What does Islam say about slavery? Tags: prisoners of war, slavery, freedom, emancipation, history, ethics, abolition, concubinage, human rights, Islam, ma malakat aymanukum In a Nutshell: Slavery is one of the most difficult topics in Islamic history and jurisprudence, and engaging with it honestly requires acknowledging both what the Islamic tradition achieved and what it did not. Islam did not abolish slavery outright in the seventh century. The core confusion is caused by the term slavery and its association with the European North Atlantic slave trade where free people were "enslaved" or "captured" for no good reason. In Islam the concept is equivalent to "prisoners of war" where prisoners are captured and have to be dealt with. This is an ongoing historic practice and Islam reformed all abuses regarding prisoners of war clarifying ethical practices that should be followed. What it did was introduce a comprehensive programme of reform that dramatically improved the conditions of enslaved people, established multiple mechanisms for their emancipation, made the freeing of slaves one of the most meritorious acts a Muslim could perform, and set in motion a trajectory that pointed unmistakably towards abolition even if it did not reach that destination within the classical period. The Quran identifies the freeing of slaves as an act of supreme righteousness (Quran 90:12 to 13), prescribes emancipation as the expiation for numerous sins (including breaking an oath, accidental killing, and the violation of the Ramadan fast), and includes the freeing of captives as one of the eight categories of zakat expenditure (Quran 9:60). The Prophet (pbuh) freed enslaved people, encouraged others to do so, and declared that "whoever frees a Muslim slave, Allah will save all the parts of his body from the Fire" (Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim). At the same time, the classical Islamic legal tradition regulated slavery rather than prohibiting it. Introduction There is no way to write about slavery in Islam without discomfort, and that discomfort is appropriate. Slavery is, by any modern moral standard, a profound violation of human dignity. The fact that it was practised in virtually every human civilisation, including Islamic civilisation, does not diminish its moral gravity. The fact that Islam introduced significant reforms does not eliminate the need to grapple with the aspects of the tradition that permitted the institution to continue. This article is written for two audiences. The first is the Muslim who encounters the slavery question as a challenge to Islam's moral authority and who needs to understand what the tradition actually says, in its strength and in its complexity, rather than reaching for defensive slogans. The second is the non-Muslim who has been told that Islam "endorses slavery" and who deserves a more honest and more complete account than that claim provides. The approach of this article is neither apologetic nor accusatory. It presents the primary sources, the classical legal framework, the historical context, and the strongest criticisms, and it trusts the reader to form their own assessment. Evidences Quranic Verses "And what can make you know what is the difficult path? It is the freeing of a slave." (Quran 90:12 to 13) This verse identifies the freeing of a slave as the paradigmatic act of moral difficulty and spiritual ascent, placing it at the summit of righteous action. "Righteousness is not that you turn your faces toward the east or the west, but true righteousness is in one who believes in Allah, the Last Day, the angels, the Book, and the prophets and gives wealth, in spite of love for it, to relatives, orphans, the needy, the traveller, those who ask, and for freeing slaves." (Quran 2:177) "Zakat expenditures are only for the poor and for the needy and for those employed to collect it and for bringing hearts together and for freeing captives (fi al-riqab) and for those in debt and for the cause of Allah and for the stranded traveller." (Quran 9:60) "And those who seek a contract of emancipation (mukatabah) from among whom your right hands possess, then make a contract with them if you know there is within them goodness and give them from the wealth of Allah which He has given you." (Quran 24:33) This verse not only permits but actively encourages enslaved people to seek contractual emancipation and obligates their owners to assist them financially. "Allah will not impose blame upon you for what is meaningless in your oaths, but He will impose blame upon you for what you intended of oaths. So its expiation is the feeding of ten needy people from the average of that which you feed your own families or clothing them or the freeing of a slave." (Quran 5:89) "And never is it for a believer to kill a believer except by mistake. And whoever kills a believer by mistake, then the freeing of a believing slave and a compensation payment presented to the deceased's family is required." (Quran 4:92) "And those who pronounce zihar against their wives and then wish to go back on what they said, then the freeing of a slave before they touch one another." (Quran 58:3) Hadiths The Prophet (pbuh) said: "Whoever frees a Muslim slave, Allah will save all the parts of his body from the Fire as he has freed the body parts of the slave." (Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim) The Prophet (pbuh) said: "Feed them from what you eat and clothe them from what you wear. Do not burden them with what overwhelms them. If you do burden them, then help them." (Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim) The Prophet (pbuh) said: "Your slaves are your brothers. Allah has placed them under your authority. Whoever has a brother under his authority should feed him from what he eats and clothe him from what he wears and should not burden him with what overwhelms him. If he burdens him, let him help him." (Sahih al-Bukhari) The Prophet (pbuh) said: "None of you should say 'my slave' (abdi) or 'my slave-girl' (amati). Say instead 'my young man' (fataya) or 'my young woman' (fatati)." (Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim) This instruction to change the very language of the relationship is significant: it refused to allow the dehumanising terminology to persist. The Prophet (pbuh) freed Zayd ibn Harithah (ra) and adopted him as a son. Bilal ibn Rabah (ra), an enslaved Abyssinian who was tortured by his owner for accepting Islam, was freed by Abu Bakr (ra) at great expense and became the first muezzin of Islam. Abu Dharr (ra) reported that the Prophet (pbuh) said: "Whoever slaps his slave or hits him, his expiation is to free him." (Sahih Muslim) Companions' Opinions Abu Bakr al-Siddiq (ra) spent a significant portion of his personal wealth purchasing and freeing enslaved Muslims who were being persecuted for their faith in Makkah. His freeing of Bilal (ra) is one of the most celebrated acts of the early Muslim community. Umar ibn al-Khattab (ra) is reported to have said: "Since when have you enslaved people when their mothers bore them free?" This statement, made in response to an Egyptian Muslim who had been abused by the son of the governor of Egypt, encapsulates the moral trajectory of the Islamic tradition towards the recognition of inherent human freedom. Ali ibn Abi Talib (ra) is reported to have treated those in his service with exceptional kindness and to have shared food, clothing, and living conditions with them, consistent with the Prophetic instruction. Traditional Scholars' Quotes Ibn Ashur (20th century): In "Maqasid al-Shari'ah al-Islamiyyah," Ibn Ashur argued that the overall trajectory of Islamic legislation on slavery was towards abolition, and that the Quran's emphasis on emancipation, combined with the progressive restriction of the sources of enslavement, constituted a clear legislative intent to eliminate the institution. Ahmad Shafaat (contemporary): In his analysis of Islamic slavery law, Shafaat argued that the Quran's treatment of slavery can only be understood as a graduated programme of reform designed to eliminate the institution within the constraints of a society that was economically and socially dependent upon it. Al-Qaradawi (contemporary): In "The Lawful and the Prohibited in Islam," al-Qaradawi stated that slavery in its historical form is no longer permissible and that the Islamic principles of human dignity and freedom require its permanent abolition. Analysis: What Islam Actually Did About Slavery Understanding Islam's relationship with slavery requires understanding both what existed before Islam and what Islam changed. Pre-Islamic Arabian slavery was unrestricted: people could be enslaved for any reason, there were no limits on the treatment of enslaved people, there were no mechanisms for emancipation, and enslaved people had no legal rights. The institution was woven into the economic and social fabric of the Arabian Peninsula and of the broader ancient world. Islam's intervention operated on multiple levels simultaneously. First, it dramatically restricted the sources of enslavement. The only legitimate source of new slaves in Islamic law was the capture of combatants in a legitimate war (prisoners of war), and even this was not the only option: the Quran permits the ruler to free prisoners of war without ransom, to exchange them for Muslim prisoners, or to ransom them (Quran 47:4). The enslaving of free people through kidnapping, debt bondage, or any other means was categorically prohibited. This single restriction eliminated most of the mechanisms by which slavery was sustained in the pre-Islamic world. Second, it created multiple pathways to emancipation. The Quran prescribes the freeing of slaves as the expiation for oaths (5:89), accidental killing (4:92), zihar (58:3), and the breaking of the Ramadan fast. It designates the freeing of captives as one of the eight categories of zakat expenditure (9:60). It encourages mukatabah (contractual emancipation, 24:33), in which the enslaved person negotiates a price for their freedom and the owner is obligated to assist them from their own wealth. It identifies the freeing of a slave as the paradigmatic act of righteousness (90:12 to 13). The Prophet (pbuh) freed slaves and encouraged others to do so with extraordinary frequency. The cumulative effect of these mechanisms was the creation of a constant, institutionalised pressure towards emancipation that had no parallel in any other pre-modern legal system. Third, it transformed the conditions of those who remained enslaved. The Prophet's instructions to feed enslaved people from the same food the owner eats, to clothe them from the same clothing the owner wears, not to overburden them, and to help them with difficult tasks established a framework of rights and dignities that fundamentally altered the character of the institution. Enslaved people in Islamic law had the right to food, clothing, shelter, and kind treatment. They could own property (in most schools), could marry, and could seek legal redress against abusive owners. The Quran's instruction to the owner to grant mukatabah "if you know there is within them goodness" (24:33) implicitly treats the desire for freedom as itself a form of goodness. Fourth, it established a moral and theological framework in which slavery was understood as a departure from the natural human condition rather than a permanent social institution. Umar's declaration, "Since when have you enslaved people when their mothers bore them free?", articulates the Islamic conviction that freedom is the default state and that slavery is an anomaly to be overcome. The Quran's repeated emphasis on emancipation as one of the highest forms of worship created a cultural and spiritual climate in which freeing people was not merely permitted but celebrated. What Islam did not do was prohibit slavery outright in a single legislative act. The reasons for this have been debated extensively. The most common scholarly explanation is that slavery was so deeply embedded in the economic and social structures of seventh-century Arabia (and the broader world) that an immediate, total abolition would have caused social and economic upheaval without providing for the people who would have been displaced. The Islamic approach, like the Quran's approach to alcohol, was gradual: restrict the sources, create pathways to freedom, improve the conditions, and establish a moral trajectory that would lead, over time, to abolition. Whether this gradualist approach was the right one, or whether an immediate prohibition would have been both possible and preferable, is a question that this article cannot resolve, but it must be asked. The Strongest Counter-Arguments "If Islam's trajectory was towards abolition, why did Muslim-majority societies continue to practise slavery for fourteen centuries?" This is the most devastating critique of the gradualist argument. If the Quranic intent was abolition, why did it take until the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and often under external pressure from European colonial powers, for Muslim-majority states to formally abolish slavery? The honest answer is that the mechanisms the Quran established were sufficient to create constant pressure towards individual emancipation but were not sufficient, on their own, to dismantle the institution at a structural level. The classical legal tradition, in codifying the regulations of slavery, inadvertently normalised the institution by treating it as a permanent feature of the legal landscape rather than as a condition to be eliminated. This is a genuine failure of the scholarly tradition, and contemporary scholars including Ibn Ashur and al-Qaradawi have acknowledged it. "The permissibility of sexual relations with enslaved women (ma malakat aymanukum) is inherently exploitative." The Quran permits sexual relations between a man and "those whom his right hand possesses" (Quran 23:6, 70:30), a category understood by the classical scholars as referring to enslaved women. This permission is the most morally challenging aspect of the classical framework for contemporary Muslims. The classical justification was that the relationship created obligations on the man (maintenance, kind treatment, and the immediate freeing of any child born of the union, along with the mother's emancipation upon the man's death), and that it provided a regulated alternative to the unregulated sexual exploitation that characterised pre-Islamic slavery. Critics argue that no degree of regulation can render consensual a sexual relationship in which one party is enslaved, because the power imbalance inherent in the institution vitiates consent. This criticism has moral force, and contemporary Muslim scholars have increasingly acknowledged that the abolition of slavery has rendered this entire category of relationship moot. The most intellectually honest response is to acknowledge that this aspect of the classical tradition is deeply uncomfortable by modern moral standards, that it must be understood within its historical context without that context being used to excuse it, and that the abolition of slavery, which Islam's own trajectory supports, has eliminated the conditions under which it was permitted. "Islam's role in the trans-Saharan and Indian Ocean slave trades demonstrates that it was a driver of slavery, not a reformer." Muslim traders and states were indeed participants in slave trades that lasted for centuries and that involved the enslavement of millions of people, primarily from sub-Saharan Africa. This historical reality cannot be denied or minimised. The Islamic principles of restricting slavery to prisoners of war and of encouraging emancipation were frequently violated in practice, and the demand for labour in Muslim-majority economies drove a slave trade that was, in scale and duration, comparable to (and in some respects preceded) the transatlantic slave trade. The gap between Islamic principle and Muslim practice was, on this issue, enormous, and acknowledging this gap is essential to intellectual honesty. "The gradual approach was convenient for slave owners and delayed justice by centuries." This objection has merit. The gradual approach, whatever its theoretical justification, meant that millions of people remained enslaved for centuries longer than they would have under an immediate prohibition. The question of whether a seventh-century society could have sustained an immediate, total abolition is historical counterfactual that cannot be definitively answered. What can be said is that the Islamic tradition's emphasis on emancipation as one of the highest acts of worship created a moral framework in which abolition, when it came, was entirely consistent with the tradition's own values. The abolition of slavery is not a departure from Islam; it is the fulfilment of its trajectory. "Why do some extremist groups (such as ISIS) cite Islamic law to justify slavery in the twenty-first century?" The revival of slavery by ISIS and similar groups is a violation of contemporary Islamic scholarly consensus, which holds that slavery in its historical form is no longer permissible. Every major Islamic scholarly body and virtually every qualified contemporary scholar has condemned the practice. The claim by extremist groups that they are reviving an "authentic" Islamic practice ignores fourteen centuries of moral development within the tradition and the scholarly consensus that the conditions which permitted slavery no longer exist and cannot be recreated. 5 Misconceptions about Islam and Slavery "Islam endorses slavery." Islam regulated an existing institution, introduced unprecedented reforms, created multiple pathways to emancipation, and established a moral trajectory towards abolition. To say that Islam "endorses" slavery is to ignore the content and direction of its intervention. Contemporary Islamic scholarly consensus holds that slavery is no longer permissible. "Islamic slavery was the same as transatlantic chattel slavery." The two institutions were structurally different. Enslaved people in Islamic law had legal rights (to food, clothing, shelter, kind treatment, and legal redress), could own property, could marry, and had multiple pathways to freedom. Race-based, hereditary chattel slavery as practised in the Americas had no precedent or justification in Islamic law. This is not to say that Islamic slavery was benign (it was not), but that the two systems were not equivalent. "Islam was the last civilisation to abolish slavery." The formal abolition of slavery occurred at different times across different Muslim-majority countries, generally in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. However, European colonial powers were simultaneously abolishing slavery in their colonies while imposing other forms of forced labour and exploitation, and the transatlantic slave trade operated for centuries under the auspices of Christian civilisations. The history of slavery and abolition is complex and does not lend itself to simple civilisational rankings. "The Quran encourages Muslims to take slaves." The Quran does not contain a single verse encouraging the taking of slaves. What it contains are verses regulating an existing institution, prescribing emancipation as an act of supreme merit, and creating mechanisms for the progressive elimination of slavery. The direction of the Quranic legislation is entirely towards freedom, not towards enslavement. "Slavery in Islam was only about domestic service." While many enslaved people in Muslim-majority societies were employed in domestic service, others were used in agriculture, mining, military service (the Mamluk system), and other forms of labour that were physically demanding and sometimes brutal. The diversity of enslaved people's experiences in Islamic history should not be minimised. FAQs: What Does Islam Say About Slavery? "Is slavery permissible in Islam today?" The overwhelming scholarly consensus is that slavery in its historical form is no longer permissible. Scholars including al-Qaradawi, the institutions of al-Azhar, and virtually every major Islamic scholarly body have affirmed this position. The conditions that permitted slavery in the classical framework (principally, the capture of combatants in pre-modern warfare) no longer apply in the context of modern international law and human rights frameworks, which Muslim-majority states have endorsed. "How should Muslims respond when asked about slavery in Islamic history?" With honesty. Islam introduced transformative reforms to an institution that was universal in the ancient world. Those reforms were revolutionary in their context. They did not, however, result in immediate abolition, and the gap between Islamic principles and historical Muslim practice was often wide. Both of these things are true simultaneously, and acknowledging both is more credible and more faithful to the tradition than denying either. "What is the Islamic position on modern slavery and human trafficking?" Modern slavery and human trafficking are unambiguously prohibited in Islamic law. The kidnapping and enslavement of free people was prohibited by the Prophet (pbuh), and contemporary scholars have condemned all forms of modern slavery, including forced labour, debt bondage, and sex trafficking, as grave violations of Islamic law. "Did the Prophet Muhammad own slaves?" The Prophet (pbuh) both owned and freed enslaved people. He freed Zayd ibn Harithah and adopted him as a son. He freed Safiyyah bint Huyayy and married her. He freed numerous other individuals throughout his life and consistently encouraged others to do the same. His treatment of enslaved people, including his instruction to call them "my young man" rather than "my slave," established a standard of dignity and humanity that was transformative in its context. "How does Islam's approach to slavery compare with other religious traditions?" The Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, and other religious texts also regulated rather than prohibited slavery. The Pauline epistles instructed slaves to obey their masters, and the Hebrew Bible contained detailed rules for the institution. Islam's distinctive contribution was the combination of dramatic rights improvements, multiple institutional mechanisms for emancipation, and a sustained theological emphasis on freedom as one of the highest spiritual values. No pre-modern religious tradition achieved outright abolition, and the Islamic tradition's trajectory towards abolition, while incomplete in the classical period, was arguably the most developed. Conclusion The Islamic tradition's engagement with slavery is neither a simple success story nor a simple moral failure. It is a complex, multi-layered intervention in one of the most deeply entrenched institutions in human history. Islam restricted the sources of enslavement, created multiple pathways to freedom, transformed the conditions of those who remained enslaved, and established a moral and theological framework in which freedom was celebrated as one of the highest values and the freeing of slaves was among the most meritorious acts of worship. At the same time, Islam did not abolish slavery outright, the classical legal tradition normalised the institution in ways that delayed abolition for centuries, the permissibility of sexual relations with enslaved women raises profound moral questions, and the gap between Islamic principles and historical Muslim practice was often vast. The honest engagement with this history requires holding both of these assessments simultaneously. The tradition's achievements were real and, in their historical context, extraordinary. Its limitations were also real and, by modern moral standards, serious. The contemporary scholarly consensus that slavery is no longer permissible is not a departure from the tradition but the fulfilment of its own trajectory, a trajectory that the Quran set in motion fourteen centuries ago with the declaration that the freeing of a slave is the most difficult and the most righteous path a human being can walk. References: Sahih al-Bukhari, Sahih Muslim, Sunan Abu Dawud. Ibn Ashur, "Maqasid al-Shari'ah al-Islamiyyah." Al-Qaradawi, "The Lawful and the Prohibited in Islam." Jonathan Brown, "Slavery and Islam" (2019). Bernard Freamon, "Possessed by the Right Hand: The Problem of Slavery in Islamic Law and Muslim Cultures" (2019). Quran translations referenced from Sahih International.