In Defense of Slavery

بِسۡمِ اللّٰہِ الرَّحۡمٰنِ الرَّحِیۡمِ

‌قُدُّوسٌ ‌قُدُّوسٌ ‌قُدُّوسٌ

الصلاة والسلام عليك يا سيدي يا رسول الله

In the Name of Allah, the Rahman, the Merciful

Holy, Holy, Holy

Criticism of Islam usually revolves around its sanction or encouragement of certain practices, like slavery, child marriage, veiling of women, gender segregation, female circumcision, and more broadly the imposition of Shari’ah which discrimates again women and non-Muslims. The liberal reformists of our Community essentially agree with the non-Muslim critics of Islam and consider it necessary to reform the Religion so that these practices which are either sanctioned or taught by orthodox, traditional Islam are eliminated. The issue of slavery in particular is controversial, and its interplay with race in the history of its practice has been a major reason for humanity in general considering it an evil. The liberal reformists and others who declare slavery is now forbidden according to the principles and spirit of the Shari’ah argue that while the Quran and the Prophet, peace be upon him, did not explicitly forbid the practice of slavery, their teachings make it clear it is something undesirable and so it would be wrong to revive its practice in our time when it has been totally abolished. Allah, Holy and Exalted is He, says:

فَکُّ رَقَبَۃٍ

The freeing of a slave

(Surah 90, Ayah 13)

The fact that the Shari’ah prescribes the freeing of slaves as expiation for certain matters, such as not fasting for Ramadan, surely indicates that the spirit of Islam is for the emancipation of slaves. Yet to make this the basis for a fatwa that in our time reviving the institution of slavery is haram is extremely absurd and a clear example of manipulating the Shari’ah wrongly. The Holy Prophet, peace be upon him, and his Companions enslaved captives of war, including what the Quran refers to as “right-hand possessions” meaning female slaves with which the master is allowed to establish sexual relations. Slavery is therefore not inherently immoral otherwise it would have been absolutely and unconditionally prohibited in the sacred Shari’ah, nor would it have been practiced by the Holy Prophet, peace be upon him, and his Companions. Incidentally, the Bible, both the Old and New Testaments, sanctions slavery too. Rabbinic and Talmudic teaching interpret the Curse of Ham to mean that Ham was transformed into a black person and is therefore the progenitor of the Blacks:

תָּנוּ רַבָּנַן שְׁלֹשָׁה שִׁמְּשׁוּ בַּתֵּיבָה וְכוּלָּם לָקוּ כֶּלֶב וְעוֹרֵב וְחָם כֶּלֶב נִקְשַׁר עוֹרֵב רָק חָם לָקָה בְּעוֹרוֹ
The Sages taught: Three violated that directive and engaged in intercourse while in the ark, and all of them were punished for doing so. They are: The dog, and the raven, and Ham, son of Noah. The dog was punished in that it is bound; the raven was punished in that it spits, and Ham was afflicted in that his skin turned black (Sanhedrin 108b)

This interpretation of the Curse of Ham was accepted by many Christians too, and was their sanction for the practice of enslaving Black Africans during the Trans-Atlantic slave trade.
Historically, the practice of slavery among the Muslims and Arabs was predominantly manifested as enslavement of Black Africans. Many of the early Muslims seem to have accepted the Judeo-Christian legend concerning the Curse of Ham. This may even be reflected in a Hadith, although it is weak:

سَامٌ أَبُو الْعَرَبِ وَحَامٌ أَبُو الْحَبَشِ وَيَافِثُ أَبُو الرُّومِ

Shem is father of the Arabs, Ham is father of the Habash (Abyssinians) and Japheth is father of the Romans (Europeans) (Jami’ al-Tirmidhi)

Most recently, and even today, in some parts of Africa slavery is still practiced by Muslims. The lighter skin Arabs kept darker skin African slaves in the Sudan (a geographic region stretching from the Atlantic Coast, encompassing the Sahel, to the modern-day country of Sudan). One may still find this kind of racialized slavery practiced in Mauritania. My view is that while Islam condemns racism, and considers piety as the factor to determine superiority and inferiority and not race or color, it was totally justified for Arab Muslims to enslave the heathens and other non-Muslims among the Black African population. Blacks were enslaved by Europeans, Americans and Arabs for practical reasons, namely, visibility and a physique more suitable for manual labor. And is simply a fact, no matter how inconvenient or uncomfortable, that sub-Saharan African populations were not as advanced as the European and Asiatic civilizations and therefore naturally conquered and subjugated by the latter. This also explains the brutal European subjugation of aboriginal populations of the Americas and Australia. In summary, the historical Muslim Arab enslavement of Black Africans was not a religious phenomenon but a sociological one.