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From: arshad%lfcs.edinburgh.ac.uk@NSFNET-RELAY.AC.UK (Arshad Mahmood)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.islam
Subject: Re: Islam and Slavery
Message-ID: <74974@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu>
Date: 14 Dec 89 17:45:19 GMT
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Approved: sadeghi@oxy.edu (Behnam Sadeghi)


In article <74907@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> paul@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu writes:
>>From: khan@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (Iqbal Mustafa Khan)
>>Date: 6 Dec 89 12:13:22 GMT
>>
>>I have always been confused about Islam's position on slavery.  It seems
>>that Islam permits it.  Would this imply that if there were a Islamic
>>state to be established in future, that slavery would be practiced there?
>
[stuff from the Koran deleted]

The position on slavery appears to be quite complex, the prophet was against
it on principle but appears to have felt that immediate banning when the
first Muslim state was formed was too drastic a step considering that
slavery was practiced on a large scale in Saudi Arabia. The prophet instead
seemed to have gone for a softly softly approach in encouraging his
followers to buy slaves out of bondage, etc. However, strange laws still
remain in place for instance if you have a female servant in the house then
you as the male of the house may have sex with her even though you are
not married to her and are only obliged to marry if she gets pregnent.

However, I found Paul's messga very misleading in that it seemed to imply
contempt for slavery on the part of Islam which to my knowledge is
not true, due in part to the aforementioned historical accidents. I believe
that it is against the spirit of Islam (or at least the one I studied)
but a defense could be made for slavery in some form or another in a
real Islamic court.

Of course it has been a while since I studied the Scriptures, so if I may
have got it all wrong, if I have  then please except my sincere apologies.

A. Mahmood
Labortory for the Foundations of Computer Science
Edinburgh University
Scotland