Slavery in Islamic Law: Difference between revisions

Slavery was a widespread institution in antiquity and a major topic of Islamic legal jurisprudence, which addressed matters of buying and selling slaves, rights of owners including sexual relations, marriage, and many other facets. The two legitimate sources of slaves agreed upon by the Ulama were captives taken in war, and children born to slaves (unless the slave-owner was the father), though in practice various other means of slave acquisition occurred. The Quran assumes the existence of slavery and grants sexual access to slave owners, including for the prophet himself to enjoy from among the war-captives in his possession, as well as control over their marital status. It commands taking captives from the defeated disbelievers, though also that they be ransomed or released until the war is over, and encourages owners to grant contracts by which virtuous slaves may purchase their freedom, a practice also found in other late antique cultures. Slavery was a major feature of the Islamic world for over a thousand years. Largely as a result of pressure from colonial powers as well as economic and demographic changes, slavery was eventually made illegal throughout the Muslim world in the 19th and 20th centuries (though as of the 2020s persists illegally in a few places such as Mauritania<ref>As of the early 2020s, human rights groups estimate that 20% of the population are still enslaved including children https://www.newarab.com/features/modern-day-child-slaves-mauritania<BR />Mauritania abolished slavery in 1981, but only criminalised slave ownership in 2007 and introduced punishment in 2015</ref>), and is now considered forbidden in the modern context by most scholars, though a minority argue that slavery remains Islamically legitimate.<ref>"Although the vast majority of contemporary Muslims agree that there is no place for slavery in the modern world, and some nineteenth and twentieth-century reformers such as Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan opposed the practice, the pressure to abolish slavery generally came from some combination of European colonial powers and economic and demographic shifts [...] Although abolition did eventually occur, there was not a strong internally developed critique of slaveholding based in religious principles."<BR />Kecia Ali, Sexual Ethics and Islam, London: Oneworld Publications, 2006, pp. 42 ff.</ref>

While a number of times the Quran addresses its listeners who are already in possession of slaves, it has little to say regarding the acquisition of slaves. {{Quran|16|71}} states that it is by Allah's favour that slave owners have greater provision than their slaves, and that they are a separate category in recompense in cases of intentional death in {{Quran|2|178-179}}. {{Quran|8|67}} and {{Quran|33|50}} grants the prophet the right to take captives and makes lawful his sexual intercourse with them, respectively. {{Quran|47|4}} tells the believers to take captives from the defeated disbelievers, but then adds that they be released or ransomed until the war lays down its burdens.

The Quran presents the freeing of slaves as a virtuous act ({{Quran|2|177}}, {{Quran-range|90|12|17}}) as well as an expiation for certain sins ({{Quran|4|92}}, {{Quran|5|89}}). Hadiths add that slaves should be freed if they are slapped in the face or beaten without good cause. On the other hand, hadiths narrate numerous occasions when Muhammad made use of slaves or refer to him having concubines. There are also hadiths narrating incidents when Muhammad disapproved of companions who freed their slaves (see for example {{Muslim|15|4112}} or {{Bukhari|3|47|765}}).

As mentioned above, a concubine who gives birth to her owner's child attains the status of Umm Walad (mother of the child). She can no longer be sold (due to a ruling by Caliph Umar according to {{Abu Dawud||3943|Hasan}} and {{Ibn Majah||3|19|2517}}), is set free upon her owner's death, and their child is free from birth.  

A number of rights are given to slaves by Muhammad in one hadith. {{Bukhari|1|2|29}} reports Muhammad stating that "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."  

One verse allows believers to marry captives who already have husbands. Traditionally, this was revealed after a battle following which Muhammad's men were uncertain whether or not they could have sexual relations with the female captives who had mushrik husbands (see {{Muslim|8|3432}}). The mushrikun were those who associated partners with Allah (often translated as "pagans" or "polytheists").

Although Muhammad's men seem to have had intercourse with captive mushrik women whom they had captured during the expedition to Awtas/Autas ({{Muslim|8|3432}}), most jurists later ruled that this was later forbidden by {{Quran|2|221}} (the verse only forbids marriage to mushrik women, but scholars inferred that this also applied to intercourse with slaves). Intercourse with Muslim, Christian, or Jewish slaves was not affected by this restriction.<ref>{{Citation|url=https://www.islamweb.net/en/fatwa/272452/|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20201227215257/https://www.islamweb.net/en/fatwa/272452/|title=Ruling on sexual intercourse with one's polytheistic slave-woman|date=November 14, 2014|publisher=Islamweb.net}}</ref>