To Shakeel: Slavery is halal in Islam

Submitted by Plato (United Arab Emirates), May 27, 2007 at 00:10

Shakeel, you are in brackets and you wrote:

[Not only families were dependent on slaves, slaves were also dependent on their masters for their very existence like slave gets the protection of his master.]

Dependent for what. To wash their clothes, massage their tired feet, cook their food. Could they not do it themselves if they were such god-fearing people. And these freed slaves, who protects them after they become free. You are not making any sense Shakeel. Protection from whom? The rest of the Muslims around? And who protected the masters?

[Islam banned out-rightly that those who are free cannot be enslaved. However, those who were already slaves can be kept as slaves and to free them, God put the duty on the shoulders of Islamic government to pay their masters and free them.]

Show me a verse in the Koran (since the hadith is suspect) which bans slavery outright. Why have you not said anything about what happened to the Banu Quraiza. Here is a report I have quoted before: '....

So were the Banu Quraiza free people or not before the Prophet enslaved them? Tell us Shakeel. You say that those who were already slaves can be kept as slaves and at the same they should be freed. Like having your cake and eating it too. The duty put by Allah on Islamic governments did not give any results for 1400 years and the rest of the infidel world had to give the Muslim world a hard push for them to reluctantly comply. It took Islam 1400 years to realise, under compulsion, that slavery is an obscenity.

Women captives were sent to Najd to be bartered with horses and weaponry...."Only one woman of the Jews was killed because she had killed a Muslim warrior by flinging a grinding stone upon him. A few elements of the enemy embraced Islam and their lives, wealth and children were spared. As for the spoils of the war, the Prophet [pbuh] divided them, after putting a fifth aside, in accordance with Allâh's injunctions. Three shares went to the horseman and one to the infantry fighter. Women captives were sent to Najd to be bartered with horses and weaponry. For himself, the Prophet [pbuh] selected Rehana bint ‘Amr bin Khanaqah, manumitted and married her in the year 6 Hijri. She died shortly after the farewell pilgrimage and was buried in Al-Baqi‘[Ibn Hisham 2/245; Talqeeh Fuhum Ahl Al-Athar p.12].' (http://www.masmn.org/documents/Books/Safiur_Rahman_Mubarakpuri/Raheeq_Al_Maktoom/410.htm)

[The fate of Banu Quraiza was not decided by Muhammad (sws), it was decided by their own law by their own arbitrator, and consequently all men were slain and women and children were sold out in slavery.]

I am now a hundred per cent sure you have only listened to fairy stories from your friendly moulvi. You have not read your history (maybe cooked up as dhimmi says, but accepted in the Islamic world for centuries and a source for many of your hadiths). Shakeel, go and get a copy of Ibn Hisham's rendition of Ibn Ishaq's rendition of the Rasool's biography. If you are in Pakistan it is available with Oxford Univesity Press. There you will read that this Saad Muad who was callled upon to give judgement on the Banu Quraiza had sworn vengeance on them (he had had a verbal duel with them some time before) of whcih the prophet must surely have been aware as Saad was one of his favourite companions. It was the Prophet who suggested him as their judge and the unsuspecting Quraiza accepted, his tribe having been once their allies, little knowing about his vengefulness. Also what happened to your claim that free people are not to be enslaved.

[If they asked Muhammad (sws) to decide their fate, then he would surely forgive their lives, women and children as he had done with the other tribe of Jews Banu Qaynuqa.]

Once again I refer you to Ibn Ishaq. The story is slightly different. The Prophet did want to make an end of the Qaynuka but was warned by a powerful chief who was allied with them against it. The Rasool was not yet as powerful as he later became. So he had to give in. I have taken this from Wikipedia as I do not have Ibn ishaq at hand now but it is essentially correct:

" The Qaynuqa men were bound and feared imminent execution.

[By promising good life in Hereafter, God motivates the people to free their slaves. With this belief, people will not think they are losing something, instead they will think that they are gaining something more important in return of losing something less important.

You still haven't got it. You say intention is important in Allah's judgement. Here is Allah himself motivating people to release slaves by enticing them with the joys of paradise. Those people who freed slaves were purely motivated by selfish reasons and not the condition of the slaves. Islamic motives and intentions are in sharp contrast to those of the infidels.

[Also, I have said earlier, God has put this duty on the shoulders of Islamic government to purchase them from their masters and free them.]

Islamic governments miserably failed in their Islamic duty for 1400 years. They had to be shamed into abolishing it by the disgust of the rest of the world.

[This is verse that says, a part of Zakat should be used to free slaves

Zakat is only for the poor and the needy, and for those who are ‘amils over it, and for those whose hearts are to be reconciled [to the truth], and for the emancipation of the slaves and for those who have been inflicted with losses and for [spending in] the way of Allah and for the wayfarers.

All that Zakat collected over 1400 years seems to have failed. Or more slaves were captured by the government than the government managed to free. Islamic governments failed to follow the Koran. Why did Muslims continue to capture slaves if the Koran is a clear guide and you say it is against slavery? You know why Shakeel? The Sunnah. You are expected to follow whatever the Rasool did. His beard, his dress style, miswaking of his teeth, his eating habits, except those that were meant only for the Prophet. And your Rasool held slaves, received them as gifts, gave them as gifts, kept them as concubines captured free people and enslaved them. Nowhere in the Koran does it say that only the Rasool is allowed to indulge in this. Slave-keeping is halal, is sunnah. Go ask the 'scholars' of Islam right from the centres of Islam, Mecca and Medina.

(Q 9:60)][1] Abdullah ibn Ubayy, the Muslim[citation needed] chief of the Khazraj, pleaded before Muhammad on the behalf of the Qaynuqa, which were his allies: "Four hundred men without mails and three hundred mailed protected me from mine enemies; would you cut them down in one morning?" Although Muhammad was initially irritated with ibn Ubayy and tried to put him off, but ultimately yielded to Abdullah's insistence and agreed to expel the Qaynuqa.[15] Because of this interference and other episodes of his discord with Muhammad, Abdullah ibn Ubayy earned for himself the title of the leader of hypocrites (munafiqun) in the Muslim tradition.[17]"

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