Quran Forbids Unwilling Enslavement

Salaamun alaykum, dear readers!

This will be a very short article showing where exactly in the Quran says that owning slaves is closer to unrighteousness and impiety than freeing slaves.

• [24:33] Those who cannot find the means to get married shall maintain morality until God enriches them from His favour. Should any of those whom your right hands possess seek the writing (of an emancipation contract), write one for them if you know of any good in them, and give them from God’s money that He has bestowed upon you...

• Verse 24:33 says if a slave seeks a contract of emancipation, the master should write one for them if they (according to their honest assessment) know any good qualities or characteristics in their slave. There is no minimum amount of good qualities needed from the slave to meet this requirement. Even something as small as politeness and being respectful counts as a good quality. Additionally, the master should give the slave some money as a head-start into their new freed life.

• This is a direct prohibition against unwilling enslavement for 99.9% of slaves.

In the verses of Surah 90, God admonishes people for not attempting the “difficult path”, which involves freeing the slaves. All acts that are opposite of the difficult path are unrighteous or morally negative deeds, and all acts that are in accordance with the difficult path are morally good deeds.

• [90:8-17] Did We not make for him two eyes, a tongue, and two lips, and showed him the two ways? But he has not attempted to break through the difficult path! And how would you know what the difficult path is? It is the freeing of a slave, or feeding on a day of great hunger an orphaned relative, or a needy person in misery, and then to be one of those who believed and encouraged one another to exercise patience, and encouraged one another to show compassion.

Verse 2:177 defines piety as spending money for the sake of granting freedom to the slaves. Thus, owning slaves is an act of impiety and unrighteousness according to the Quran.

• [2:177] Piety is not in turning your faces towards the east and the west. Rather, the pious is the one who has believed in God, the Last Day, the angels, the Scripture and the prophets, and who gave away money, despite his love for it, to the relatives, the orphans, the needy, the homeless, the beggars and to free slaves, and who observed the Salat and gave the Zakat, and the ones who fulfil their pledge when they make a pledge, and the ones who are patient through misery, hardship and during battle. These are the ones who have been truthful, and these are the reverent ones.

A person might respond, “The Quran legalizes intimacy with one’s own slaves, so that means slavery is not illegal in the Quran.”

• There is a difference between what one is legally allowed to do (intimacy with slaves), and what someone can do that is closer to righteousness and more pleasing to God (freeing the slaves).

• Also, contrary to popular belief, the Quran in verse 4:36 mandates good treatment of slaves. Thus, the old practice of slave masters forcing their slaves to have intimacy with them was a violation of verse 4:36.

Conclusion

So in conclusion, the Quran established two principles regarding slavery:

• It is prohibited to keep a slave against the will of the slave. A slaveowner according to the Quran must emancipate their slaves if the slaves requested freedom, and the slave has at least one good quality or characteristic.

• It is morally superior and closer to righteousness to free slaves even if they willingly want to be enslaved.

Given what the Quran states, here are some uncomfortable questions:

• Why did the Arab slave trade persist for so long after Islam?

• Why did the Muslims who enabled the Arab slave trade not even mandate all slaveowners to free their slaves when their slaves requested emancipation?

• Why did Muslim slaveowners normalize raping their slaves, by having intimacy with their slaves without consent of their slaves?

• Why did it require Western intervention to help end the Arab slave trade?

The ugly truth is that the Muslim community has a terrible history of slavery, relative to the high standards and expectations established in the Quran, and we should be absolutely ashamed.

The institution that the Quran placed on the trajectory of elimination was instead strengthened and popularized by the same ones who claimed to be sincere followers of the Quran.