about this. Most of them maintained that it is forbidden; however, some were of the view that it is allowable given the fact - which you mentioned - that the Companions had slaves from among the women of polytheistic Arabs. The scholars who held that it is forbidden say that this ruling was abrogated by the verse (that means): {And do not marry polytheistic women until they believe.}.

Since you are an Islamic knowledge seeker, as it seems from your question, and you are conducting research on the subject, we will briefly cite the statements of scholars from Ibn Qudaamah’s book Al-Mughni (summarized and restricted to the major points only):

He, may Allaah have mercy upon you, wrote,

As for the people whose free women are impermissible for Muslims to marry of Magians and all other disbelievers save Christians and Jews, it is also impermissible to have sexual intercourse with the slave-women who are from among such people according to the majority of the scholars…. Ibn ‘Abd Al-Barr said, “A group of renowned jurists around the (early) Islamic world (Fuqahaa' Al-Amsaar) and the majority of scholars maintained this opinion. The opposing opinion is held only by few scholars and it is not even regarded as disagreement. In fact, we do not know of any other scholar but Taawoos who maintained this opinion. Anyway, he supported his view with the following evidence:

1) The general meaning of the verse (that means): {And [also prohibited to you are all] married women except those your right hands possess.} [Quran 4:24]

2) Abu Sa‘eed Al-Khudri narrated that: “The Messenger of Allaah, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, sent a military expedition to Awtaas tribe on the day of the battle of Hunayn. They took female captives from them. Some of the Companions of the Messenger of Allaah, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, were reluctant to have intercourse with the female captives because of them having pagan husbands. So, Allaah, The Exalted, revealed the verse that reads (what means): {And [also prohibited to you are all] married women except those your right hands possess.} He said: They are lawful for them as soon as their waiting period is completed.”

3) Abu Sa‘eed Al Khudri narrated that the Prophet, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, said regarding the female captives taken at Awtaas: "There must be no intercourse with a pregnant woman until she gives birth to her child or with the one who is not pregnant until she has had one menstrual period.” [Abu Daawood] It is known that they were idol-worshippers; this is clear evidence indicating the permissibility of being intimate with them.

4) Most of the slave women owned by the Companions were from the polytheist Arabs and it is known that they were idol-worshippers; they did not hold that it was impermissible for them to be intimate with them. It has not been reported that the Prophet, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, deemed it unlawful and he, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, never forbade any of the Companions from being intimate with their polytheistic slave women.

5) Abu Bakr gave a slave woman to Salamah ibn Al-Akwa‘ from the captives. ‘Umar ibn Al-Khattaab and his son had slave women from the captives of Hawaazin, and so did some of the Companions. Al-Hanafiyyah, the mother of Muhammad ibn Al-Hanafiyyah, was from the captives of the Banu Haneefah tribe. Also, it has been reported that the Companions had Persian female captives as slave women although they were Magians. It has not been reported that the Companions abstained from being intimate with them. This is strong evidence for the permissibility of being intimate with one's polytheistic slave girl if it were not for the scholarly consensus on its impermissibility.

The Hadeeth narrated by Abu Sa‘eed was met with response from the following statements: It is probable that these women had embraced Islam. It was reported about Imaam Ahmad that he was asked by Muhammad ibn Al-Hakam the following question: “From the Hawaazin tribe; were they not polytheists?” He answered that he did not know whether they had embraced Islam or not. Ibn ‘Abd Al-Barr wrote: “It should be noted that the permissibility of having intercourse with one’s polytheist captive was abrogated by the verse (that means): {And do not marry polytheistic women until they Believe.} [Quran 2:221]” [End of quote from Al-Mughni]

Al-Qurtubi

wrote: “In classical Arabic, ‘nikaah’ refers to both the marriage contract and sexual intercourse. Since Allaah, The Exalted, uses the word ‘nikaah’ in the verse (that means): {And do not make nikaah with polytheistic women until they believe}, it is deemed unlawful for a Muslim man to marry a non-Muslim woman or to have intercourse with her by virtue of ownership.” [End of quote]

Allaah Knows best.

Islam Q&A

What is a right hand servant?

If Allaah enables the Muslim mujahideen to defeat kaafir enemies in war, then the men may be killed, ransomed, set free without ransom or enslaved. The choice between these four options is to be made by the ruler, according to what he thinks is the best course.

With regard to the women, they become slaves and “those whom one's right hand possesses” (described as a “right hand servant” in the question). Male children also become slaves. The ruler shares out these slaves among the mujaahideen.

Slavery in the Arabian Peninsula

The Arab slave trade is the intersection of slavery and trade surrounding the Arab world and Indian Ocean, mainly in Western and Central Asia, Northern and Eastern Africa, India, and Europe.

Trade was through slave markets, slaves captured mostly from Africa's interior, Southern and Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. From the 7th century until around the 1960s, the Arab slave trade continued in one form or another. Historical accounts and references to slave-owning nobility in Arabia, Yemen and elsewhere are frequent into the early 1920s.

The Arab slave trade, across the Sahara desert and across the Indian Ocean, began after Muslim Arab and Swahili traders won control of the Swahili Coast and sea routes during the 9th century and lasted more than a millennium. These traders captured Bantu peoples (Zanj) from the interior in present-day Kenya, Mozambique and Tanzania and brought them to the coast. There, the slaves gradually assimilated in the rural areas, particularly on the Unguja and Pemba islands. Author N'Diaye estimates that as many as 17 million people were sold into slavery on the coast of the Indian Ocean, the Middle East, and North Africa

The captives were sold throughout the Middle East. This trade accelerated as superior ships led to more trade and greater demand for labour on plantations in the region. Eventually, tens of thousands of captives were being taken every year.

Zanj Rebellion

The Zanj rebellion which occurred from 869 to 883 CE took place in Basra, modern-day Southern Iraq. The Zanj were forcibly captured from the coast of East Africa and brought to the area as slaves. The menial labor they were engaged in was difficult and the slaves appear to have been poorly treated by their masters.

Initially concentrated in the Basra area, the uprising soon spread to surrounding cities. In September 871, Basra was obliterated. The inhabitants were also killed.

Casualties are numbered between 100,000 and 2 million. Much of the current knowledge of the Zanj Rebellion comes from the historian al-Tabari's work History of the Prophets and Kings. It has been the subject of research by such famous Orientalists as Theodor Nöldeke (Sketches from Eastern History) and Louis Massignon (The Passion of al-Hallaj). Alexandre Popović has authored a more recent monograph on the subject.

During the Middle Ages, the main regions from where slaves were transported to Muslim lands were Central Europe asides from Central Asia and Bilad as-Sudan. Slaves of Northwestern Europe were also favoured. This slave trade was controlled mostly by Western slave traders. The slaves captured by Christians were sent to Muslim lands like Spain and Egypt through France and Venice. Prague served as a major centre for castration of Slavic captives.[24][25] Emirate of Bari also served as an important port for trade of such slaves.[26] After the Byzantine Empire and Venice blocked Arab merchants from European ports, they started importing in slaves from Caucasus and Caspian Sea.

Arabs were sometimes made into slaves in the Muslim world. Sometimes castration was done on Arab slaves. In Mecca, Arab women were sold as slaves according to Ibn Butlan, and certain rulers in West Africa had slave girls of Arab origin. According to al-Maqrizi, slave girls with lighter skin were sold to West Africans on hajj.

David Livinston recalls:

26th June. - ...We passed a slave woman shot or stabbed through the body and lying on the path: a group of mon stood about a hundred yards off on one side, and another of the women on the other side, looking on; they said an Arab who passed early that morning had done it in anger at losing the price he had given for her, because she was unable to walk any longer.

27th June 1866 - To-day we came upon a man dead from starvation, as he was very thin. One of our men wandered and found many slaves with slave-sticks on, abandoned by their masters from want of food; they were too weak to be able to speak or say where they had come from; some were quite young.

Zanzibar was once East Africa's main slave-trading port, and under Omani Arabs in the 19th century as many as 50,000 slaves were passing through the city each year.

Livingstone wrote in a letter to the editor of the New York Herald:

And if my disclosures regarding the terrible Ujijian slavery should lead to the suppression of the East Coast slave trade, I shall regard that as a greater matter by far than the discovery of all the Nile sources together.

Book examples:

Bernard K. Freamon, ‘Definitions and Conceptions of Slave Ownership in Islamic Law’

Peter B. Golden, ‘The Terminology of Slavery and Servitude in Medieval Turkic’

Joseph C. Miller, ‘Muslim Slavery and Slaving. A Bibliography’

Craig Perry, ‘Historicizing Slavery in the Medieval Islamic World’

David Ayalon, ‘Eunuchs, Caliphs and Sultans. A Study in Power Relationships’

Chase F. Robinson, ‘Slavery in the Conquest Period’

Hend Gilli-Elewy, ‘On the Provenance of Slaves in Mecca during the Time of the Prophet Muhammad’

Hend Gilli-Elewy, ‘Soziale Aspekte frühislamischer Sklaverei’

Noel Lenski, ‘Captivity and Slavery among the Saracens in Late Antiquity (ca. 250-630 CE)’

Kecia Ali, ‘Marriage and Slavery in Early Islam’

Irene Schneider, ‘Freedom and Slavery in Early Islamic Times’

Jonathan E. Brockopp, ‘Slavery in Islamic Law. An Examination of Early Mālikī Jurisprudence’

Ulrike Mitter, ‘Unconditional Manumission of Slaves in Early Islamic Law. A Ḥadīth Analysis’

Al-Ṭabarī, The History of al-Tabari, vol. 36, ‘The Revolt of the Zanj A.D. 869-879’

Reuven Amitai, ‘Military Slavery in the Islamic World’

Julia Bray, ‘Men, Women and Slaves in Abbasid Society’

Fuad Matthew Caswell, ‘The Slave Girls of Baghdad. The Qiyān in the Early Abbasid Era’

Matthew Gordon, ‘Unhappy Offspring? Concubines and Their Sons in Early Abbasid Society’

Cristina de la Puente, ‘What Does milk al-yamīn’ mean at the Beginning of the 21st Century?’

Amikam Elad, ‘An Epitaph of the Slave Girl’

Ibn al-Sāʿī, ‘Consorts of the Caliphs. Women and the Court of Baghdad’

Shaun E. Marmon, ‘Domestic Slavery in the Mamluk Empire. A Preliminary Sketch’

Kristina Richardson, ‘Singing Slave Girls (qiyan) of the ‘Abbasid Court in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries’

Matthew S. Gordon and Kathryn A. Hain, ‘Concubines and Courtesans. Women and Slavery in Islamic History’

Olivia Remie Constable, ‘Muslim Spain and Mediterranean Slavery’

Carol Graham, ‘The Meaning of Slavery and Identity in al-Andalus’

Marek Jankowiak, ‘What Does the Slave Trade in the Saqaliba Tell Us about Early Islamic Slavery’

Cristina de la Puente, ‘Slaves in al-Andalus through Māliki wathāʾiq Works’

Robert C. Davis, ‘Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters. White Slavery in the Mediterranean’

I think I have shown conclusively that Islam supports the concept of slavery and regulates the treatment of slaves. This was an improvement on previous habits and customary mistreatment of slaves. People like Livingstone as mentioned above described the horrendous treatment of women at the hands of brutal Arabs. The Koran then taught the followers not to do this, but only decades later.

Muslims today are embarrassed at the contents of the Koran and the Sunnah and are desperately trying to make it sound better because they are not allowed to update the Koran. So they have to lie and deceive others, to make slavery sound less harsh, instead of taking responsibility for their text, owning up and then condemning the practice outright.

What I find so incredibly dishonest is the approach of picking a few select instances and then pretending a solitary sentence applauding the release of slaves represents the whole of Islam and announcing that Islam actually abolished slavery. Where in reality, it is still practised today, even though a country such as Mauretania finally criminalised slavery in 2007. But Amnesty International estimates that 43,000 people still live in slavery in Mauritania, even though the government denies this.

Islam Q&A says:

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- Principles of Fiqh » Jurisprudence and Islamic Rulings » Transactions » Slavery.

10382: Ruling on having intercourse with a slave woman when one has a wife

Could you please clarify for me something that has been troubling me for a while. This concerns the right of a man to have sexual relations with slave girls. Is this so? If it is then is the man allowed to have relations with her as well his wife/wives. Also, is it true that a man can have sexual relations with any number of slave girls and with their own wife/wives also? I have read that Hazrat Ali had 17 slave girls and Hazrat Umar also had many. Surely if a man were allowed this freedom then this could lead to neglecting the wife's needs. Could you also tell clarify wether the wife has got any say in this matter.

Praise be to Allaah.

Islam allows a man to have intercourse with his slave woman, whether he has a wife or wives or he is not married.

A slave woman with whom a man has intercourse is known as a sariyyah (concubine) from the word sirr, which means marriage.

This is indicated by the Qur’aan and Sunnah, and this was done by the Prophets. Ibraaheem (peace be upon him) took Haajar as a concubine and she bore him Ismaa’eel (may peace be upon them all).

Our Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) also did that, as did the Sahaabah, the righteous and the scholars. The scholars are unanimously agreed on that and it is not permissible for anyone to regard it as haraam or to forbid it. Whoever regards that as haraam is a sinner who is going against the consensus of the scholars.

Allaah says (interpretation of the meaning):

“And if you fear that you shall not be able to deal justly with the orphan girls then marry (other) women of your choice, two or three, or four; but if you fear that you shall not be able to deal justly (with them), then only one or (slaves) that your right hands possess. That is nearer to prevent you from doing injustice”

[al-Nisa’ 4:3]

What is meant by “or (slaves) that your right hands possess” is slave women whom you own.

And Allaah says (interpretation of the meaning):

“O Prophet (Muhammad)! Verily, We have made lawful to you your wives, to whom you have paid their Mahr (bridal‑money given by the husband to his wife at the time of marriage), and those (slaves) whom your right hand possesses — whom Allaah has given to you, and the daughters of your ‘Amm (paternal uncles) and the daughters of your ‘Ammaat (paternal aunts) and the daughters of your Khaal (maternal uncles) and the daughters of your Khaalaat (maternal aunts) who migrated (from Makkah) with you, and a believing woman if she offers

herself to the Prophet, and the Prophet wishes to marry her a privilege for you only, not for the (rest of) the believers. Indeed We know what We have enjoined upon them about their wives and those (slaves) whom their right hands possess, in order that there should be no difficulty on you. And Allaah is Ever Oft‑Forgiving, Most Merciful”

[al-Ahzaab 33:50]

“And those who guard their chastity (i.e. private parts from illegal sexual acts).

Except from their wives or the (women slaves) whom their right hands possess for (then) they are not blameworthy.

But whosoever seeks beyond that, then it is those who are trespassers”
[al-Ma’aarij 70:29-31]

Al-Tabari said:

Allaah says, “And those who guard their chastity” i.e., protect their private parts from doing everything that Allaah has forbidden, but they are not to blame if they do not guard their chastity from their wives or from the female slaves whom their rights hands possess.

Tafseer al-Tabari, 29/84

Ibn Katheer said:

Taking a concubine as well as a wife is permissible according to the law of Ibraaheem (peace be upon him). Ibraaheem did that with Haajar, when he took her as a concubine when he was married to Saarah.

Tafseer Ibn Katheer, 1/383

And Ibn Katheer also said:

The phrase “and those (slaves) whom your right hand possesses — whom Allaah has given to you” [al-Ahzaab 33:50] means, it is permissible for you take concubines from among those whom you seized as war booty. He took possession of Safiyyah and Juwayriyah and he freed them and married them; he took possession of Rayhaanah bint Sham’oon al-Nadariyyah and Maariyah al-Qibtiyyah, the mother of his son Ibraaheem (peace be upon them both), and they were among his concubines, may Allaah be pleased with them both.

Tafseer Ibn Katheer, 3/500

The scholars are unanimously agreed that it is permissible.

Ibn Qudaamah said:

There is no dispute (among the scholars) that it is permissible to take concubines and to have intercourse with one's slave woman, because Allaah says (interpretation of the meaning):

“And those who guard their chastity (i.e. private parts from illegal sexual acts).

Except from their wives or the (women slaves) whom their right hands possess for (then) they are not blameworthy.”

[al-Ma’aarij 70:29-30]

Maariyah al-Qibtiyyah was the umm walad (a slave woman who bore her master a child) of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him), and she was the mother of Ibraaheem, the son of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him), of whom he said, “Her son set her free.” Haajar, the mother of Isma’eel (peace be upon him), was the concubine of Ibraaheem the close friend (khaleel) of the Most Merciful (peace be upon him). ‘Umar ibn al-Khattaab (may Allaah be pleased with him) had a number of slave women who bore him children, to each of whom he left four hundred in his will. ‘Ali (may Allaah be pleased with him) had slave women who bore him children, as did many of the Sahaabah. ‘Ali ibn al-Husayn, al-Qaasim ibn Muhammad and Saalim ibn ‘Abd-Allaah were all born from slave mothers

Al-Mughni, 10/441

Al-Shaafa’i (may Allaah have mercy on him) said:

Allaah says (interpretation of the meaning):

“And those who guard their chastity (i.e. private parts from illegal sexual acts). Except from their wives or the (women slaves) whom their right hands possess for (then) they are not blameworthy.”

[al-Ma’aarij 70:29-30]

The Book of Allaah indicates that the sexual relationships that are permitted are only of two types, either marriage or those (women slaves) whom one’s right hand possesses.

Al-Umm, 5/43.

The wife has no right to object to her husband owning female slaves or to his having intercourse with them.

And Allaah knows best.

The Shias take a similar view on 'Aalim Network QR Slavery in Islam:

QUESTIONS:

I would like to know why in the qur'an or hadith, slavery is not banned. One possible argument, that the times were not appropriate, is not valid to me because alcohol was forbidden in "one shot."

Also, what I have great difficulty understanding is why a slave master has sexual rights on his slave girls. What about the basic human rights of the slave girl?

Please answer with references.

ANSWERS:

In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the All-Merciful

Greeting of Allah be upon Muhammad and the pure members of his House

The following questions were kindly answered by Dr. Takim.

Salamun `Alaykum

Slavery cannot be compared with alcohol because the former has wider socio-economic repurcussions.

If the Qur'an had abolished slavery overnight, it would have created a large number of unemployed people in the nascent Muslim society, with no one to take care of their plight. With the number of unemployed people, the crime rate would possibly have increased. It is to be remembered that Medina had also had an influx of Muhajirun (emigrants) many of whom had to be rehabilitated in the Muslim community. Other Muslims later returned from Abyssinia and many others had converted. So what the Qur'an aimed at was a gradual emancipation of slaves. That is why when you look at the Kitab al-Kaffarah in our fiqh books, when a person has to offer an expiation for deliberately missing a fast or breaking an oath, he has to initially free a slave. Moreover, freeing a slave was deemed to be a meritorious deed.

By this measure, it can be seen the Qur'an was working towards the emancipation of slaves. In the meantime, Islam had set measures for the better treatment of slaves. A master was no longer allowed to mistreat his slaves. Therefore the Qur'anic verses on slavery can be construed as REGULATING rather than ENCOURAGING slavery.

Moreover, Islam also introduced the concept of mukataba in slavery whereby a slave can negotiate his freedom with his master. Through such negotiations, a slave could buy his freedom. Furthermore, a child born to a slave girl after conjugal relationship with her master was considered to be free from bondage.

As for the human rights of the slave girls, it is to be remembered that Islam did not endorse the haphazard taking of slaves. Only those taken in wars which they had fought against Muslims were allowed to be enslaved. The slave girls were to be treated like other wives as seen in verses like 4:24-5.

Iltimase du'a

Liyakatali

Now, here is a bit detailed explanation on this topic.

The Term “Ma Malakat Aymanukum” refers to Female captives of war. These women are those who themselves participated in war and fought on the battlefield physically and/or provided logistic and material support against the Muslims.
Earlier, when the Muslims became victorious in Jihad, they did not always take the defeated enemy as Captives, there were times when they were set free. Or they were held to be exchanged in return for release of Muslim prisoners held captive by enemy. And lastly, it was only sometimes that they kept the captives as Slaves. This decision on whether to retain or free the captives rests with the Caliph and he does so keeping in mind the safety and security of the people under his Caliphate and the prevalent circumstances which a Caliph knows best. (It is highly possible that if all captives are set free then they could re-group and wage a war again, the Caliph of the time is better able to assess and make a judgement on how best to deal with the captives )
If the Caliph decides to retain the captured enemy as captives, then it is the Caliphs’s responsibility to ensure the captives don’t spend their time in cage like jails and under detention suffering abuse (Physical, Mental and Sexual). In Islam a more humane method is adopted for these prisoners of war where the Caliph himself assigns each one to a Muslim who will be their sole Guardian and responsible for taking care of them going forward.
Once the Caliph assigns a captive to a person, the assigned person becomes their sole Guardian. The new guardian has the option to either retain them under their guardianship or set them free.
The Captives can always ask their guardians to set them free. And if the Guardian promises and signs a contract of manumission, then the guardian is obliged to fulfill it.
A guardian can marry a female captive off to someone else and it is not always compulsory for him to keep her under his guardianship. If the guardian intends to Marry her off, then he should not get intimate with her.
The captives live and eat with their guardians in their houses. The guardian has to ensure they are not treated badly, and everything from their food to clothing and all other necessities are taken care of. The captives eat the same food and wear the same clothes like their guardians. If the Guardian and his household eats fine food and wears fine clothes, equally fine food and clothes need to arranged for the Captive.
It is prohibited for the Guardian to call the captives as “My Slave”, rather they are to be addressed affectionately as “My Boy”! or “My Girl”!
It is prohibited to treat them harshly, verbally abuse them or beat them. A guardian has to set the captive free if they beat or even slap them. Setting them free is an expiation for the sin of beating/slapping them.
A guardian is commanded to help them if he sees they are struggling with something. It is prohibited to overburden them with any work or to ask something which is beyond their capacity. Any household work is divided equally.
A Captive lives like just another member of a family, eating, talking, learning, helping and living just like all the other members of the household.
It’s natural for a Man to get inclined towards a woman Captive under his custody and vice versa. He could either marry her or he could still be intimate with her as there is no Sin if one gets intimate with the female captives. As discussed above, the Man is completely responsible for the captive’s welfare, food, clothing, shelter etc. It’s very likely that such love and affection shown by the man will be appreciated and reciprocated by the female captive under his custody. It is not possible for a guardian to force himself upon her because of the points we have discussed here regarding fair treatment of captives.
If a Man gets intimate with his female captive, then it is compulsory for him to announce and let everyone know and not keep it a secret. Just like how a marriage is announced.
It is not permitted to allow any other man to get close or intimate with a female captive under ones guardianship. The guardian is responsible and accountable for her safety and security.
A Man is forbidden from getting intimate with a female captive other than the one who is directly under his guardianship. He cannot get intimate with a captive woman under the guardianship of his wife or any other member of his family. This is the proof that the captives are to be treated fairly and they are not considered and utilized as “Sex’Slaves” who can be transferred from one person to another at will for purpose of Sex or any other reason.
If a Man intends to get intimate with his female captive, then he has to wait for a certain period of time to ensure she is not Pregnant. He is forbidden to get intimate with her until that time.
If the Female captive is pregnant, then the man cannot get intimate with her until after she has delivered. He still has to take care of her food, clothing, shelter and other essential expenses. The Guardian will also be responsible for the child after birth even though he is not the father.
From theological perspective there is a double reward for a man who sets a captive under his guardianship free and marries her thereafter. Therefore Islam encourages marriage with them.
Lastly, there are various virtues and rewards in Islam for setting a captive free. The Prophet SAS has said - “Feed the hungry, Visit the sick and set the Captives free” - Sahih Bukhari 5058 .

And Allah(SWT) Knows best!

4:59 obey God and the Prophet

5:92 Obey God and the Prophet

24:54 Obey God and obey the Apostle

The prophet said enjoy raping female captives

6:114 Shall I seek other than God as a judge when He has sent down to you this Book fully detailed?

And has there come to you the Hadeeth of Musa? [20:9]

Has the Hadeeth reached you, of the honoured guests of Ibrahim? [51:24]

Has the Hadeeth reached you of the hosts, [85:17]

Has there come to you the Hadeeth of the overwhelming (i.e. the Day of Resurrection)? [88:1]

...Thus did We establish Yusuf in the land, that We might teach him the interpretation of Hadeeth... [12:21]

And when you see those who engage in a false conversation about Our Verses by mocking at them, stay away from them till they turn to another Hadeeth... [6:68]

Professor Bernard Lewis, historian, died 2018, translated ancient Arabic, one of the world’s foremost scholars of Islam and the Middle East

Helped for 60 years interpret the world of Islam to the West. In addition to authoring more than two dozen books, including What Went Wrong and The Crisis of Islam, Professor Lewis has advised government officials and policymakers in the United States, the United Kingdom and the Middle East on the intricacies of the relationships between Islam and the West.

In his 1990 book, Race and Slavery in the Middle East, this great historian points out the sensitivity of the topic, given that Muslims react strongly when confronted with the topic. He repeats a the story of a Moroccan Sultan, who, in 1842, less than 200 years ago, expressed surprise when asked what he was doing against slavery. He also completely demolishes the myth of lacking racism in Islam, at least in what was practised by Muslims over time.

Lewis proposes that Islam merely continued what Jews, Christians and Pagan Arabs had done for decades and centuries: keep human slaves without any evidence that would indicate an intended change. Islam in its texts merely regulates the keeping of slaves for those who could afford it. The Islamic jurisprudence, or fiqh, elaborated and eventually introduced a ban on the enslavement of fellow Muslims, something that Rome had not yet managed. He points out that linguistically, the word ‘abd is rarely used and is commonly replaced by ma malakat aymanukum, that which your right hand owns.

The book then repeats several stories as told by the Sunnah and then goes into individual rulings on keeping slaves. The most telling part in the book is where different accounts are presented, all regarding the trading of slaves.

A highlight in the negative sense is a paper reading “Instructions Concerning the Trade in Slaves” from 1936, drafted in KSA. It actually decrees that no person may be imported into KSA as a slave and I quote “unless the slavedealer has a government document attesting that the person imported was recognised as a slave in the country from which he was imported”.

He provides page upon page of references and sources, where there are dozens, if not 100s of accounts by historians all mentioning the Muslim slavery in Africa.

https://www.amazon.com/Race-Slavery-Middle-East-Historical/dp/0195053265

From Baltimore to Barbary: the 1631 sack of Baltimore

Published in Early Modern History (1500–1700), Features, Issue 4 (Jul/Aug 2006), Volume 14

This publication provides details of raids all the way up the Irish coast, where Muslim corsairs ambushed entire settlements, to capture women and children.

https://www.historyireland.com/early-modern-history-1500-1700/from-baltimore-to-barbary-the-1631-sack-of-baltimore/

“Christian slaves, Muslim masters” 2003, Robert Davis, History Professor University of Ohio

North African pirates abducted and enslaved more than 1 million Europeans between 1530 and 1780 in a series of raids that depopulated coastal towns from Sicily to Cornwall, according to new research.

Thousands of white Christians were seized every year to work as galley slaves, labourers and concubines for Muslim overlords in what is today Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria and Libya, it is claimed.

Scholars have long known of the slave raids on Europe. But US historian Robert Davis has calculated that the total number captured - although small compared with the 12 million Africans shipped to the Americas in later years - was far higher than previously recognised.

According to one estimate, 7,000 English people were abducted between 1622-1644, many of them ships' crews and passengers. But the corsairs also landed on unguarded beaches, often at night, to snatch the unwary.

https://www.theguardian.com/guardianweekly/story/0,12674,1171347,00.html

Not content with attacking ships and sailors, the corsairs also sometimes raided coastal settlements, generally running their craft onto unguarded beaches, and creeping up on villages in the dark to snatch their victims and retreat before the alarm could be sounded. Almost all the inhabitants of the village of Baltimore, in Ireland, were taken in this way in 1631, and other attacks were launched against coastal villages in Devon and Cornwall. Samuel Pepys gives a vivid account of an encounter with two men who'd been taken into slavery, in his diary of 8 February 1661.

'...to the Fleece tavern to drink and there we spent till 4 a-clock telling stories of Algier and the manner of the life of Slaves there; and truly, Captain Mootham and Mr Dawes (who have been both slaves there) did make me full acquainted with their condition there. As, how they eat nothing but bread and water.... How they are beat upon the soles of the feet and bellies at the Liberty of their Padron. How they are all night called into their master's Bagnard, and there they lie.'

During the winter these galeotti worked on state projects - quarrying stone, building walls or harbour facilities, felling timber and constructing new galleys. Each day they would be given perhaps two or three loaves of black bread - 'that the dogs themselves wouldn't eat' - and limited water; they received one change of clothing every year. Those who collapsed on the job from exhaustion or malnutrition were typically beaten until they got up and went back to work. The pasha also bought most female captives, some of whom were taken into his harem, where they lived out their days in captivity. The majority, however, were purchased for their ransom value; while awaiting their release, they worked in the palace as harem attendants.

Many other slaves belonged to 'private parties.' Their treatment and work varied as much as their masters did. Some were well cared for, becoming virtual companions of their owners. Others were worked as hard as any 'public' slave, in agricultural labour, or construction work, or selling water or other goods around town on his (or her) owner's behalf. They were expected to pay a proportion of their earnings to their owner - those who failed to raise the required amount typically being beaten to encourage them to work harder.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/empire_seapower/white_slaves_01.shtml

Lewis: distinguish real Islam from Islamofascism, but I prefer to use the term radical Islam.

AFRICAN HISTORY

East Africa's forgotten slave trade

The sale of African slaves can be traced back to antiquity. It became popular in the seventh century when Islam was gaining strength in North Africa. This was seven centuries before Europeans explored the continent and ten centuries before West Africans were sold across the Atlantic to America.

Back then, Arab Muslims in North and East Africa sold captured Africans to the Middle East. There, they worked as field workers, teachers or harem guards, which is why the castration of male slaves was common practice. Muslims, on the other hand, including African Muslims, were not allowed to be enslaved, according to Islamic legal views.

Senegalese author Tidiane N'Diaye estimates that 17 million East Africans were sold into slavery: "Most people still have the so-called Transatlantic [slave] trade by Europeans into the New World in mind. But in reality the Arab-Muslim slavery was much greater. Eight million Africans were brought from East Africa via the Trans-Saharan route to Morocco or Egypt. A further nine million were deported to regions on the Red Sea or the Indian Ocean."

It was not until 1873 that Sultan Seyyid Barghash of Zanzibar, under pressure from Great Britain, signed a treaty that made the slave trade in his territories illegal. That decree was not enforced effectively either. It was not until 1909 that slavery was finally abolished in East Africa.

"Most of the African authors have not yet published a book on the Arab-Muslim slave trade out of religious solidarity. There are 500 million Muslims in Africa, and it is better to blame the West than talk about the past crimes of Arab Muslims."

https://www.dw.com/en/east-africas-forgotten-slave-trade/a-50126759

Encyclopaedia Britannica - Slavery

Slaves were owned in all Islamic societies, both sedentary and nomadic, ranging from Arabia in the centre to North Africa in the west and to what is now Pakistan and Indonesia in the east. Some Islamic states, such as the Ottoman Empire, the Crimean Khanate, and the Sokoto caliphate [Nigeria], must be termed slave societies because slaves there were very important numerically as well as a focus of the polities' energies.

Muslim slavery continued for centuries

The legality of slavery in Islam, together with the example of the Prophet Muhammad, who himself bought, sold, captured, and owned slaves, may explain why slavery persisted until the 19th century in many places (and later still in some countries). The impetus for the abolition of slavery came largely from colonial powers, although some Muslim thinkers argued strongly for abolition.

Slaves came from many places

Unlike the Atlantic slave traders, Muslims enslaved people from many cultures as well as Africa. Other sources included the Balkans, Central Asia and Mediterranean Europe.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/islam/history/slavery_1.shtml

British writer Duncan Clarke, Slaves and Slavery, published in 1998, defines slavery as “the reduction of fellow human beings to the legal status of chattels, allowing them to be bought and sold as goods”.

“Africa became a source of slaves for the cultures of the Mediterranean world many centuries before the discovery of the Americas, but it was that discovery and the resulting shift in focus towards the Atlantic that prompted the culminating explosive growth in slavery with such tragic effect.”

Thus, “for the Islamic world,” Clarke continues, “Slavs provided the major source of slaves in the 250 or so years between the defeat at the battle of Poitiers in AD 732 that forced the consolidation of their dramatic conquests across North Africa and the Iberian peninsula, cutting back the flow of war captives, and the expansion of the im port of black Africans across the Sahara from around AD 1000.”

Figures on the Arab slave trade in Africa are hard to come by, but the historian Paul Lovejoy estimates that some 9.85 million Africans were shipped out as slaves to Arabia and, in small numbers, to the Indian subcontinent. According to Lovejoy, another 4.1 million Africans were shipped across the Red Sea to the Persian Gulf and India.

Arab slavers continued to enslave Africans well into the first decades of the 20th century. Even to this day, Arab slavers are still at work in Sudan and Mauritania, buying and selling black Africans.

David Livingstone, the British missionary/traveller/explorer was so upset by the way the Arabs treated their African slaves that he wrote back home in 1870:

“In less than I take to talk about it, these unfortunate creatures — 84 of them, wended their way into the village where we were. Some of them, the eldest, were women from 20 to 22 years of age, and there were youths from 18 to 19, but the large majority was made up of boys and girls from 7 years to 14 or 15 years of age.

In the Arabian trade, the trudge across the Sahara, in leg and neck chains, and as Livingstone describes above, necks in large forked sticks and hands tied with bark thongs, was particularly harsh on the African slaves.

Says Duncan Clarke: “The hardships of these long marches across the desert were considerable, and much later travellers reported that the routes were lined with the parched skeletons of those who succumbed to exhaustion and thirst along the way.”

Yet the real face of servitude finds its focus in the forced migration of millions of girls and young women across the Sahara and the Horn of Africa in to the institutions of Islamic concubinage. Islamic Orient wealth was a reflection of prestige, young girls the vessel of male hubris , the mats of male pleasure ground, the malleable material to be shaped to the master’s will. Thus, women slaves in the Arab world were often turned into concubines living in harems, and rarely as wives, their children becoming free.

In this sense, the feminine-oriented Arab slave trade, though neither motivated nor executed with economic benefits as prime objective, caused far greater demographic damage and consequently greater economic decline, with its excessive poaching of the reproductive potential of the harvested areas.

In the Atlantic trade, the slaves came predominantly from Africa’s west coast with a male/female ratio of two-to-one. In the Arabian trade, the slaves were exclusively from the Savannah and the Horn of Africa, and favoured females over males at a ratio nearing three-to-one.

“The laws of Islam ,” as the historian Hugh Thomas attests, “were in some ways more benign in respect of slavery than were those of Rome. Slaves were not to be treated as if they were animals. Slaves and freemen were equal from the point of view of God. The master did not have power of life and death over his slave property.”

But to the Africans shipped across the Red Sea, the “benign” Islamic laws provided little comfort — they were still slaves of Islamic masters who had unfettered sexual access to them (if they were female) or castrated and turned into eunuchs (if they were men).

https://newafricanmagazine.com/16616/

The Arab-Muslim Slave Trade: Lifting the Taboo, September, 2018

A significant number of studies have been devoted to the transatlantic slave trade. But paradoxically, the issue of the Eastern and trans-Saharan slave trade organized by the Arabs remains unknown; it even seems deliberately ignored and considered a taboo subject. Yet the Arab slave trade, a major component of African history, lasted more than 13 centuries. It began in the early seventh century and continued in one form or another until the 1960s. In Mauritania slavery was officially outlawed only in August 2007.

Slaves captured during bloody expeditions were then transported by sea from enclaves situated on the eastern coast of the continent, between present-day Somalia and Mozambique, to the shores of the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. Zanzibar would serve for centuries as a hub for this traffic.

German explorer Gustav Nachtigal in Sahara et Soudan, vol. 1 (Hachette Livre, 1974):

The poor children of the black countries seem to meet death here, at the last stage of a long, hopeless and painful journey. The long journey accomplished with insufficient food and scarce water, the contrast between the rich natural resources and the humid atmosphere of their homeland and the dry and anemic air of the desert, the fatigue and the privations imposed by their masters and by the circumstances in which they find themselves, all this has gradually ruined their young strengths. The memory of their homeland that has disappeared along the way, their fear of an unknown future, the endless journey under the blows, hunger, thirst and deadly exhaustion have paralyzed their last faculties of resistance. If the poor creatures lack strength to get up and walk again, they are simply abandoned, and their minds slowly fade under the destructive effect of the rays of the sun, hunger and thirst.

The Arab slave trade was characterized by appalling violence, castration, and rape. The men were systematically castrated to prevent them from reproducing and becoming a stock. This inhumane practice resulted in a high death rate: six out of 10 people who were mutilated died from their wounds in castration centers. The Arab slave trade also targeted African women and girls, who were captured and deported for use as sex slaves.

According to the work of some historians, the Arab slave trade has affected more than 17 million people. In the Saharan region alone, more than nine million African captives were deported and two million died on the roads.

This despicable phenomenon was legitimized by Islam, as Christianity would later condone the transatlantic slave trade. For example, the Tunisian Arab historian Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406) wrote that “the only peoples to accept slavery are the Negroes, because of their lower degree of humanity, their place being closer to the animal stage.”2

The Algerian Arab theologian Ahmed al-Wancharisi (1430/1431-1508) offered legal and religious recommendations:

I have been asked about slaves from the land of Abyssinia who profess monotheism and accept the rules of the Holy Law: is it legal or not to buy and sell them?… If their conversion to Islam comes after the establishment of a property right [on these slaves], then Islam does not demand liberation, because slavery was caused by unbelief. The state of servitude persists after the disappearance of unbelief because of its existence in the past.3

When they arrived at destinations, the captives were sold in the slave markets of Cairo, Baghdad, Istanbul, Mecca, and other centers. These slaves played various roles in the economy of the Muslim world. They were used as servants, harem keepers, laborers in fields, mines, and hydraulic yards, and as cannon fodder in armies.

Welsh explorer Henry Morton Stanley (1841-1904) was a horrified witness of this traffic. He wrote that after the depredations of the Arab traffickers, “the black blood flows toward the north, the equator smells corpses.”4

The Arab slave trade also promoted the development of racialist and essentialist theories that view blacks as inferior by nature. In many Arab countries this racism still exists; for example, the same words are used to describe Africans, blacks, and slaves.

https://jcpa.org/article/the-arab-muslim-slave-trade-lifting-the-taboo/

Law and Slavery

Sally Hadden

LAST REVIEWED: 08 June 2017

LAST MODIFIED: 24 July 2013

DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199730414-0153

Introduction

Enslavement has existed in world history dating back to the earliest records we have, and its lengthy existence has generated a considerable variety of laws. Its use rested upon various forms of domination (e.g., economic, military, cultural) and was routinely justified by reference to higher authority, such as religion or law. While voluntary enslavement was not unheard of—and could result in financial, social, or religious advancement for the slave—in most cases, slavery was detrimental and involuntary. Whether voluntary or involuntary, a commonly accepted definition of slavery is that the slave experienced “social death” vis-à-vis all other individuals in the society. This included significant, if not complete, legal incapacity; often, a slave was accorded no legal rights or legal protections as a result of his or her diminished legal status. The degree to which a slave was legally protected depended upon a particular culture’s justice system, which varied widely across the Atlantic world. Variations existed in part because of the different legal traditions out of which slave law evolved. European nations that based their own legal systems upon the Roman law (often referred to as civil or civilian legal systems) each had their own cultural variants and emphases, such that France and Spain—both followers of civil law—did not have identical provisions in their laws regarding slaves. England, which followed a legal tradition known as common law, largely left the creation of slave law to each of its colonies, so colonies developed separate slave laws (although some, like Barbados, heavily influenced the development of those colonies in proximity to it). In Puritan New England, the recorded practice of slavery in the Bible influenced local lawmakers, just as Muslim and tribal ideas about slavery affected how Africans expected slavery to be. This variety and geographic range also inclines scholarship to cluster behind language barriers, rather than work comparatively across them. Old World laws experienced important New World modifications. Large numbers of slaves, often working in remote locations far from any oversight except their owners, might have had only fleeting legal protections: masters did not always know the law, and might not have always respected its contents. Poor circulation of legal texts, inadequate printing of colonial laws, and illiteracy could also impair the uniform application of law throughout a slave colony. This gap between the theoretical and applied nature of slave law meant that every law on the books was not applied with equal force to all slaves.

General Overviews

The technical language of law, combined with the multiple languages (Spanish, Portuguese, French, Dutch, Arabic) in which slave law appeared, has prevented many general works from being published covering the entirety of law and slavery in the Atlantic world. Two essays provide strong starting points for all research: Hadden 2008 and Peabody 2011 offer synthetic overviews about slave law in the New World context, paying attention to preliterate as well as literate cultures and providing lengthy bibliographic references to important works. Falola and Lovejoy 1994 describes the use of slave pawnship and debt bondage in multiple African contexts. Hunwick and Powell 2002 intersperses translations of primary Islamic texts on slavery with commentary and interpretive aids designed to help the beginning reader. Diakho 2004 reviews both Islamic theology as well as the development through time of Muslim slave law. Watson 1989 offers strong support for the continuity of Roman law in all slave law of the Americas. Adopting a broad canvas, Janis 2010 explores the links between the field of international law and abolitionism through the 19th century, as does Martinez 2012, who emphasizes the cooperation that existed between nations.

· Diakho, Abu Ilyass Muhammad. L’esclavage en Islam: Entre les traditions arabes et les principes de l’Islam. Beirut, Lebanon: Albouraq, 2004.

E-mail Citation »

Reviews the multiple sources of slave law in Islam, describes the various Islamic schools of jurisprudence, and interweaves the effects of local custom upon that law. Discusses not only the Qur’ān but also the Sunnas as they relate to slavery. In French.

· Falola, Toyin, and Paul E. Lovejoy, eds. Pawnship in Africa: Debt Bondage in Historical Perspective. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1994.

E-mail Citation »

Explains the basics of pawnship as a legal act in an introductory essay by Falola and Lovejoy. Essays on multiple African settings by leading historians such as Robin Law, Gareth Austin, and Beverly Grier. Covers both pre- and postcolonial Africa, including the Slave Coast, the Bight of Benin, and Ghana.

· Hadden, Sally. “The Fragmented Laws of Slavery in the Colonial and Revolutionary Eras.” In The Cambridge History of Law in America. Vol. 1, Early America (1580–1815). Edited by Michael Grossberg and Christopher Tomlins, 253–287, 646–657. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008.

E-mail Citation »

Highlights English and Spanish North American context, with attention to European legal background. Contrasts variety of English colonial slave law, downplays importance of legal codes, and discusses the impact of the American Revolution upon the law of slavery. Bibliographic essay published separately from chapter essay, at 646–657.

· Hunwick, John, and Eve Powell. The African Diaspora in the Mediterranean Lands of Islam. Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener, 2002.

E-mail Citation »

Two introductory essays set the stage for understanding Muslim slavery and the dearth of scholarship on this topic. Fifteen chapters then provide excerpted, translated texts on slavery, capture and enslavement, markets, religion, and abolition. Chapters 1–3 offer the most specifically helpful texts for undergraduates (pp. 1–33).

· Janis, Mark. America and the Law of Nations, 1776–1939. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.

DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199579341.001.0001 E-mail Citation »

Excellent overview of major authors and key debates in the field of international law, particularly as it related to slavery and emancipation. Begins with Grotius, Blackstone, and Bentham and progresses through the development of “scientific” international law, with slave law as a recurring theme.

· Martinez, Jenny. The Slave Trade and the Origins of International Human Rights Law. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.

E-mail Citation »

Focused on the 19th century, Martinez describes how nations used treaties to suppress the international slave trade, laying the foundation of both international law as well as human rights law.

· Peabody, Sue. “Slavery, Freedom, and the Law in the Atlantic World, 1420–1807.” In The Cambridge World History of Slavery. Vol. 3, AD 1420–AD 1804. Edited by David Eltis and Stanley L. Engerman, 594–630. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2011.

DOI: 10.1017/CHOL9780521840682 E-mail Citation »

Emphasis on the Caribbean and Latin American slave regimes. Offers important coverage of Dutch and French slave law that is frequently omitted from other resources; author’s expertise in French slave law is apparent.

· Watson, Alan. Slave Law in the Americas. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1989.

E-mail Citation »

Considers Western Hemisphere slave law in a comparative context. Downplays contributions of specific cultural settings—French, Spanish, English—to emphasize shared legacy of Roman law. Some technical provisions in Roman law discussed. For a contrary view, see Palmer 1997 (cited under Empires and Transnational Studies: French).

Hadiths

Narrated Buraidah:

A woman came to the Prophet ﷺ and said: I gave a slave girl to my mother, but she died and left the salve-girl. He said: Your reward became certain for you, and she (the slave-girl) returned to you as inheritance. She said: She died and one month's fast was due from her. He (the narrator) then mentioned the tradition similar to the one mentioned by 'Amr b. 'Awn.

حَدَّثَنَا أَحْمَدُ بْنُ يُونُسَ، حَدَّثَنَا زُهَيْرٌ، حَدَّثَنَا عَبْدُ اللَّهِ بْنُ عَطَاءٍ، عَنْ عَبْدِ اللَّهِ بْنِ بُرَيْدَةَ، عَنْ أَبِيهِ، بُرَيْدَةَ ‏:‏ أَنَّ امْرَأَةً، أَتَتْ رَسُولَ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم فَقَالَتْ ‏:‏ كُنْتُ تَصَدَّقْتُ عَلَى أُمِّي بِوَلِيدَةٍ، وَإِنَّهَا مَاتَتْ وَتَرَكَتْ تِلْكَ الْوَلِيدَةَ ‏.‏ قَالَ ‏:‏ ‏

"‏ قَدْ وَجَبَ أَجْرُكِ، وَرَجَعَتْ إِلَيْكِ فِي الْمِيرَاثِ ‏"‏ ‏.‏ قَالَتْ ‏:‏ وَإِنَّهَا مَاتَتْ وَعَلَيْهَا صَوْمُ شَهْرٍ ‏.‏ فَذَكَرَ نَحْوَ حَدِيثِ عَمْرٍو ‏.‏

Classification

Sahih (Authentic)

References

• Sunan Abi Dawood, 3309

https://muflihun.com/search/hadith?q=slave&p=1&d=&s=&fts=0

Islam Permits Slavery

These Hadiths show how Islam explicitly and implicitly permits slavery.

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.' "

Sahih Bukhari 1:2:29

Narrated Nafi: Ibn 'Umar said, "Allah's Apostle said, 'If one manumits his share of a jointly possessed slave, and can afford the price of the other shares according to the adequate price of the slave, the slave will be completely manumitted; otherwise he will be partially manumitted.' " (Aiyub, a sub-narrator is not sure whether the saying " ... otherwise he will be partially manumitted" was said by Nafi' or the Prophet.)

Sahih Bukhari 3:44:671

Narrated Abu Huraira: Allah's Apostle said, "There is no Zakat either on a horse or a slave belonging to a Muslim"

Sahih Bukhari 2:24:542

Narrated Abu Huraira : The Prophet said,"There is no Zakat either on a slave or on a horse belonging to a Muslim.

Sahih Bukhari 2:24:543

Narrated Ibn 'Umar: Allah's Apostle made it incumbent on all the slave or free Muslims, male or female, to pay one Sa' of dates or barley as Zakat-ul-Fitr.

Sahih Bukhari 2:25:580

Narrated Abu Huraira: The Prophet prohibited the earnings of slave girls (through prostitution).

Sahih Bukhari 3:36:483

Narrated Abu Musa Al-Ashari: The Prophet said, "He who has a slave-girl and teaches her good manners and improves her education and then manumits and marries her, will get a double reward; and any slave who observes Allah's right and his master's right will get a double reward."

Sahih Bukhari 3:46:723

Narrated Abu Huraira: Allah's Apostle said, "A pious slave gets a double reward." Abu Huraira added: By Him in Whose Hands my soul is but for Jihad (i.e. holy battles), Hajj, and my duty to serve my mother, I would have loved to die as a slave.

Sahih Bukhari 3:46:724

Narrated 'Abdullah: Allah's Apostle said, "Everyone of you is a guardian and is responsible for his charges. The ruler who has authority over people, is a guardian and is responsible for them, a man is a guardian of his family and is responsible for them; a woman is a guardian of her husband's house and children and is responsible for them; a slave ('Abu) is a guardian of his master's property and is responsible for it; so all of you are guardians and are responsible for your charges."

Sahih Bukhari 3:46:730

Narrated Abdullah bin Zama: That he heard the Prophet delivering a sermon, and he mentioned the shecamel and the one who hamstrung it. Allah's Apostle recited:-- 'When, the most wicked man among them went forth (to hamstrung the she-camel).' (91.12.) Then he said, "A tough man whose equal was rare and who enjoyed the protection of his people, like Abi Zama went forth to (hamstrung) it." The Prophet then mentioned about the women (in his sermon). "It is not wise for anyone of you to lash his wife like a slave, for he might sleep with her the same evening." Then he advised them not to laugh when somebody breaks wind and said, "Why should anybody laugh at what he himself does?"

Sahih Bukhari 6:60:466

Narrated 'Abdullah bin Zam'a: The Prophet said, "None of you should flog his wife as he flogs a slave and then have sexual intercourse with her in the last part of the day."

Sahih Bukhari 7:62:132

A man from the Ansar called Basrah said: I married a virgin woman in her veil. When I entered upon her, I found her pregnant. (I mentioned this to the Prophet). The Prophet (peace be upon him) said: She will get the dower, for you made her vagina lawful for you. The child will be your slave. When she has begotten (a child), flog her (according to the version of al-Hasan). The version of Ibn AbusSari has: You people, flog her, or said: inflict hard punishment on him.

Sunan Abu Dawud 11:2126

It is rare nowadays to find slaves in the shar’i sense in which it is permissible to be intimate with them etc. That is because most of the Muslims have long since given up the obligation of jihad for the sake of Allaah, in addition to their position of weakness and humiliation before their kaafir enemies, so that many of the majority-Muslim nations have signed the protocol that expressly forbids slavery and strives to put an end to it, which was agreed upon in the United Nations in 1953.

Islam Q&A - Fatwa #26067

Islam Permits Raping Captives and Slaves

Main Article: Qur'an, Hadith and Scholars:Rape

Abu Sa'id al-Khudri reported that at the Battle of Hunain Allah's Messenger sent an army to Autas and encountered the enemy and fought with them. Having overcome them and taken them captives, the Companions of Allah's Messenger seemed to refrain from having intercourse with captive women because of their husbands being polytheists. Then Allah, Most High, sent down regarding that:" And women already married, except those whom your right hands possess (Quran 4:. 24)" (i. e. they were lawful for them when their 'Idda period came to an end).

Sahih Muslim 8:3432

Jabir (Allah be pleased with him) reported that a man came to Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) and said: I have a slave-girl who is our servant and she carries water for us and I have intercourse with her, but I do not want her to conceive. He said: Practise 'azl, if you so like, but what is decreed for her will come to her. The person stayed back (for some time) and then came and said: The girl has become pregnant, whereupon he said: I told you what was decreed for her would come to her.

Sahih Muslim 8:3383

Muhammad Had No Animosity With Slavery

Mohammed regularly met with and commanded slaves without asking the slave's master to free the slave even though it was within his power to do so.

Narrated Sahl: Allah's Apostle sent someone to a woman telling her to "Order her slave, carpenter, to prepare a wooden pulpit for him to sit on."

Sahih Bukhari 1:8:439

Narrated Jabir: A woman said, "O Allah's Apostle! Shall I get something constructed for you to sit on as I have a slave who is a carpenter?" He replied, "Yes, if you like." So she had that pulpit constructed.

Sahih Bukhari 1:8:440

Narrated Abu Hazim: Some men came to Sahl bin Sad to ask him about the pulpit. He replied, "Allah's Apostle sent for a woman (Sahl named her) (this message): 'Order your slave carpenter to make pieces of wood (i.e. a pulpit) for me so that I may sit on it while addressing the people.' So, she ordered him to make it from the tamarisk of the forest. He brought it to her and she sent it to Allah's Apostle . Allah's Apostle ordered it to be placed in the mosque: so, it was put and he sat on it.

Sahih Bukhari 3:34:307

Narrated Anas bin Malik: Abu Taiba cupped Allah's Apostle and so Allah's Apostle ordered that a Sa of dates be paid to him and ordered his masters (for he was a slave) to reduce his tax.

Sahih Bukhari 3:34:412

Narrated Anas bin Malik: The Prophet sent for a slave who had the profession of cupping, and he cupped him. The Prophet ordered that he be paid one or two Sas, or one or two Mudds of foodstuff, and appealed to his masters to reduce his taxes:

Sahih Bukhari 3:36:481

Narrated Abu Mas'ud: There was an Ansari man called Abu Shu'aib who had a slave butcher. Abu Shu'aib said to him, "Prepare a meal sufficient for five persons so that I might invite the Prophet besides other four persons." Abu Shu'aib had seen the signs of hunger on the face of the Prophet and so he invited him. Another man who was not invited, followed the Prophet. The Prophet said to Abu Shu'aib, "This man has followed us. Do you allow him to share the meal?" Abu Shu'aib said, "Yes."

Sahih Bukhari 3:43:636

A rock was put on a slave’s chest. When Abu Bakr complained, they said, ‘You are the one who corrupted him, so save him from his plight.’ I will do so,’ said Bakr. ‘I have a black slave, tougher and stronger than Bilal, who is a heathen. I will exchange him. The transaction was carried out.

Ishaq:144

Slaves Owned by Muhammad

The Slaves' Names

"These are the names of Muhammad's male slaves: Yakan Abu Sharh, Aflah, 'Ubayd, Dhakwan, Tahman, Mirwan, Hunayn, Sanad, Fadala Yamamin, Anjasha al-Hadi, Mad'am, Karkara, Abu Rafi', Thawban, Ab Kabsha, Salih, Rabah, Yara Nubyan, Fadila, Waqid, Mabur, Abu Waqid, Kasam, Abu 'Ayb, Abu Muwayhiba, Zayd Ibn Haritha, and also a black slave called Mahran, who was re-named (by Muhammad) Safina (`ship')."^[2]

Zad al-Ma'ad, pp. 114-116

Muhammad's Maid Slaves "are Salma Um Rafi', Maymuna daughter of Abu Asib, Maymuna daughter of Sa'd, Khadra, Radwa, Razina, Um Damira, Rayhana, Mary the Coptic, in addition to two other maid-slaves, one of them given to him as a present by his cousin, Zaynab, and the other one captured in a war."^[2]

Zad al-Ma'ad, pp. 114-116

Muhammad Bought More Slaves Than he Sold

"Mohammed had many male and female slaves. He used to buy and sell them, but he purchased more slaves than he sold, especially after God empowered him by His message, as well as after his immigration from Mecca. He once sold one black slave for two. His name was Jacob al-Mudbir. His purchases of slaves were more than he sold. He was used to renting out and hiring many slaves, but he hired more slaves than he rented out."^[3]

Zad al-Ma'ad, p. 160

Origins of Mahran's (The "Ship"'s) Nickname

"The apostle of God and his companions went on a trip. (When) their belongings became too heavy for them to carry, Muhammad told me, `Spread your garment.' They filled it with their belongings, then they put it on me. The apostle of God told me, `Carry (it), for you are a ship.' Even if I was carrying the load of six or seven donkeys while we were on a journey, anyone who felt weak would throw his clothes or his shield or his sword on me so I would carry that, a heavy load. The prophet told me, `You are a ship"' ^[4]

Hadiths Referring to Muhammad's Slaves

...In those days it was rumored that Ghassan, (a tribe living in Sham) was getting prepared their horses to invade us. My companion went (to the Prophet on the day of his turn, went and returned to us at night and knocked at my door violently, asking whether I was sleeping. I was scared (by the hard knocking) and came out to him. He said that a great thing had happened. I asked him: What is it? Have Ghassan come? He replied that it was worse and more serious than that, and added that Allah's Apostle had divorced all his wives. I said, Hafsa is a ruined loser! I expected that would happen some day.' So I dressed myself and offered the Fajr prayer with the Prophet. Then the Prophet entered an upper room and stayed there alone. I went to Hafsa and found her weeping. I asked her, 'Why are you weeping? Didn't I warn you? Have Allah's Apostle divorced you all?' She replied, 'I don't know. He is there in the upper room.' I then went out and came to the pulpit and found a group of people around it and some of them were weeping. Then I sat with them for some time, but could not endure the situation. So I went to the upper room where the Prophet was and requested to a black slave of his: "Will you get the permission of (Allah's Apostle) for Umar (to enter)? The slave went in, talked to the Prophet about it and came out saying, 'I mentioned you to him but he did not reply.' So, I went and sat with the people who were sitting by the pulpit, but I could not bear the situation, so I went to the slave again and said: "Will you get he permission for Umar? He went in and brought the same reply as before. When I was leaving, behold, the slave called me saying, "Allah's Apostle has granted you permission." So, I entered upon the Prophet and saw him lying on a mat without wedding on it, and the mat had left its mark on the body of the Prophet, and he was leaning on a leather pillow stuffed with palm fires. I greeted him and while still standing, I said: "Have you divorced your wives?' He raised his eyes to me and replied in the negative. And then while still standing, I said chatting: "Will you heed what I say, 'O Allah's Apostle! We, the people of Quraish used to have the upper hand over our women (wives), and when we came to the people whose women had the upper hand over them..."

Sahih Bukhari 3:43:648

Narrated Kurib: the freed slave of Ibn 'Abbas, that Maimuna bint Al-Harith told him that she manumitted a slave-girl without taking the permission of the Prophet. On the day when it was her turn to be with the Prophet, she said, "Do you know, O Allah's Apostle, that I have manumitted my slave-girl?" He said, "Have you really?" She replied in the affirmative. He said, "You would have got more reward if you had given her (i.e. the slave-girl) to one of your maternal uncles."

Sahih Bukhari 3:47:765

Narrated 'Ali: Fatima complained of what she suffered from the hand mill and from grinding, when she got the news that some slave girls of the booty had been brought to Allah's Apostle. She went to him to ask for a maid-servant, but she could not find him, and told 'Aisha of her need. When the Prophet came, Aisha informed him of that. The Prophet came to our house when we had gone to our beds. (On seeing the Prophet) we were going to get up, but he said, 'Keep at your places,' I felt the coolness of the Prophet's feet on my chest. Then he said, "Shall I tell you a thing which is better than what you asked me for? When you go to your beds, say: 'Allahu Akbar (i.e. Allah is Greater)' for 34 times, and 'Alhamdu Lillah (i.e. all the praises are for Allah)' for 33 times, and Subhan Allah (i.e. Glorified be Allah) for 33 times. This is better for you than what you have requested."

Sahih Bukhari 4:53:344

Narrated Abu Huraira: When we conquered Khaibar, we gained neither gold nor silver as booty, but we gained cows, camels, goods and gardens. Then we departed with Allah's Apostle to the valley of Al-Qira, and at that time Allah's Apostle had a slave called Mid'am who had been presented to him by one of Banu Ad-Dibbab. While the slave was dismounting the saddle of Allah's Apostle an arrow the thrower of which was unknown, came and hit him. The people said, "Congratulations to him for the martyrdom." Allah's Apostle said, "No, by Him in Whose Hand my soul is, the sheet (of cloth) which he had taken (illegally) on the day of Khaibar from the booty before the distribution of the booty, has become a flame of Fire burning him." On hearing that, a man brought one or two leather straps of shoes to the Prophet and said, "These are things I took (illegally)." On that Allah's Apostle said, "This is a strap, or these are two straps of Fire."

Sahih Bukhari 5:59:541 See also Sunan an-Nasa'i 35:67

Narrated Aisha: That night I kept on weeping the whole night till the morning. My tears never stopped, nor did I sleep, and morning broke while I was still weeping, Allah's Apostle called 'Ali bin Abi Talib and Usama bin Zaid when the Divine Inspiration delayed, in order to consult them as to the idea of divorcing his wife. Usama bin Zaid told Allah's Apostle of what he knew about the innocence of his wife and of his affection he kept for her. He said, "O Allah's Apostle! She is your wife, and we do not know anything about her except good." But 'Ali bin Abi Talib said, "O Allah's Apostle! Allah does not impose restrictions on you; and there are plenty of women other than her. If you however, ask (her) slave girl, she will tell you the truth." 'Aisha added: So Allah's Apostle called for Barira and said, "O Barira! Did you ever see anything which might have aroused your suspicion? (as regards Aisha). Barira said, "By Allah Who has sent you with the truth, I have never seen anything regarding Aisha which I would blame her for except that she is a girl of immature age who sometimes sleeps and leaves the dough of her family unprotected so that the domestic goats come and eat it."

Sahih Bukhari 6:60:274

Narrated Ibn Abbas: ... I returned to my house, astonished (and distressed) that I did not know for what purpose I had gone out. Then I became sick (fever) and said to Allah's Apostle "Send me to my father's house." So he sent a slave with me, and when I entered the house, I found Um Rum-an (my mother) downstairs while (my father) Abu Bakr was reciting something upstairs.

Sahih Bukhari 6:60:281

Then I put on my clothes and went to Allah's Apostle's residence, and behold, he was staying in an upper room of his to which he ascended by a ladder, and a black slave of Allah's Apostle was (sitting) on the first step. I said to him, 'Say (to the Prophet ) 'Umar bin Al-Khattab is here.'...

Sahih Bukhari 6:60:435

I sat with them for a while but could not endure the situation, so I went to the upper room where the Prophet; was and said to a black slave of his, 'Will you get the permission (of the Prophet ) for 'Umar (to enter)?' The slave went in, talked to the Prophet about it and then returned saying, 'I have spoken to the Prophet and mentioned you but he kept quiet.'

Sahih Bukhari 7:62:119

Narrated Ali: Fatima went to the Prophet complaining about the bad effect of the stone hand-mill on her hand. She heard that the Prophet had received a few slave girls. But (when she came there) she did not find him, so she mentioned her problem to 'Aisha. When the Prophet came, 'Aisha informed him about that. 'Ali added, "So the Prophet came to us when we had gone to bed. We wanted to get up (on his arrival) but he said, 'Stay where you are." Then he came and sat between me and her and I felt the coldness of his feet on my abdomen. He said, "Shall I direct you to something better than what you have requested? When you go to bed say 'Subhan Allah' thirty-three times, 'Alhamdulillah' thirty three times, and Allahu Akbar' thirty four times, for that is better for you than a servant."

Sahih Bukhari 7:64:274

Narrated Anas: I was a young boy when I once was walking with Allah's Apostle . Allah's Apostle entered the house of his slave tailor and the latter brought a dish filled with food covered with pieces of gourd. Allah's Apostle started picking and eating the gourd. When I saw that, I started collecting and placing the gourd before him. Then the slave returned to his work. Anas added: I have kept on loving gourd since I saw Allah's Apostle doing what he was doing.

Sahih Bukhari 7:65:346

Narrated Anas: Allah's Apostle went to (the house of) his slave tailor, and he was offered (a dish of) gourd of which he started eating. I have loved to eat gourd since I saw Allah's Apostle eating it.

Sahih Bukhari 7:65:344

Narrated Anas bin Malik: Allah's Apostle was on a journey and he had a black slave called Anjasha, and he was driving the camels (very fast, and there were women riding on those camels). Allah's Apostle said, "Waihaka (May Allah be merciful to you), O Anjasha! Drive slowly (the camels) with the glass vessels (women)!"

Sahih Bukhari 8:73:182, See also:Sahih Bukhari 8:73:229

Narrated Anas: Once Um Sulaim was (with the women who were) in charge of the luggage on a journey, and Anjashah, the slave of the Prophet, was driving their camels (very fast). The Prophet said, "O Anjash! Drive slowly (the camels) with the glass vessels (i.e., ladies)."

Sahih Bukhari 8:73:221

Narrated 'Umar: I came and behold, Allah's Apostle was staying on a Mashroba (attic room) and a black slave of Allah's Apostle was at the top if its stairs. I said to him, "(Tell the Prophet) that here is 'Umar bin Al-Khattab (asking for permission to enter)." Then he admitted me.

Sahih Bukhari 9:91:368

Hadith Referring to Aisha's Slave

Yahya related to me from Malik that Yahya ibn Said said that Muhammad ibn Ibrahim at-Taymi had informed him that Abu Salama ibn Abd ar-Rahman said "Abd ar-Rahman ibn al-Aswad ibn Abdal-Yaghuth used to sit with us and he had a white beard and hair. One day he came to us and he had dyed them red, and the people said to him, 'This is better.' He said. "A'isha the wife of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, sent her slave girl Nukhayla to me yesterday. She swore that my hair would be dyed and she informed me that Abu Bakr as- Siddiq used to dye his hair." "

Yahya said that he heard Malik say about dyeing the hair black, 'I have not heard anything certain on that, and other colours than that are preferable to me." Yahya said, "Not to dye at all is permitted, Allah willing, and there is no constraint on people concerning it." Yahya said that he had heard Malik say, "There is no clear indication in this hadith that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, did not dye his hair. Had the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, dyed his hair, A'isha would have sent a message to that effect to Abd ar-Rahman ibn al-Aswad."

Imam Malik, "Malik's Muwatta: Book 51 Hadith 8" (archived).

Slaves Enslaved by Muhammad

Narrated 'Abdul 'Aziz: Anas said, 'When Allah's Apostle invaded Khaibar, we offered the Fajr prayer there yearly in the morning) when it was still dark. The Prophet rode and Abu Talha rode too and I was riding behind Abu Talha. The Prophet passed through the lane of Khaibar quickly and my knee was touching the thigh of the Prophet . He uncovered his thigh and I saw the whiteness of the thigh of the Prophet. When he entered the town, he said, 'Allahu Akbar! Khaibar is ruined. Whenever we approach near a (hostile) nation (to fight) then evil will be the morning of those who have been warned.' He repeated this thrice. The people came out for their jobs and some of them said, 'Muhammad (has come).' (Some of our companions added, "With his army.") We conquered Khaibar, took the captives, and the booty was collected. Dihya came and said, 'O Allah's Prophet! Give me a slave girl from the captives.' The Prophet said, 'Go and take any slave girl.' He took Safiya bint Huyai. A man came to the Prophet and said, 'O Allah's Apostles! You gave Safiya bint Huyai to Dihya and she is the chief mistress of the tribes of Quraiza and An-Nadir and she befits none but you.' So the Prophet said, 'Bring him along with her.' So Dihya came with her and when the Prophet saw her, he said to Dihya, 'Take any slave girl other than her from the captives.' Anas added: The Prophet then manumitted her and married her..."

Sahih Bukhari 1:8:367

So Muhammad began seizing their herds and their property bit by bit. He conquered home by home. The Messenger took some people captive, including Safiyah and her two cousins. The Prophet chose Safiyah for himself.

Al-Tabari, Vol. 8, p. 116, See also: Ishaq:511

Narrated 'Amr bin Taghlib: Allah's Apostle gave (gifts) to some people to the exclusion of some others. The latter seemed to be displeased by that. The Prophet said, "I give to some people, lest they should deviate from True Faith or lose patience, while I refer other people to the goodness and contentment which Allah has put in their hearts, and 'Amr bin Taghlib is amongst them." 'Amr bin Taghlib said, "The statement of Allah's Apostle is dearer to me than red camels."

Narrated Al-Hasan: 'Amr bin Taghlib told us that Allah's Apostle got some property or some war prisoners and he distributed them in the above way (i.e. giving to some people to the exclusion of others) .

Sahih Bukhari 4:53:373

Narrated Anas: The Prophet offered the Fajr Prayer near Khaibar when it was still dark and then said, "Allahu-Akbar! Khaibar is destroyed, for whenever we approach a (hostile) nation (to fight), then evil will be the morning for those who have been warned." Then the inhabitants of Khaibar came out running on the roads. The Prophet had their warriors killed, their offspring and woman taken as captives. Safiya was amongst the captives, She first came in the share of Dahya Alkali but later on she belonged to the Prophet . The Prophet made her manumission as her 'Mahr'.

Sahih Bukhari 5:59:512

Narrated Anas bin Malik: Allah's Apostle (p.b.u.h) offered the Fajr prayer when it was still dark, then he rode and said, 'Allah Akbar! Khaibar is ruined. When we approach near to a nation, the most unfortunate is the morning of those who have been warned." The people came out into the streets saying, "Muhammad and his army." Allah's Apostle vanquished them by force and their warriors were killed; the children and women were taken as captives. Safiya was taken by Dihya Al-Kalbi and later she belonged to Allah's Apostle go who married her and her Mahr was her manumission.

Sahih Bukhari 2:14:68

Narrated Abu Said Al-Khudri: That while he was sitting with the Prophet a man from the Ansar came and said, "O Allah's Apostle! We get slave girls from the war captives and we love property; what do you think about coitus interruptus?" Allah's Apostle said, "Do you do that? It is better for you not to do it, for there is no soul which Allah has ordained to come into existence but will be created."

Sahih Bukhari 8:77:600

'Imran b. Husain reported that a person who had no other property emancipated six slaves of his at the time of his death. Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) called for them and divided them into three sections, cast lots amongst them, and set two free and kept four in slavery; and he (the Holy Prophet) spoke severely of him.

Sahih Muslim 15:4112

Narrated Abu Said Al-Khudri: The people of (Banu) Quraiza agreed to accept the verdict of Sad bin Mu'adh. So the Prophet sent for Sad, and the latter came (riding) a donkey and when he approached the Mosque, the Prophet said to the Ansar, "Get up for your chief or for the best among you." Then the Prophet said (to Sad)." These (i.e. Banu Quraiza) have agreed to accept your verdict." Sad said, "Kill their (men) warriors and take their offspring as captives, "On that the Prophet said, "You have judged according to Allah's Judgment," or said, "according to the King's judgment."

Sahih Bukhari 5:59:447

Slaves Traded by Muhammad

One Arab for Two Blacks

Jabir (Allah be pleased with him) reported: There came a slave and pledg- ed allegiance to Allah's Apostle (may peace be upon him) on migration; he (the Holy Prophet) did not know that he was a slave. Then there came his master and demanded him back, whereupon Allah's Apostle (may peace be upon him) said: Sell him to me. And he bought him for two black slaves, and he did not afterwards take allegiance from anyone until he had asked him whether he was a slave (or a free man)

Sahih Muslim 10:3901

Slaves Sold by Muhammad

Narrated Jabir: A man manumitted a slave and he had no other property than that, so the Prophet cancelled the manumission (and sold the slave for him). No'aim bin Al-Nahham bought the slave from him.

Sahih Bukhari 3:41:598

Narrated Jabir bin Abdullah: A man decided that a slave of his would be manumitted after his death and later on he was in need of money, so the Prophet took the slave and said, "Who will buy this slave from me?" Nu'aim bin 'Abdullah bought him for such and such price and the Prophet gave him the slave.

Sahih Bukhari 3:34:351

Narrated 'Amr: Jabir said: An Ansari man made his slave a Mudabbar and he had no other property than him. When the Prophet heard of that, he said (to his companions), "Who wants to buy him (i.e., the slave) for me?" Nu'aim bin An-Nahham bought him for eight hundred Dirhams. I heard Jabir saying, "That was a coptic slave who died in the same year."

Sahih Bukhari 8:79:707

Narrated Jabir: A man from the Ansar made his slave, a Mudabbar. And apart from that slave he did not have any other property. This news reached Allah's Apostle and he said, "Who will buy that slave from me?" So Nu'aim bin An-Nahham bought him for 800 Dirham. Jabir added: It was a coptic (Egyptian) slave who died that year.

Sahih Bukhari 9:85:80

Narrated Jabir bin 'Abdullah: A man pledged that his slave would be manumitted after his death. The Prophet asked, "Who will buy the slave from me?" No'aim bin 'Abdullah bought the slave and the Prophet took its price and gave it to the owner.

Sahih Bukhari 3:41:588

Narrated Jabir bin 'Abdullah: A man amongst us declared that his slave would be freed after his death. The Prophet called for that slave and sold him. The slave died the same year.

Sahih Bukhari 3:46:711

Narrated Jabir: The Prophet came to know that one of his companions had given the promise of freeing his slave after his death, but as he had no other property than that slave, the Prophet sold that slave for 800 dirhams and sent the price to him.

Sahih Bukhari 9:89:296

Slave Transactions Initiated by Muhammad

Narrated Abu Huraira and Zaid bin Khalid Al-Juhani: A bedouin came and said, "O Allah's Apostle! Judge between us according to Allah's Laws." His opponent got up and said, "He is right. Judge between us according to Allah's Laws." The bedouin said, "My son was a laborer working for this man, and he committed illegal sexual intercourse with his wife. The people told me that my son should be stoned to death; so, in lieu of that, I paid a ransom of one hundred sheep and a slave girl to save my son. Then I asked the learned scholars who said, "Your son has to be lashed one-hundred lashes and has to be exiled for one year." The Prophet said, "No doubt I will judge between you according to Allah's Laws. The slave-girl and the sheep are to go back to you, and your son will get a hundred lashes and one year exile." He then addressed somebody, "O Unais! go to the wife of this (man) and stone her to death" So, Unais went and stoned her to death.

Sahih Bukhari 3:49:860

Narrated Abu Huraira and Zaid bin Khalid Al-Juhani: A bedouin came to Allah's Apostle and said, "O Allah's apostle! I ask you by Allah to judge My case according to Allah's Laws." His opponent, who was more learned than he, said, "Yes, judge between us according to Allah's Laws, and allow me to speak." Allah's Apostle said, "Speak." He (i .e. the bedouin or the other man) said, "My son was working as a laborer for this (man) and he committed illegal sexual intercourse with his wife. The people told me that it was obligatory that my son should be stoned to death, so in lieu of that I ransomed my son by paying one hundred sheep and a slave girl. Then I asked the religious scholars about it, and they informed me that my son must be lashed one hundred lashes, and be exiled for one year, and the wife of this (man) must be stoned to death." Allah's Apostle said, "By Him in Whose Hands my soul is, I will judge between you according to Allah's Laws. The slave-girl and the sheep are to be returned to you, your son is to receive a hundred lashes and be exiled for one year. You, Unais, go to the wife of this (man) and if she confesses her guilt, stone her to death." Unais went to that woman next morning and she confessed. Allah's Apostle ordered that she be stoned to death.

Sahih Bukhari 3:50:885

Narrated Abu Huraira: Two women from the tribe of Hudhail (fought with each other) and one of them threw (a stone at) the other, causing her to have a miscarriage and Allah's Apostle gave his verdict that the killer (of the fetus) should give a male or female slave (as a Diya).

Sahih Bukhari 9:83:41, See also: Sahih Bukhari 9:83:42, Sahih Bukhari 9:83:44, and Sahih Bukhari 9:83:45

Then the apostle sent for Sa'd bin Zayd al-Ansari brother of bin Abdul-Ashhal with some of the captive women of Banu Qurayza to Najd and he sold them for horses and weapons.

Ishaq:693

Miscellaneous

Bilal Bought in Exchange for a Black Non-Muslim Slave

A rock was put on a slave's chest. When Abu Bakr complained, they said, 'You are the one who corrupted him, so save him from his plight.' I will do so,' said Bakr. 'I have a black slave, tougher and stronger than Bilal, who is a heathen. I will exchange him. The transaction was carried out.

Ishaq:144

Attempts to Free Slaves Sometimes Discouraged and Thwarted by Muhammad

Sahih Bukhari 3:47:765

See also Sahih Muslim 15:4112 and Sahih Bukhari 9:89:296 above for hadiths where Muhammad sold slaves whose masters had promised to free them.

Muhammad disapproves of Ibn Mas'ud beating his slave

Abu Mas'ud [Al-Ansari] said: "I was beating a slave of mine and I heard someone behind me saying: 'Beware O Abu Mas'ud! Beware O Abu Mas'ud!' So I turned around and saw that it was the Messenger of Allah. He said: 'Allah has more power over you than you do over him." Abu Mas'ud said: "I have not beaten any slave of mine since then."

Jami` at-Tirmidhi 4:25:1948

Free a Slave Who is Beaten or to Expiate Certain Sins

Contrary to apologetics, Islam did not bring exceptional treatment of slaves by ancient standards. Before Islam, Zoroastrian law had protections for slaves against violence, and it was considered a virtue to free a slave, who could also buy their own freedom.^[5] It was also common in ancient Rome to free slaves, so much so that Augustus had a law enacted to prevent manumission of slaves younger than 30 years old. In Islam, slaves are to be freed when there is violence against them, or to expiate certain sins.

Zadhan reported that Ibn Umar called his slave and he found the marks (of beating) upon his back. He said to him: I have caused you pain. He said: No. But he (Ibn Umar) said: You are free. He then took hold of something from the earth and said: There is no reward for me even to the weight equal to it. I heard Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) as saying: He who beats a slave without cognizable offence of his or slaps him (without any serious fault), then expiation for it is that he should set him free.

Sahih Muslim 15:4079

Suwaid b. Muqarrin reported that he had a slave-girl and a person (one of the members of the family) slapped her, whereupon Suwaid said to him: Don't you know that it is forbidden (to strike the) face. He said: You see I was the seventh one amongst my brothers during the lifetime of Allah's Messenger (ﷺ), and we had but only one servant. One of us got enraged and slapped him. Thereupon Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) commanded us to set him free.

Sahih Muslim 15:4084

Narrated Abu Huraira: A man came to the Prophet (ﷺ) and said, "I am ruined!" The Prophet (ﷺ) said, "Why?" He said, "I had sexual intercourse with my wife while fasting (in the month of Ramadan)." The Prophet (ﷺ) said to him, "Manumit a slave (as expiation)."

Sahih Bukhari 7:64:281

Reward for Freeing Muslim Slaves

Narrated Abu Huraira: The Prophet said, "Whoever frees a Muslim slave, Allah will save all the parts of his body from the (Hell) Fire as he has freed the body-parts of the slave." Said bin Marjana said that he narrated that Hadith to 'Ali bin Al-Husain and he freed his slave for whom 'Abdullah bin Ja'far had offered him ten thousand Dirhams or one-thousand Dinars.

Sahih Bukhari 3:46:693

Narrated Abu Huraira: The Prophet said, "If somebody manumits a Muslim slave, Allah will save from the Fire every part of his body for freeing the corresponding parts of the slave's body, even his private parts will be saved from the Fire) because of freeing the slave's private parts."

Sahih Bukhari 8:79:706

Female Slaves can be Flogged and Sold if they have Illegal Sexual Intercourse

Narrated Abu Huraira: The Prophet said, "If a lady slave commits illegal sexual intercourse and she is proved guilty of illegal sexual intercourse, then she should be flogged (fifty stripes) but she should not be admonished; and if she commits illegal sexual intercourse again, then she should be flogged again but should not be admonished; and if she commits illegal sexual intercourse for the third time, then she should be sold even for a hair rope."

Sahih Bukhari 8:82:823

Narrated Ali ibn AbuTalib: A slave-girl belonging to the house of the Apostle of Allah (peace be upon him) committed fornication. He (the Prophet) said: Rush up, Ali, and inflict the prescribed punishment on her. I then hurried up, and saw that blood was flowing from her, and did not stop. So I came to him and he said: Have you finished inflicting (punishment on her)? I said: I went to her while her blood was flowing. He said: Leave her alone till her bleeding stops; then inflict the prescribed punishment on her. And inflict the prescribed punishment on those whom your right hands possess (i.e. slaves).

Sunan Abu Dawud 38:4458

Conversion of Slaves to Islam

Narrated Abu Burda's father: Allah's Apostle said "Three persons will have a double reward: 1. A Person from the people of the scriptures who believed in his prophet (Jesus or Moses) and then believed in the Prophet Muhammad (i .e. has embraced Islam). 2. A slave who discharges his duties to Allah and his master. 3. A master of a woman-slave who teaches her good manners and educates her in the best possible way (the religion) and manumits her and then marries her."

Sahih Bukhari 1:3:97

Marrying Slaves

Narrated Abu Haraira:
Allah's Apostle said, "A lady slave should not be given in marriage until she is consulted, and a virgin should not be given in marriage until her permission is granted." The people said, "How will she express her permission?" The Prophet said, "By keeping silent (when asked her consent)." Some people said, "If a man, by playing a trick, presents two false witnesses before the judge to testify that he has married a matron with her consent and the judge confirms his marriage, and the husband is sure that he has never married her (before), then such a marriage will be considered as a legal one and he may live with her as husband."

Sahih Bukhari 9:86:100

"Ibn Umar reported the prophet as saying: "If a slave marries without the permission of his master, his marriage is null and void."

Abu Dawud, Vol. 2, Ch. 597, No. 2074

Observing Hijab

Narrated Anas ibn Malik: The Prophet (peace be upon him) brought Fatimah a slave which he donated to her. Fatimah wore a garment which, when she covered her head, did not reach her feet, and when she covered her feet by it, that garment did not reach her head. When the Prophet (peace be upon him) saw her struggle, he said: There is no harm to you: Here is only your father and slave.

Sunan Abu Dawud 32:4094

Taking of Slaves from Prisoners of War

O Prophet, We have made lawful for thee thy wives whom thou hast given their wages and what thy right hand owns, spoils of war that God has given thee, and the daughters of thy uncles paternal and aunts paternal, thy uncles maternal and aunts maternal, who have emigrated with thee, and any woman believer, if she give herself to the Prophet and if the Prophet desire to take her in marriage, for thee exclusively, apart from the believers -- We know what We have imposed upon them touching their wives and what their right hands own -- that there may be no fault in thee; God is All-forgiving, All-compassionate.

Qur'an 33:50

Muhammad gave girls like property (or booty) to his companions

The apostle gave Ali a girl called Rayta; and he gave Uthman a girl called Zaynab; and he gave Umar a girl whom Umar gave to his son Abdullah.

Ibn Ishaq/Hisham 878

See Also

Slavery - A hub page that leads to other articles related to Slavery
Muhammad (Primary Sources) - A hub page that leads to other articles related to Muhammad (Primary Sources)

Translations

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External Links

References

· Brockopp, J. (2000) "Early Maliki Law", Brill: Leiben, p.170

· · Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, Zad al-Ma'ad, Part 1, pp. 114-116

· · Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, Zad al-Ma'ad, Part 1, p. 160

· · Ibn Qayyim, Pages 115-116; al-Hulya, Volume 1, Page 369, quoted from Ahmad 5:222

· Irani, K.M. & Silver, M. (editors), Social Justice in the Ancient World, Connecticut:Greenword Press, 1995, p.87

https://wikiislam.net/wiki/Qur%27an,_Hadith_and_Scholars:Slavery

4.3 what possesses your right hand

4.24 save what your right hands own

4.25 his believing maids whom he possesses

30.28 those whom your right hand possesses

33.50 or slaves) whom your right hand possesses

33.52 or slaves) whom your right hand possesses

56.8 Those of the right hand

56.27 those on the right hand

56.38 those of the right hand

74.39 those of the right hand except the People of the Right Hand

90.18 the people of the right hand

56.90 the People of the Right Hand

Words

Slaves are mentioned in at least twenty-nine verses of the Qur'an, most of these involving the legal status of slaves.^[9] The exact number of verses referring to slaves is contested by scholars because the words and phrases have multiple possible meanings and translation is thus subjective.^[9] The Quranic verses on slaves are expressed in variants of three phrases: 'Abd (male slave or servant, feminine: amah), ma malakat aymanukum (that which your right hand possesses, used to highlight right to force sex on female slaves), and raqabah (the neck, captive, used to highlight the process of manumission).^[9]

http://self.gutenberg.org/articles/eng/Ma_malakat_aymanukum

the Qur'an clearly uses the Arabic word "amatun" when speaking of female slaves in 2:221 and 24:32, and other places.

Volume 3, Book 46, Number 728 :

Narrated by Abu Huraira

Literature/Books

Slavery and Social Status in Islamic History

HIST 78110; MES 78000; WSCP 81000

Anna Akasoy, Professor of Islamic Intellectual History

In this class, we will explore social, political, economic, legal, and cultural aspects of slavery in premodern Islamic history. Starting in the late antique Mediterranean, we will consider the emergence of a variety of forms of slavery in the Islamic Middle East, including military slavery and agricultural slavery, but focus especially on the enslavement of women. We will end with the complex relationship between Islam and transatlantic slavery and various ethical and political implications of the history of religiously validated enslavement. We will consider a range of sources, including legal material and popular literature.

One of the main problems discussed in this class is the definition of slavery across different historical contexts as well as alternatives to the term ‘slavery’, e.g. ‘unfreedom’. Definitions and debates in premodern Islamic law constitute critical sources for a definition of slavery in contexts of Islamic history. The aim of this meeting is to survey fundamental notions of slavery in premodern Islamic law and to gain an impression of the regulations for enslaving people, for the treatment of enslaved people and for manumission. We will also explore comparisons made in legal literature between enslaved people and other groups of people, especially married women. Time permitting and depending on interest, we will also look into contemporary cases of the application of Islamic law in order to validate the enslavement especially of women.

Abdul Sheriff	‘The Zanj Rebellion and the Transition from Plantation to Military Slavery’
Alexandre Popović	The Revolt of African Slaves in Iraq in the 3rd/9th Century
Alice Rio	Slavery after Rome; 500-1100
Alice Rio	‘Freedom and Unfreedom in Early Medieval Francia: The Evidence of the Legal Formulae’
Allan D. Austin	African Muslims in Antebellum America. Transatlantic Stories and Spiritual Struggles
Al-Ṭabarī	The History of al-Tabari, vol. 36, The Revolt of the Zanj A.D. 869-879/A.H. 255-265
Amikam Elad	‘An Epitaph of the Slave Girl of the Grandson of the ʿAbbasid Caliph Al-Maʾmun’
Ariel Salzmann	‘Migrants in Chains. On the Enslavement of Muslims in Renaissance and Enlightenment Europe’
Bernard K. Fraemon	‘ISIS, Boko Haram and the Human Right to Freedom from Slavery under Islamic Law’
Bernard K. Freamon	‘Definitions and Conceptions of Slave Ownership in Islamic Law’
Bernard Lewis	Race and Slavery in the Middle East. An Historical Enquiry
Bruce S. Hall	‘How Slaves Used Islam. The Letters of Enslaved Muslim Commercial Agents in the Nineteenth-Century Niger Bend and Central Sahara’
Cam Grey	‘Slavery in the Late Roman World’ in Keith Bradley and Paul Cartledge (eds)
Cameron (eds)	What is a Slave Society? The Practice of Slavery in Global Perspective
Carol Graham	‘The Meaning of Slavery and Identity in al-Andalus. The Epistle of Ibn Garcia’
Chapurukha M. Kusimba	‘Archaeology of Slavery in East Africa’
Charles L. Wilkins	‘Slavery and Household Formation in Ottoman Aleppo
Charles L. Wilkins	‘Masters, Servants and Slaves. Household Formation among the Urban Notables of Early Ottoman Aleppo’
Chase F. Robinson	‘Slavery in the Conquest Period’
Chouki El Hamel	Black Morocco. A History of Slavery, Race, and Islam
Chris Gratien	‘Race Slavery, and Islamic law in the Early Modern Atlantic. Ahmad Baba al-Tinbukti’s Treatise on Enslavement’
Christopher C. Fennell	‘Fighting Despair. Challenges of a Comparative, Global Framework for Slavery Studies’
Clarence-Smith	Islam and the Abolition of Slavery
Craig Perry	‘Historicizing Slavery in the Medieval Islamic World’
Craig Perry	‘Conversion as an Aspect of Master-Slave Relationships in the Medieval Egyptian Jewish Community’
Cristina de la Puente	‘What Does milk al-yamīn Mean at the Beginning of the 21st Century?’
Cristina de la Puente	‘Slaves in al-Andalus through Māliki wathāʾiq Works
Cristina de la Puente	‘Free Fathers, Slave Mothers and Their Children. A Contribution to the Study of Family Structures in al-Andalus’
Cristina de la Puente	‘Mano de obra esclava en Al-Andalus’
Cristina de la Puente	‘The Ethnic Origins of Female Slaves in al-Andalus’
David Ayalon	Eunuchs, Caliphs and Sultans
David Ayalon	‘On the Term Khādim in the Sense of ‘Eunuch’ in the Early Muslim Sources’
David M. Goldenberg	The Curse of Ham. Race and Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
Detlef Gronenborn	‘Kanem-Borno. A Brief Summary of the History and Archaeology of an Empire of the Central bilad al-Sudan’
Donald P. Little	‘Six Fourteenth-Century Purchase Deeds for Slaves from Al-Ḥaram Al-Sharīf’
Donald P. Little	‘Two Fourteenth-Century Court Records from Jerusalem Concerning the Disposition of Slaves by Minors’
Dwight F. Reynolds	‘The Qiyan of al-Andalus’
E. Ann Mcdougall	‘Visions of the Sahara. Negotiating the History and Historiography of Premodern Saharan Slavery’
Edward E. Curtis	Muslims in America. A Short History
Ehud R. Toledano	‘Enslavement in the Ottoman Empire in the Early Modern Period’
Ehud R. Toledano	‘Ottoman Concepts of Slavery in the Period of Reform (1830s-1880s)’
Ehud R. Toledano	‘The Concept of Slavery in Ottoman and Other Muslim Societies. Dichotomy or Continuum’
Ehud R. Toledano	‘Abolition and Anti-slavery in the Ottoman Empire. A Case to Answer?’
Ehud R. Toledano	The Ottoman Slave Trade and its Suppression, 1840-1890
Ehud R. Toledano	‘Bringing the Slaves Back In’
Ehud R. Toledano	As If Silent and Absent. Bonds of Enslavement in the Islamic Middle East
Ehud R. Toledano	‘Ottoman and Islamic Societies. Were They “Slave Societies”?’
Eve Troutt Powell	Tell it in My Memory: Stories of Enslavement from Egypt, Sudan and the Ottoman Empire
Fuad Matthew Caswell	The Slave Girls of Baghdad.
G. Ugo Nwokeji	‘Slavery in Non-Islamic West Africa 1420-1820’
George Junne	The Black Eunuchs of the Ottoman Empire. Networks of Power in the Court of the Sultan
Géza Dávid and Pál Fodor (eds)	Ransom Slavery along the Ottoman Frontiers
Gulay Yilmaz	‘Becoming a Devşirme. The Training of Conscripted Children in the Ottoman Empire’
Gwyn Campbell and Alessandro Stanziani (eds)	Debt and Slavery in the Mediterranean and Atlantic Worlds
Hend Gilli-Elewy	‘On the Provenance of Slaves in Mecca during the Time of the Prophet Muhammad’
Hend Gilli-Elewy	‘Soziale Aspekte frühislamischer Sklaverei’
Ibn al-Sāʿī	Consorts of the Caliphs. Women and the Court of Baghdad
Irene Schneider	‘Freedom and Slavery in Early Islamic Times’
Ismael Musah Montana	The Abolition of Slavery in Ottoman Tunisia
J. Alexander	‘Islam, Archaeology and Slavery in Africa’
James Searing	‘Islam Slavery and Jihad in West Africa’
Jane Dammen McAuliffe	Encyclopaedia of the Qur’an; articles on ‘Concubines’ and ‘Slaves and Slavery’
Jerald Dirks	Muslims in American History. A Forgotten Legacy
Jere L. Bacharach	‘African Military Slaves in the Medieval Middle East’
John Hunwick	‘Black Africans in the Mediterranean World. Introduction to a Neglected Aspect of the African Diaspora’
John Hunwick and Eve Troutt Powell	The African Diaspora in the Mediterranean Lands of Islam
John O. Hunwick	‘Aḥmad Bābā on Slavery’
John Ralph Willis (ed.)	Slaves and Slavery in Muslim Africa
Jonathan E. Brockopp	Slavery in Islamic Law. An Examination of Early Mālikī Jurisprudence NB: The dissertation was published as Early Mālikī Law. Ibn ʿAbd al-ḥakam and his Major Compendium of Jurisprudence
Joseph C. Miller	‘Muslim Slavery and Slaving. A Bibliography’
Julia Bray	‘Men, Women and Slaves in Abbasid Society’
Julia Bray	‘Toward an Abbasid History of Emotions. The Case of Slavery’
Kecia Ali	Marriage and Slavery in Early Islam
Kecia Ali	‘Redeeming Slavery. The ‘Islamic State’ and the Quest for Islamic Morality’
Kecia Ali	‘Concubinage and Consent’
Khalil ʿAthamina	‘How Did Islam Contribute to Change the Legal Status of Women. The Case of the Jawārī or the Female Slaves’
Knut S. Vikør	Between God and the Sultan. A History of Islamic Law
Kristina Richardson	‘Singing Slave Girls (qiyan) of the ‘Abbasid Court in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries’
Kyle Harper	Slavery in the Late Roman World AD 275-425
Laila Lalami	The Moor’s Account
Leslie P. Peirce	Empress of the East. How a European Slave Girl Became Queen of the Ottoman Empire
Leslie P. Pierce	The Imperial Harem. Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire
Linda S. Northrup	From Slave to Sultan. The Career of al-Manṣūr Qalāwūn
Madeline Zilfi	Women and Slavery in the Late Ottoman Empire.
Marek Jankowiak	‘What Does the Slave Trade in the Saqaliba Tell Us about Early Islamic Slavery’
Maria Antonia Garces	Cervantes in Algiers. A Captive’s Tale
Maria Pia Pedani	‘Venetian Slaves in the Ottoman Empire in the Early Modern Period’
Marina Warner	Stranger Magic. Charmed States and the Arabian Nights
Mary Ann Fay	Unveiling the Harem: Elite Women and the Paradox of Seclusion in Eighteenth Century Cairo
Matthew Gordon	‘Unhappy Offspring? Concubines and Their Sons in Early Abbasid Society’
Matthew S. Gordon	‘Preliminary Remarks on Slaves and Slave Labor in the Third/Ninth Century ‘Abbāsid Empire’
Matthew S. Gordon	The Breaking of a Thousand Swords
Matthew S. Gordon	‘The Turkish Officers of Samarra. Revenue and the Exercise of Authority’
Matthew S. Gordon	‘Yearning and Disquiet. Al-Jāḥiẓ and the Risālat al-qiyān’
Matthew S. Gordon	‘The Place of Competition. The Careers of ʿArīb al-Maʾmūnīya and ʿUlayya bint al-Mahdī Sisters in Song’
Matthew S. Gordon and Kathryn A. Hain (eds)	Concubines and Courtesans. Women and Slavery in Islamic History Al-Andalus and the Mediterranean
Michael A. Gomez	African Dominion. A New History of Empire in Early and Medieval West Africa
Michael Ferguson and Ehud R. Toledano	‘Ottoman Slavery and Abolition in the Nineteenth Century’
Miriam Frenkel	‘Slavery in Jewish Medieval Society under Islam. A Gendered Perspective’
Mohammed Ennaji	Slavery, the State, and Islam
Nadia Maria El Cheikh	‘Gender and Politics in the Harem of al-Muqtadir’
Nadia Maria El Cheikh	‘Revisiting the Abbasid Harems’
Nadia Maria El Cheikh	‘Servants at the Gate. Eunuchs at the Court of al-Muqtadir’
Nadia Murad	The Last Girl. My Story of Captivity and My Fight against the Islamic State
Nehemia Levtzion and J.F.P. Hopkins	Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West African History
Noel Lenski	‘Captivity and Slavery among the Saracens in Late Antiquity (ca. 250-630 CE)’
Noel Lenski	‘Captivity, Slavery and Cultural Exchange between Rome and the Germans from the First to the Seventh Century CE’
Noel Lenski	‘Framing the Question: What Is a Slave Society?’
Olivia Remie Constable	‘Muslim Spain and Mediterranean Slavery: the Medieval Slave Trade as an Aspect of Muslim-Christian Relations’
Orlando Patterson	Slavery and Social Death. A Comparative Study
Paul E. Lovejoy	Transformations in Slavery. A History of Slavery in Africa
Paul E. Lovejoy	‘Identifying Enslaved Africans in the African Diaspora’
Paul E. Lovejoy	‘Islam, Slavery, and Political Transformation in West Africa. Constraints on the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade’
Peter B. Golden	‘The Terminology of Slavery and Servitude in Medieval Turkic’
Ralph Austen	‘The Mediterranean Islamic Slave Trade out of Africa. A Tentative Census’
Reuven Amitai	‘Military Slavery in the Islamic World. 1000 Years of a Social-Military Institution’.
Richard Brent Turner	‘African Muslim Slaves and Islam in Antebellum America’
Robert C. Davis	White Slaves, Muslim Masters. White Slavery in the Mediterranean, the Barbary Coast, and Italy
Robert Harms, Bernard K. Freamon and David W. Blight (eds)	Indian Ocean Slavery in the Age of Abolition
Ronald Segal	Islam’s Black Slaves. A History of Africa’s Other Black Diaspora
Rudolph T. Ware	‘Slavery in Islamic Africa. 1400-1800’
Ruth Bernard Yeazell	Harems of the Mind. Passages of Western Art and Literature
Sally Hadden	‘Law and Slavery’, http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199730414/obo-9780199730414-0153.xml
Shaun E. Marmon	‘Domestic Slavery in the Mamluk Empire. A Preliminary Sketch’
Shaun Marmon	‘Black Slaves in Mamlūk Narratives. Representations of Transgression’
Shirley Foster	‘Colonialism and Gender in the East. Representations of the Harem in the Writings of Women Travellers’
Suad Joseph (ed.)	Encyclopaedia of Women and Islamic Cultures
Suraiya Faroqhi	‘Black Slaves and Freedmen Celebrating (Aydin 1576)’
Suraiya Faroqhi	‘Quis custodiet custodes? Controlling Slave Identities and Slave Traders in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Istanbul’
Suraiya Faroqhi	Slavery in the Ottoman World. A Literature Survey
Sylvaine A. Diouf	Servants of Allah. African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas
Terence Walz and Kenneth M. Cuno (eds)	Race and Slavery in the Middle East
Timothy Cleaveland	‘Ahmad Baba al-Timbukti and his Islamic Critique of Racial Slavery in the Maghrib’
Ulrike Mitter	‘Unconditional Manumission of Slaves in Early Islamic Law. A Ḥadīth Analysis’
William D. Phillips Jr.	Slavery in Medieval and Early Modern Iberia
William Gervase Clarence-Smith	Islam and the Abolition of Slavery
William Gervase Clarence-Smith	Islam and the Abolition of Slavery
Y. Hakan Erdem	Slavery in the Ottoman Empire and its Demise
Yuval Rotman	Byzantine Slavery and the Mediterranean World

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15 March 2020

Slavery and Islam

Ma Malakat Aymanukum

The expression, “maa malakat aymanukum” in the Quran

Sharia

Five forms of slavery

Origins

Sex with slaves

Slavery and the Infidel in Islam

1. Introduction

2. Islam and Slavery

3. The Infidel in Islam

4. Conclusions

Qur'an, Hadith and Scholars: Slavery

Qur'an

Allah's Opinion of Slaves

Rape of Female Slaves or Captives

Freeing slaves is a good deed

Compassionate Islam and Ma malakat aymanukum (Right hand holds)

Slavery and Islam

Lady Maria the Coptic

Slavery in the Arabian Peninsula

Law and Slavery

Hadiths

External Links

Words

Literature/Books