Muhammadanism and
Slavery
by
Dr G. W. Leitner
Kings
College, London, March 13th 1884
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In a letter from Dr. Rohifs to the Secretary of the Anti-Slavery
Society, the great traveller asserts that at present
Islam has triumphed, and slavery, the inevitable consequence
of Muhammadan government, is re-established. Other eminent
authorities, writing on the subject of General Gordons
slavery proclamation, have similarly assumed that
Muhammadanism is in favour of that hateful institution.
This is as great a libel on that religion as the
assertion would be on Christianity, that it was in favour
of slavery because Christ, although confronted by one of its
cruellest forms in the Roman Empire, did not attempt to legislate,
as Muhammad did, for its eventual abolition in this world,
but merely promised spiritual freedom to the repentant servants
of sin, whether bond or free; whilst St. Paul sends the runaway
slave Onesimus back to his Christian master Philemon, even
after converting him (a process which would ipso facto
have set him free among very pious Muhammadans), and, in numerous
places, evidently refuses to enter into the question of the
emancipation of slaves, except in a spiritual sense. Even
the reference to man stealers in I Tim. i. 10
is simply part of a statement of various classes of evildoers
which the Law had to deal:
The law is good if a man use it lawfully;
knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man,
but for the lawless and disobedient
for men stealers,
for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be anything
that is contrary to sound doctrine.
The allusion is referred to the Jewish Law, according
to which He that stealeth a man and selleth him, or
if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death
(Exod. xxi. 16). In the New Dispensation, however, which modified
the severity of that law, there is neither bond nor
free, but Christ is all. Every one was to abide in his
own calling, the converted slave being the Lords freeman
and the converted freeman the slave of Christ (I Cor. vii,
2022).
As one who has taken a part, however humble and
small, in the exposure of certain forms of slavery and the
slave trade, I would beg leave to point out the injustice
and impolicy of identifying Muhammadanism with the conduct
of its unworthy professors, the slave dealers, instead of
merely advocating principles which are deeply implanted in
both Christian and Muhammadan human nature, are sanctified
by both religions, and give England a hold not only on the
Liberal sentiment of Europe and the United States, but also
on that of the whole Muhammadan world. Indeed, it would be
well if as regards Muhammadanism generally our statesmen,
scholars, and missionaries sought for points of agreement
rather than for those of difference, and appealed less to
the preconceptions of their public than to their desire for
correct information.
According to the Koran no person can be made a
slave except after the conclusion of a sanguinary battle fought
in the conduct of a religious war (Jihad) in the country of
infidels who try to suppress the true religion. Indeed, wherever
the word slave occurs in the Koran it is he
whom your right hands have conquered, or a special equivalent
for neck = he whose neck has been spared, thus clearly indicating
a prisoner of war made by the action not of one
man only, but of many. The idea is similar to that conveyed
by the Greek Andrapodon, which implied that the victor
placed his foot on the neck of the conquered, who became his
future slave. Limited, however, as the legal supply of slaves
is according to the Koran (which would alone suffice to justify
the abolition of slavery among all pious Muhammadans), the
Arabian prophet further recommends, When the war has
ended restore them [the slaves or prisoners] to liberty or
give them up for a ransom (Sura xlvii. 5). Again, in
the 16th Sura of the Koran, Muhammad, in his very novitiate,
boldly confronts a state of society in which even the female
belongings of a deceased were sold or distributed as part
of his property (a position from which he raised women by
constituting them legal sharers, or the first
care of Muhammadan law, and conferred on them rights similar
to those lately conceded in this country by the Married Womens
Property Act). Surrounded by powerful and hostile relatives
and tribesmen, the owners of slaves, who sought an excuse
for his destruction, he invites them to divide their income
or provision (rizq) with their slaves in equal shares:
God has made some superior to others in
income, and yet those who have been so benefited do not
divide their income with those whom their right hands have
conquered, so that each [master and slave] may have an equal
share. How dare they thus to gainsay the goodness of God?
And elsewhere: Alms (which procure righteousness)
are destined
to the redemption of slaves (as
the ruling Begum of Bhopal professed to have done not long
ago, when she had bought and imported slaves for the ostensible
object of setting them free). Further (Sura xxiv. 33):
If any of your slaves asks for his manumission
in writing give it to him, if you think him worthy of it,
and give him also some of the wealth which God has given
you.
This passage enables slaves, who thus acquire the
disposal of their time, to redeem themselves by a certain amount of labour
or on payment of a sum not exceeding their market value, and
often paid for, in part or whole, especially among Shiahs,
out of the public tax zekat. The reconciliation of
a separated married couple should be preceded by the ransom
of a slave, and, if none can be found, the husband should
feed sixty poor, or else fast for two months (Sura lviii,
4,5). Whenever the sense of happiness, including that of conjugal
felicity, predisposes the heart to gratitude towards the Creator,
or whenever the fear of God or of a punishment, or the desire
of a blessing, affects, as such motives can affect, the daily
life of a Muhammadan, the emancipation of a slave, as a most
proper act of charity, is recommended. In short, the cliff
or narrow path to salvation, is charity:
What is the cliff? It is to free the captive
[or slave] (Sura xc. 10 15).
Descending to the second source of Muhammadan
law, the authenticated tradition or Hadis, we find
Muhammad stating that the worst of men is he who sells
men; slaves who displeased their master were to be forgiven
seventy times a day; no believer could be made
a slave, and in proportion to the number of redeemed
slaves will members of the body of the releasing person be
rescued from the [eternal] fire (Hadis, accepted
by Sunnis and Shiahs alike, and communicated by Jabir Ibn
Abdullah).
The history of Muhammadanism has since shown not
only the admission of the converted slave on equal terms into
Muhammadan society (a circumstance which does not exist to
the same extent among Christian negroes), but also
his rise in several Muhammadan countries, including Egypt,
to the highest positions in the state, whether as an individual
or as a member of a whole class of slaves, and irrespective
of colour. The brotherhood of Muhammadanism is no mere
word. All believers are equal and their own high priests.
Zeid, the ex slave, led Muhammads troops, whilst the
often blind Hafiz, or reciters of the Koran of
the present day, have, as it were, their prototype in the
negro Bilal, the first muezzin, or caller to prayers,
perhaps the most famous name in Muhammadan Asia and Africa.
The Ghaznavide dynasty was founded by the slave Sabuktagin;
the first king of Delhi, Kutbuddin, was a slave, etc.
In India, the authoritative declaration of the
Muhammadan law officers of the Sadr Diwani and Nizamat Adalat
laid down that only capture in a holy war, or descent from
such a captive, constitutes the slave legal to a Muhammadan
master. The Sadr Diwani Adalat, in 1830, in an appeal, adopted
the opinion of its Muftis just noticed, and imposed on the
claiming master the burden of proving that the slavery of
his claimed slaves was derived from the narrow legal origin
defined by the Muftis. The effect of this decision is that
no Muslim can ever make good his title to the services of
a recusant slave. The Muftis further laid down that the
master can only inflict moderate, correction on his slave,
and that any cruelty or ill usage inflicted on his slave legally
exposes him to a discretionary punishment (aqubat or
tazir) by the ruling power, and such discretionary power
extends to death (I quote from Hamiltons preface
to the Hidaya). Since the abolition of these officers
we have not the same touch with the conservative elements
of Muhammadan society, whilst the decisions of our courts
are often away from the real point, owing to ignorance of
Arabic, without a knowledge of which language it is difficult
to have any influence with Muhammadans, and impossible to
decide with accuracy any question connected with their law.
In 1839, however, the true nature of Muhammadanism was better
known by the Indian Government than it is now even by European
writers on Muhammadan law. Lord Aucklands Minute on
the Indian Law Commission, which reported that all slavery
is excluded from amongst the Muhammadans by the strict letter
of their own law, shows that the abhorrence to
slavery entertained by the English functionary was then,
as now, welcome to the respectable native community. Even
among those who benefited by the trade, a degree of
moral turpitude attached to the purchase of prisoners
of war, which, if insisted on, would tend considerably
to diminish the evil, although slaves are not
only extremely well treated by their Arab masters, but enjoy
a very considerable degree of power and influence
They
were everywhere the best fed men, and seemed happy and comfortable.
The cruel treatment of slaves has been the reproach
of European rather than of Eastern nations (I quote
from Reports to the Resident of the Persian Gulf in 1838).
Persons who confess the unity of the Godhead cannot
be made slaves, and therefore there has practically been a
constant struggle between the Muhammadan slave dealer, who,
being devoid of any religion himself, sought to save appearances
by forcing his captives to declare themselves, rightly or
wrongly, to be idolaters (as in Africa), or at least (as in
Chitral and Bukhara) to be Shiah heretics and the Muhammadan
missionaries, who, as in Africa, have been steadily and successfully
endeavouring to reduce the area from which slaves could be
drawn by converting the negroes to Islam. Dr. Rohifs,
in his condemnation of that faith, must have had the Muhammadan
slave dealers rather than the Muhammadan missionaries or religion
in his mind. Mr. Rassam has already stated that the
slave dealers are looked upon everywhere by the respectable
class with disgust, especially when they are known to encourage
kidnapping even Moslem and Christian children. And again:
Nor did I find in all my intercourse with African or
Arabian tribes in the suppression of the slave traffic any
difficulty or danger, but, on the contrary, the different
chiefs with whom we negotiated consented most willingly and
cheerfully to put down the slave trade; and the most wonderful
thing was they all kept their pledges faithfully.
In Turkey I have been acquainted with more than
one family in which the newly purchased slave was taught a
trade and set up in business after an apprenticeship of seven
years a common practice: and I knew a pious boatman
who, as soon as he had saved enough money, devoted it to the
purchase and manumission of a slave. Of similar instances
I often heard during the time preceding the legal abolition
of the slave trade in Turkey that deserted true friend
of England, and once her lever on the Muhammadan world
and I have met many pious Muslims in various Muhammadan countries
whose ambition it was to ransom slaves. Indeed, words of piety,
chivalry, truth, and compassion have not lost their power
to stir the adherents of that creed, and I therefore regret
that it should be deemed to be expedient to withdraw, for
the purpose of what can only be a temporary deception, from
the commanding position of advocating the abolition of slavery
in every one of its forms. It may have the effect of conciliating
Zebehr Pasha, but it will alienate from England most honest
Mussulmans. To abuse Muhammadanism for the maintenance of
an institution which it had to tolerate and for which it had
to legislate is one thing, but to adopt indigenous methods
of appeal to Muhammadan humanity, based on their own revered
associations, is quite another. Indeed, even if slavery were
an integral part of the Muhammadan religion, as it most certainly
is not, Moslem lawgivers may ameliorate the condition
of slaves, close slave markets, and check the diabolical traffic
in the south, to quote Sir William Muir.
I go, perhaps, further, and assert that the Muhammadan
religion can adapt, and has adapted, itself to circumstances
and to the needs of the various races that profess it in accordance
with the spirit of the age. I have ever found
Muhammadans, to whatever country, eager to welcome any appeal
in favour of humanity or progress, if urged in a sympathetic
and intelligible manner. Perhaps the times are past when to
ensure the eventual triumph of principles that have made a
country great a patriot may prefer to perish rather than snatch
an evanescent success, but the time has, fortunately, not
yet arrived in which to support slavery is not alike a blunder
and a crime.
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Related
links:
Writings of Dr Leitner:
Slavery
Schools
Jihad |