Slavery in Islamic Law

1. Islamic principle: People are born free, slavery is temporary.

The Quran states,


“O mankind, indeed We have created you from a male (Adam) and a female (Eve) and made you into various families and tribes that you may know one another.  Indeed, the most honored of you in God’s sight is the most pious of you.” (Quran 49:13)

The Prophet of Islam declared,


‘All of you are from Adam and Adam was created from dust.’


The principle that human beings are born free and slavery is accidental is accepted by all the scholars of Islam.  Few important consequences of this principle are:

Voluntary slavery is not allowed.  A free person cannot become a slave even if he wants to.

A free person cannot be enslaved.  The interesting point is that Muslim theologians did not decide it, but the Prophet of Islam, Muhammad, may the mercy and blessings of God be upon him , declared it to be a sin 1400 years ago.  He said, “There are three types of people against whom I shall myself be a plaintiff on the Day of Judgement.  Of these three, one is he who enslaves a free man, then sells him, and consumes this money.”

An unclaimed child with unknown parentage was to be treated as a free person even if the child appeared to have slave parents.

2. A slave was granted respect and human dignity.

The very word “slave” in English has extremely negative connotations of barbaric treatment.  Compare it with how the Prophet of Mercy spoke about slaves 1400 years ago,


“Your slaves are your brothers! God has placed them in your care.  So, whose brother is under his care, he should feed him what he eats and dress him how he dresses.  And do not burden them beyond their capacities; but if you burden them (with an unbearable burden), then help them (by sharing their extra burden).”


“When the servant of anyone amongst you prepares food for him and has undergone its hardship of heat and smoke, he should make him (the servant) sit along with him and make him eat (along with him), and if he does not do that, then he should spare some portion for him.”


The Prophet of Mercy forbade hitting the slaves.  He declared that the atonement of hitting or slapping a slave is to set him free.


Moreover, a slave is not be addressed with hurtful words.  The Prophet of Mercy stated not to address them as, ‘My slave boy or my slave girl.” He said, “All of you are slaves of God!” Address them with, “O my young man, O my young lady!”


Umar ibn al-Khattab, the second ruler-caliph of Islam, was so fond of Salim, a freed slave that he wished to appoint Salim to be the ruler-caliph if he were alive.  Salim used to lead the Muslims in prayer, which is considered an honor in Islamic tradition.

3. Islam did not initiate the system of slavery.  It existed in Judaism, Christianity, India, and China before Islam.

Since the earliest times, Islam had opened doors to free slaves and to eventually end slavery.  The Islamic paradigm did not ignore the realities of the world, nor did it endorse it.  Islam regulated it.  As Annemarie Schimmel, a German scholar, noted, “…therefore slavery is theoretically doomed to disappear with the expansion of Islam.”


Shariah Law severely limited the channels in which the number of slaves could multiply.  The only source of slavery was captives of legitimate war and the children born to slave parents.  In case of war, the captives were not required to be enslaved.  The Muslim scripture laid other options of dealing with them as well:

Unconditional freedom (Quran 47:4)

Ransom (Quran 47:4)

After limiting the sources of new slaves, Islamic law dealt with the reality of the existing slaves.

4.  Islam granted equal religious rights to the free and the slave and in most civil matters.  Their special laws were to make their jobs easier.

Slaves were at the same footing of a freeman in terms of religious obligations, as well as reward and punishment from God.  A slave’s testimony was considered acceptable.  A slave had right to personal belongings and property.  Slaves were

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equal in retribution of blood-money.  They were to be helped to legally win their freedom if they so chose through a mechanism known as mukataba and tadbeer.  This mechanism is enshrined in the Muslim scripture by God in 24:33.

5.  Islam made freeing slaves an act of worship pleasing to God.

It set freeing of slaves as atonement of sins and for specific acts of transgression.  Muslims were encouraged to willingly set slaves free to release themselves from the torment of Hell Fire.  The state was also a source of setting the slaves free as Islamic Law dictates that zakah – obligatory charity given by wealthy Muslims to the state – is to be spend on setting slaves free among other things (Quran 9:60).

6. Islam integrated slaves into the mainstream society.

The issue of integration of freed slaves into the mainstream society has been discussed by some contemporary scholars.  The Islamic solution was to integrate them into the society by making them part of the tribes and families.  The system was known as “wala.” The Prophet of Islam said, ‘Freeing slaves is like establishing relations by blood.’

🍃Some Historical Observations:

Abul Ala Maududi writes in his paper, ‘The Position of Slavery in Islam,’ “The Prophet alone liberated as many as 63 slaves.  The number of slaves freed by ‘Aishah was 67, ‘Abbas liberated 70, ‘Abd Allah ibn ‘Umar liberated one thousand, and ‘Abd al-Rahman purchased thirty thousand and set them free.”

“Zaid, the freedman of the Prophet, was often entrusted with the command of troops, and the noblest captains served under him without demur; and his son ‘Osâma was honored with the leadership of the expedition sent by Abû Bakr against the Greeks.  Kutb ud-dîn, the first king of Delhi, and the true founder, therefore, of the Musulman empire in India, was a slave.”

“The entire history of Islam proves that slaves could occupy any office, and many former military slaves, usually recruited from among the Central Asian Turks, became military leaders and often even rulers as in eastern Iran, India (the Slave Dynasty of Delhi), and medieval Egypt (the Mamluks).”

“As for Saudi Arabia’s slaves, they shared the same food, clothes and homes as their owners and many of them became rulers of vast regions in the land and were active in the running of the state.”

“…Saudi Arabia’s late abolition of slavery.  Slavery in Saudi Arabia was abolished in 1962…that is because Saudi Arabia did not exist as a modern state before 1932, which means it took thirty years after its creation to end slavery, and that without a civil war.”

Source: https://www.islamreligion.com

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كيف تعامل غير المسلمين مع العبيد؟

How did non-Muslims treat slaves? 

🍂Attitude of the Jews towards slaves: 


According to the Jews, mankind is divided into two groups: the Israelites form one group and all of mankind is another group.  

As for the Israelites, it is permissible to enslave some of them, according to specific teachings contained in the Old Testament. 

As for people other than the Israelites, they are a low-class race according to the Jews, who may be enslaved via domination and subjugation, because they are people who are doomed to humiliation by the heavenly decree from eternity. It says in Exodus 21:2-6: 

“If you buy a Hebrew servant, he is to serve you for six years. But in the seventh year, he shall go free, without paying anything.


3 If he comes alone, he is to go free alone; but if he has a wife when he comes, she is to go with him.


4 If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the woman and her children shall belong to her master, and only the man shall go free.


 5 But if the servant declares, 'I love my master and my wife and children and do not want to go free,'


6 then his master must take him before the judges. He shall take him to the door or the doorpost and pierce his ear with an awl. Then he will be his servant for life” 

As for enslaving non-Hebrews, this is done by taking them captive or overpowering them, because they believe that their race is superior to others, and they try to find a justification for that slavery in their distorted Torah. So they say that Ham the son of Noah – who was the father of Canaan – angered his father, because Noah was drunk one day and became naked as he was sleeping in his tent, and Ham saw him like that. When Noah found out about that after he woke up, he got angry and he cursed his progeny who were descendents of Canaan, and he said – according to the Book of Genesis 9:25-26): “Cursed be Canaan! The lowest of slaves will he be to his brothers.’ He also said, ‘Blessed be the LORD, the God of Shem! May Canaan be the slave of Shem.’” 

In the same chapter (v. 27) it says: “May God extend the territory of Japheth; may Japheth live in the tents of Shem, and may Canaan be his [or their] slave”. 

In the Book of Deuteronomy 20:10-14, it says: 

“When you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace.


11 If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you.


12 If they refuse to make peace and they engage you in battle, lay siege to that city.


13 When the LORD your God delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the men in it.


14 As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves” 

🍂Attitude of the Christians towards slaves: 


Christianity confirmed slavery as it had been affirmed beforehand by Judaism. There is no text in the Gospels that prohibits or denounces slavery. It is remarkable that the historian William Muir criticized our Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) for not immediately abolishing slavery, whilst overlooking the attitude of the Gospels concerning slavery, as there is no report from the Messiah, or from the Disciples, or from the churches concerning this issue. 

Rather, in his Epistles, Paul advised that slaves should be loyal to their masters, as he says in his Epistle to the Ephesians, where he enjoins slaves to obey their masters as they would obey the Messiah: 

“5 Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ.


6 Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but like slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart.


7 Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men,


8 because you know that the Lord will reward everyone for whatever good he does, whether he is slave or free”

(Ephesians 6:5-9). 

In Grand Larousse encyclopédique, it says: It comes as no surprise that slavery has continued among Christians until today; the official representatives of the faith have affirmed its validity and accepted its legitimacy. 

… to sum up: the Christian religion approved fully of slavery and still does so today. It is very difficult for anyone to prove that Christianity strove to abolish slavery. 

The saints affirmed that nature makes some people slaves. 

Churchmen did not prevent slavery or oppose it; rather they supported it, to such an extent that the philosopher saint Thomas Aquinas supported the philosophical view that agreed with the view of religious leaders, and he did not object to slavery, rather he praised it because – according to the view of Aristotle – it is one of the conditions in which some people are created naturally, and it does not contradict faith for a man to be content with the lowest position in life. 

Haqaa’iq al-Islam by al-‘Aqqaad (p. 215). 

In the Dictionary of the Bible by Dr. George Yousuf it says: Christianity did not object to slavery for political or economic reasons, and it did not urge believers to oppose their generation’s views with regard to slavery, or even debate it, and it did not say anything against the rights of slave owners or motivate the slaves to seek independence; it did not discuss the harm or harshness of slavery and it did not enjoin the immediate release of slaves.  

It did not change anything in the nature of the relationship between master and slave; on the contrary, it affirmed the rights and duties of both parties. 

🍂Contemporary Europe and slavery 


It is the reader’s right, in this era of advancement and progress, to ask questions about the pioneers of this progress and the numbers of people who died because of the way in which they were hunted, and who died on their way to the coast where the ships of the English Company and others would wait, then the rest died due to changes in climate. Approximately 4% died as they were being loaded onto the ships, and 12 % during the journey, let alone those who died in the colonies. 

The slave trade continued at the hands of English companies that obtained the right of monopoly with the permission of the British government, then gave free rein to British subjects to enslave people. Some experts estimate that the total number of people seized by the British during slavery and exiled to the colonies between 1680 and 1786 CE was around 2,130,000. 

When Europe made contact with Black Africa, this contact led to human misery during which the black people of that continent were faced with a major calamity that lasted for five centuries. The states of Europe came up with evil ways of kidnapping these people and bringing them to their lands to serve as fuel for their revival, where they burdened them with more work than they could bear. When America was discovered, the calamity increased and they became slaves in two continents instead of just one. 

The Encyclopaedia Britannica says (2/779) on the topic of slavery: Hunting slaves in the villages that were surrounded by the jungle was done by lighting fires in the straw of which the corrals surrounding the villages were made, then when the villagers fled to open land, the British hunted them down with whatever means they had at their disposal.  

During the period from 1661 to 1774, for every million Black Africans who reached the Americas, a further nine million died during the hunting, loading and transportation. In other words, only one tenth of those who were hunted survived and actually reached the Americas, where they found no rest or relief, rather they were subjected to hard labour and torture. 

At that time, they had laws which any wise person would be ashamed of. 

Among these evil laws were those which said that any slave who transgressed against his master was to be killed, and any slave who ran away was to have his hands and feet cut off, and he was to be branded with hot iron; if he ran away again, he was to be killed.

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How could he run away if his hands and feet had been cut off?! 

It was forbidden for a black man to become educated, and the jobs of whites were forbidden to coloureds. 

In America, if seven black people gathered together, that was regarded as a crime, and if a white man passed by them it was permissible for him to spit at them and give them twenty lashes. 

Another law stated that the blacks had no soul and that they possessed no smartness, intelligence or willpower, and that life existed only in their arms. 

To sum up, with regard to his duties and service to his master, the slave was regarded as sane, responsible and punishable if he fell short, but with regard to his rights, he had no soul and no being, and he was not more than a strong pair of arms! 

Finally, after many centuries of enslavement and oppression, there came the protocol to abolish slavery and strive to put an end to it, in a resolution issued by the United Nations in 1953 CE.

When a Western person asks whether Islam approves of slavery, my answer is a definite ‘No’.

What Islam has is a system that is as akin to slavery as the American sport which involves players hold an oval ball tight to their chests and fight against their opponents, wearing metal helmets, is akin to football. They call it American Football, when it is everything but football. It should have a different name. The same is the case with Islam. It has a system which is everything but slavery, even though it involves that some people are called "slaves"

Anybody who knows something about slavery realises that a slave loses his humanity and becomes an ‘object’ whose owner can do whatever takes his fancy. A master could kill his slave to relieve his own boredom, or he may torture him to death, or work him day and night. Such is the underlying rule of slavery. These are not isolated cases, but basics of slavery as anyone who saw the film 12 Years a Slave or Django Unchained   clearly knows, do you remember the scene in which dogs are eating slaves alive?

Do you remember that? Now, Do you realise that this actually happened?

I bet you didn’t think of it. But this is  normal. Because again.. A slave loses his humanity and becomes an object owned by his master. 

Under Islam the whole thing is different. A slave retains his humanity. No measure of ill-treatment of slaves, however small, is permissible. Even assigning a task that is too hard for the slave to do is not permissible. If such a task must be completed, then Islam requires the master to help the slave and work with him. Such was the commandment of Prophet Muhammad: ‘Do not charge them with tasks they cannot fulfil. If you do, then help them’.

These are better work conditions than those endured by countless employees of some multi-national companies. Moreover, a slave should be given of the same food and clothes as the master. The Prophet says: ‘Your servants are your brethren whom God has placed under you. Whoever has a brother under him should feed him as he eats and give him clothes as he wears’.

It may be said: ‘Still you are called a slave; aren’t you? It is better to be free, even if you have to endure worse conditions. A free bird is better than one in a golden cage’.

This is perfectly true. Therefore, God has given slaves the right to free themselves.

WHAT .. are you kidding me?  You are kidding right?

No I am not

Under Islam, a slave could enter into a contractual agreement with his master giving the master an agreed amount of money in return for the slave’s freedom.

WAIT>>> Does this mean that a slave can be financially independent?

Answer is: Yes.

Now, Do you still think that this system has any comparison with modern slavery? Under modern slavery, a ‘free’ person is made to work throughout his entire life in return for pittance granted by multi-national companies whose profits are in tons of billions of dollars. They are practically slaves.

Our world has promoted sexual slavery under which thousands of women are employed in the pornographic industry. These women are given long-term contracts that pay 90% of them hardly enough to live on and educate their children. Most of the so-called sex workers have acknowledged that their work undermines their future as it gives them no chance to take up any respectable employment. They are practically slaves.

Do you know that the United States enslaved four million innocent Africans and placed them under the conditions I have described? In terms of today’s money, a slave was sold for 12,000 dollars. By 1850 American slaves then represented what was equal to one-fifth of the national wealth of the United States. Yet this is not worse than present day conditions as an unprecedented number of people are today enslaved, doing hard jobs and enforced prostitution in various parts of the world, at the bargain price of 90 dollars per head. This is cheaper than the price of a pair of trainers from Nike.

Now It may be said

But  Islam imposes slavery on captives of war; does it not?

The answer is yes, Undoubtedly.

If you were taken captive in war, would you prefer to be a slave under Islamic conditions I have described, or would you try your luck under the Geneva conventions as they are applied in Abu Ghreib prison, for example?

Or Guantanamo?

Or the German concentration camps?

Or in Syria? Or Israel?

Answer me. Point to me on a time and place map, which conditions do you prefer as a war captive?

Right, I would choose Islam too.