Slavery Abolition: Why Islam Never Did
One of the most striking contrasts between Christianity and Islam concerns slavery. While Christian nations led the global abolitionist movement in the 18th and 19th centuries, Islamic nations resisted abolition on religious grounds and only abolished slavery under external Western pressure, often a century later. Even today, no major Islamic body has issued a definitive theological repudiation of slavery, and the practice persists in some Muslim-majority regions. This article examines why Islam has never internally abolished slavery and what this reveals about its moral framework.
The Theological Barrier
The fundamental obstacle to Islamic abolition of slavery is theological: the Quran explicitly permits slavery in multiple passages and never condemns it as an institution:
"O Prophet, indeed We have made lawful to you your wives to whom you have given their due compensation and those your right hand possesses from what Allah has returned to you [of captives]." (Quran 33:50)
"And those who guard their private parts except from their wives or those their right hands possess, for indeed, they will not be blamed." (Quran 23:5-6; also 70:29-30)
"And [also prohibited to you are all] married women except those your right hands possess." (Quran 4:24)
These verses don't merely tolerate slavery as a necessary evil; they incorporate it into Islamic sexual ethics and family law. The phrase "those your right hands possess" (ma malakat aymanukum) appears fifteen times in the Quran, always treating slavery as a normal, legitimate institution.
For orthodox Muslims, the Quran is the eternal, uncreated word of Allah, valid for all times and places. To declare slavery impermissible would be to contradict Allah's explicit revelation. As scholar Bernard Lewis notes:
"The Quran not only recognizes the institution of slavery, but also regulates it... The Quranic legislation on slavery... forms part of the Shari'a, the Holy Law of Islam, and is thus in principle eternal and unalterable." (Race and Slavery in the Middle East)
Muhammad's Example
Beyond Quranic authorization, Muslims believe Muhammad is the "excellent example" (uswa hasana) for all humanity (Quran 33:21). Yet Muhammad personally owned, bought, sold, captured, and gave away dozens of slaves throughout his life:
"There came a slave and pledged allegiance to Allah's Apostle on migration; he (the Holy Prophet) did not know that he was a slave. Then there came his master and demanded him back, whereupon Allah's Apostle said: 'Sell him to me.' And he bought him for two black slaves." (Sahih Muslim 1602a)
Muhammad also kept female slaves as concubines, most notably Mariya the Copt, with whom he had a child. After military victories, he distributed captured women as war booty to his companions.
If Muslims were to declare slavery fundamentally immoral, they would implicitly condemn Muhammad's behavior. This is theologically impossible within orthodox Islam, which holds Muhammad to be sinless in conveying Allah's message and the best moral example.
Sharia Codification
All four major Sunni schools of Islamic jurisprudence (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i, and Hanbali) and the Ja'fari school (Shia) codified detailed regulations on slavery. These laws cover:
- How slaves can be lawfully acquired
- The rights and limitations of slave ownership
- Sexual access to female slaves
- Rules for manumission
- Inheritance of slaves
- The status of children born to slave mothers
These laws remain in classical fiqh texts studied in Islamic universities today. While their application has been suspended due to the practical absence of legal slavery, they have never been theologically abrogated or reformed. As contemporary scholar Jonathan A.C. Brown notes:
"Slavery is not categorically prohibited in Islam. It is regulated. The consensus of Islamic law across all schools is that slavery is permissible." (Slavery and Islam)
Historical Resistance to Abolition
When Western powers began abolishing slavery in the 19th century based on Christian moral principles, Islamic religious authorities actively resisted:
Ottoman Empire: When the British pressured the Ottomans to abolish slavery, the Sheikh al-Islam (highest religious authority) issued fatwas opposing abolition on the grounds that it contradicted Sharia:
"The British Consul in Jeddah reported in 1877: 'The Mohammedan doctors are unanimous in their opposition to any measures of reform... They maintain that slavery is an institution of Islam and that to abolish it would be to abolish Islam.'" (Ehud Toledano, Slavery and Abolition in the Ottoman Middle East)
Arabian Peninsula: Saudi Arabia and Yemen resisted abolition until the 1960s. Even then, abolition came only after intense international pressure and often remained unenforced. Saudi Arabia officially abolished slavery in 1962 but only after the United States threatened to withdraw economic support.
Mauritania: This Islamic Republic abolished slavery three times (1905, 1981, 2007) because it kept returning. Even today, an estimated 1-4% of Mauritania's population lives in slavery, and the practice is deeply rooted in traditional Islamic social structures.
"In Mauritania, slavery's persistence is intimately connected with religious interpretations. Some imams have taught that serving one's master is a path to paradise." (CNN Report, 2012)
Modern Apologetics and Evasions
Contemporary Muslims employ several strategies to address Islam's slavery problem:
Strategy 1: "Islam improved conditions for slaves." While Islam did introduce some regulations protecting slaves, this argument accepts slavery's legitimacy while claiming incremental improvement. But improving an evil system does not make it good. Nazi Germany improved workers' conditions compared to Stalin's gulags, but both systems were fundamentally evil.
Strategy 2: "Islam encouraged manumission." The Quran does encourage freeing slaves as an act of piety or expiation for sins. However, it treats manumission as optional charity, not moral obligation. If slavery were fundamentally wrong, it would be prohibited, not merely discouraged.
Strategy 3: "Slavery was necessary in that historical context." This argument implicitly admits slavery is wrong but claims 7th-century Arabia couldn't function without it. However, this contradicts the Islamic claim that the Quran is eternal divine guidance. Allah, being all-powerful and all-knowing, could have abolished slavery by divine decree, just as He abolished alcohol and pork.
Strategy 4: "These laws are no longer applicable." Some Muslims claim slavery laws are obsolete. However, if Allah's revelation is eternal, on what authority can humans declare His laws obsolete? No major Islamic council or authority has issued a definitive declaration that Quranic slavery verses no longer apply.
Strategy 5: "The Bible also permitted slavery." This is a tu quoque fallacy (appeal to hypocrisy) that avoids the actual question. Moreover, Christianity developed a theological basis for abolition from Biblical principles, while Islam has not.
ISIS and the Revival of Slavery
The Islamic State (ISIS) demonstrated that Islamic slavery is not merely historical. When ISIS established its caliphate in 2014, it immediately revived slavery, publishing theological justifications:
"One should remember that enslaving the families of the kuffar [unbelievers] and taking their women as concubines is a firmly established aspect of the Shariah that if one were to deny or mock, he would be denying or mocking the verses of the Quran and the narrations of the Prophet... and thereby apostatizing from Islam." (Dabiq Magazine, Issue 4, "The Revival of Slavery Before the Hour")
ISIS enslaved thousands of Yazidi women and girls, citing Quran 4:24, 23:5-6, and classical fiqh rulings. Mainstream Muslim scholars could not deny ISIS's textual basis; they could only argue that ISIS lacked legitimate authority to declare these women slaves.
This reveals the crucial point: mainstream Islam objects to ISIS's slavery on procedural grounds (lack of proper Islamic authority), not on moral grounds (slavery being inherently evil). The institution itself remains theoretically valid in Islamic law.
No Theological Repudiation
Despite slavery's abolition in practice throughout most of the Muslim world, no major Islamic religious body has issued a definitive theological statement that:
- Declares slavery inherently evil and immoral
- States that the Quranic verses permitting slavery no longer apply
- Provides a theological framework for why Allah's eternal law on slavery can be superseded
- Condemns Muhammad's slave ownership and trading
The closest approximation came from Mauritanian scholar Abdullah bin Bayyah, but his statement merely said slavery should not be practiced today due to international consensus, not that it's inherently immoral.
This silence is deafening. It suggests that orthodox Islam cannot theologically abolish slavery without undermining the authority of the Quran and the example of Muhammad.
Biblical Contrast: Christianity and Abolition
In stark contrast, Christianity provided the moral foundation for the global abolitionist movement. While the Bible regulated slavery in ancient contexts, the New Testament planted the seeds of abolition:
"There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." (Galatians 3:28)
"So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." (Genesis 1:27)
The doctrine that all humans are created in God's image (imago Dei) provided the theological basis for universal human dignity and equality. When this truth was fully grasped, slavery became theologically untenable.
Christian abolitionists like William Wilberforce, John Wesley, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and countless others fought slavery specifically because of their Christian convictions:
"So enormous, so dreadful, so irremediable did the [slave] trade's wickedness appear that my own mind was completely made up for abolition. Let the consequences be what they would: I from this time determined that I would never rest until I had effected its abolition." (William Wilberforce)
The American Civil War was in large part a theological conflict between Christians who recognized slavery's incompatibility with the Gospel and those who tried to defend it. The abolitionists won because they had the stronger Biblical case.
Jesus proclaimed:
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." (Luke 4:18-19)
This mission of liberation animated the Christian abolitionist movement and ultimately led to slavery's defeat in the Christian West.
The Moral Difference
The contrast between Christian abolition and Islamic retention of slavery reveals a fundamental moral difference:
Christianity: When Christians fully grasped the implications of imago Dei and Christ's redemptive work, they developed a theological basis for condemning slavery as fundamentally incompatible with Christian teaching. The trajectory of Biblical revelation moves toward freedom, equality, and human dignity.
Islam: Islam cannot develop such a trajectory because the Quran explicitly permits slavery and Muhammad practiced it. To condemn slavery as inherently evil would require rejecting portions of the Quran and criticizing Muhammad—both impossible within orthodox Islam.
This is why Christian-majority nations led the global abolitionist movement in the 19th century, while Islamic nations resisted abolition until forced by Western pressure.
Questions to Consider
- If the Quran is eternal divine guidance, why does it explicitly permit slavery rather than prohibit it?
- Why did Islamic religious authorities resist abolition on theological grounds if slavery is contrary to Islamic values?
- How can Muslims condemn slavery as immoral without implicitly criticizing the Quran and Muhammad?
- Why has no major Islamic body issued a definitive theological repudiation of slavery?
- What does it say about a moral system that it cannot abolish slavery without contradicting its foundational texts?
- If ISIS's textual basis for slavery was incorrect, why couldn't mainstream scholars refute it using Quran and hadith?
- Why did Christianity lead to the abolition of slavery while Islam required external pressure to end it?
- If slavery is wrong, was Allah wrong to permit it, or was Muhammad wrong to practice it?