LE CORAN ET L'ESCLAVAGE DES INCROYANTS
The Koranic Sanction of Slavery
Posted on January 13, 2013
by creepingsharia
Islamic Slavery
Islamic slavery has been the most horrible, yet the least known slavery in history.
So, author M. A. Khan decided to publish the chapter “Islamic Slavery” from his book “Islamic Jihad: A Legacy of Forced Conversion, Imperialism and Slavery“.
INTRODUCTION
Slavery
is a socio-economic institution, in which some human individuals,
called slaves, become property of others, called masters or owners.
Devoid of freedom and liberty, slaves are expected to provide loyal and
diligent service for the comfort and economic well-being of their
masters. Deprived of any human rights, slaves are the unconditional
possession of their owners: mere chattels, having no right to leave,
refuse work, or receive compensation for their labor. The position of
slaves in society in many respects is akin to that of domesticated
animals. Just as cows, horses and other beasts of burden are trained and
utilized for economic advantage, such as for pulling carts or plowing
fields—slaves are exploited for the benefit, comfort and economic
well-being of the owner. Slave-trade, integral to slavery, involves
buying and selling of human beings as a commodity like any other
commercial transaction. Slavery, in essence, is the exploitation of the
weak by the strong and has a very long history.
One major criticism of the West by all,
and particularly by Muslims, pertains to the trans-Atlantic slave‑trade
by European powers and their mindless exploitation and degrading
treatment of slaves in the Americas and West Indies. Muslims are often
quick to point fingers at the European slave-trade; they often claim
that the exploitation of slaves enabled countries like the United States
to amass the huge wealth they enjoy today. One young Muslim, born in
America, wrote: ‘Do you know how the American slave-hunters went to
Africa, seized the black people and brought them to America as slaves?
America’s economic power owes a great deal to the labor of those slaves’ (personal communication). Terming the 350-year trans-Atlantic slave-trade ‘the worst and most cruel slavery’ in history, the Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan claims that some white Americans do not know that ‘they are in the privileged position… today based on what happened to us (Blacks)’ in the past.[1]
An overwhelming majority of Muslims believe that Islamic history is
devoid of the abhorrent practice of slavery. Rocky Davis (aka Shahid
Malik), an Australian Aboriginal convert to Islam, told the ABC Radio
that ‘Christianity were the founders of slavery. Not Islam.’[2]
When Muslims in India talk about the practice of slavery in the
subcontinent—they talk about the harrowing tales of how the Portuguese
transported slaves from coastal areas of Goa, Kerala and Bengal in
terrible conditions. It is already noted that history books in Pakistan
teach that before Islam, there was exploitation and slavery, which
vanished with the coming of Islam. They will never talk about the
slavery that Muslim invaders and rulers practiced on a grand scale in
India.
This Muslim silence about the widespread
practice slavery under Islamic rules, such as in India, likely results
from their ignorance of historical facts. In modern history writing in
India, there is extensive whitewashing of the atrocities that took place
during the Muslim invasions and the subsequent Islamic rule. Such
distortions of the true picture of Islamic history compound Muslims’
ignorance about Islamic atrocities in medieval India and create an
erroneous perception amongst them about the extensive slavery practised
by Muslim rulers. As recounted throughout this book, slavery was
regrettably a prominent institution throughout the history of Islamic
domination everywhere. It also had unique features, namely large-scale
concubinage, eunuchs, and ghilman (described below).
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THE QURANIC SANCTION OF SLAVERY
The institution of slavery in Islam was
formalized in the following Quranic verse, in which Allah distinguishes
free human beings or masters, who exercise justice and righteousness,
from the dumb, useless and burdensome ones, the slaves:
Allah sets forth (another) Parable of two
men: one of them dumb, with no power of any sort; a wearisome burden is
he to his master; whichever way he directs him, he brings no good: is
such a man equal with one who commands Justice, and is on a Straight
Way? [Quran 16:76]
Allah warns the believers against taking
the slaves as equal partner in status and in sharing their wealth, lest
they have to fear them as anyone else:
…do ye have partners among those whom
your right hands possess (i.e., slaves, captives) to share as equals in
the wealth We have bestowed on you? Do ye fear them as ye fear each
other? [Quran 30:28][3]
Allah recognizes some human beings,
namely the masters, as more blessed by Himself than the less favored
slaves as part of His divine plan. He warns Muslims against sharing His
gifts to them equally with their slaves. Those who would take slaves as
equal, warns Allah, would deny Him:
Allah has bestowed His gifts of
sustenance more freely on some of you than on others: those more
favoured are not going to throw back their gifts to those whom their
right hands possess, so as to be equal in that respect. Will they then
deny the favours of Allah? [Quran 16:71]
Allah does not only sanction the
institution of slavery, He also gave divine blessing to masters (Muslim
men only can own slaves) to have sex with the female slaves:
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 [Quran 70:29–30]
And who guard their private parts, except
before their mates or those whom their right hands possess, for they
surely are not blameable [Quran 23:5–6]
Therefore, if there are women amongst the
captives or slaves, Muslims are divinely sanctioned to have sex with
them as they do with their wives. This verdict of Allah founded the
institution of sex-slavery or slave-concubinage in Islam, which was
widespread in the pre-colonial Muslim world and continued well into the
mid-twentieth century. As far as legal marriage is concerned, there is a
limitation of four wives for a man at one time [Quran 4:3], but no such
limitation on the number of sex-slaves.
Allah also gave a divine sanction to
Muslims for acquiring female slaves for sexual engagement by waging wars
against the infidels:
O Prophet! surely We have made lawful to
you your wives whom you have given their dowries, and those whom your
right hand possesses out of those whom Allah has given to you as prisoners of war… [Quran 33:50]
Muslims can engage in sex with the captured slave women even if they are married, but not with the married free Muslim women:
Also (prohibited are) women already married, except those whom your right hands possess… [Quran 4:24].
There are other verses in the Quran that
talks approvingly of slaves and capturing them in wars. Thus, according
to the divine commands of the Islamic God as enshrined in the holy
Quran, Muslims are allowed to keep slaves. They can amass slaves by
waging wars, have sex with the female slaves, and of course, use them as
they wish. For Muslims, having sex with female slaves is as legal as
having sex with their married wives. Slavery appears to be one of the
most desired divine privileges in Islam, since Allah took the pain of
reminding Muslims about this divine right time and again in so many verses.
___________________________
THE PROPHETIC MODEL OF SLAVERY
Allah did not rest with repeatedly
reminding Muslims to engage in slavery, but also took the initiative to
guide Prophet Muhammad on how to enslave the infidels, such as in the
following verse:
And He (Allah) brought those of the
People of the Scripture (i.e., Banu Qurayza) who supported them (i.e.,
the Quraysh) down from their strongholds, and cast panic into their
hearts. Some (adult males) ye slew, and ye made captive some (women and children)… [Quran 33:26–27]
In this verse, Allah charged the Banu
Qurayza Jews with supporting the Quraysh of Mecca “from their
strongholds” against Muslims in the battle of the Trench (627). Based on
this unsubstantiated accusation, Allah commanded that some of the Jews,
the adult males, were to be slain, and the rest, the women and
children, enslaved. The Prophet duly complied with this divine command.
He distributed the enslaved women and children among his disciples,
himself acquiring one-fifth of them. The young and pretty ones amongst
the female captives were made sex-slaves; the Prophet himself took
beautiful Rayhana, whose husband and family members had been slain in
the massacre. He took her to bed on the same night.[4]
After conquering Khaybar the following
year, Muhammad carried away their women and children as slaves. In many
other attacks, the Prophet and his followers enslaved and carried away
the women and children of the vanquished. Therefore, after aggressively
attacking and defeating the infidels, enslaving the women and children
became a model of Muhammad’s wars. Some of the slaves could be sold or
ransomed for generating revenues. The young and pretty ones amongst the
female captives became sex-slaves.
Since emulating Muhammad in action and
deed is central to living a good Muslim life in Islamic thought, Muslims
duly embraced his model of slavery (comprising enslavement, slave-trade
and slave-concubinage) and perpetuated it during the later centuries of
Islamic domination. Muhammad’s example of dealing with the Jews of Banu
Qurayza or Khaybar became the standard template for capturing slaves.
This led to a massive rise in enslavement, sex-slavery and slave-trade
in medieval Islamdom. After Muhammad’s death, Muslims—armed with
sanctions of the Quran and Sunnah—embarked on an unbridled
mission of waging holy war to conquer the world for the purpose of
spreading Islam and expanding Islamic rule. As Islam burst out of
Arabia, Muslim invaders became adept at capturing the vanquished
infidels, particularly the women and children, in large numbers as
slaves.
In Islamic thoughts (as noted already), the civilizations preceding and outside of Islam are jahiliyah
or erroneous in nature, invalidated with the coming of Islam. Only
Muslims were in the sole possession of truth in the form of the true
faith of Islam. In their thoughts, the world outside the boundary and
religion of Islam, notes Bernard Lewis, ‘was inhabited by the
infidels and barbarians. Some of these were recognized as possessing
some form of religion and a tincture of civilization.
The remainder,
polytheists and idolaters, were seen primarily as sources of slaves.’
[5]
Muslims captured slaves in such great numbers that slave-trade became a
booming business enterprise; markets across the Muslim world became
teeming with slaves. Accordingly, ‘it goes to the credit of Islam to create slave trade on a large scale, and run it for profit like any other business,’ writes Lal.[6]
All footnotes viewable at link above.
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