The Real Islam

Slavery in Islam

A Doctrine of Chains

Welcome to the conversation nobody wants to have—unless they’re busy whitewashing it.

Let’s skip the polite preamble: Islamic slavery wasn't an accidental byproduct of culture. It was baked into the doctrine, stamped by divine sanction, and preserved in ink with unnerving clarity. Forget the revisionist lullabies about Islamic “humanitarian slavery” or the absurd claim that Islam was some kind of abolitionist trailblazer. That narrative collapses the moment you actually read the texts instead of bowing to them.

So buckle up. We're not here to comfort. We're here to confront.

Slavery in the Qur’an: Allah’s Green Light to Human Ownership

You don’t need a doctorate in Islamic studies to figure this out. You just need literacy. The Qur’an repeatedly and unambiguously permits, regulates, and morally legitimizes slavery.

Let’s cut straight to it.

“And those who guard their private parts except from their wives or those their right hands possess…” (Qur’an 23:5–6; see also 70:29–30)

“Those their right hands possess” — that charming euphemism shows up over a dozen times. It’s not a metaphor. It refers to slave women, usually concubines, who can be sexually used without marriage. Consent? Never mentioned. The enslaved woman’s voice? Silenced by revelation.

Qur’an 4:24: “And [also forbidden to you are] married women except those your right hands possess.”

Let that sink in: even married women could be enslaved through war and then legally raped under Islamic law, nullifying their marriage by divine override. There's a word for this. It's not mercy. It's brutality sanctified.

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Hadith and Slavery: Muhammad’s Personal Practice

If you're hoping the Hadith would clean up the mess, bad news. They amplify it. Prophet Muhammad himself owned slaves — male and female — and not as a temporary measure or cultural concession. As a prophet and legislator, he modeled and normalized the system.

He owned a Black slave named Bilal.
He distributed female captives to his companions.
He personally took Rayhana and Safiyya bint Huyayy as slaves after slaughtering their male kin.

Sahih Muslim 3371: "Apostle of Allah took a woman as his share from the captives."

Just in case you thought this was all symbolic, there’s this:

Sahih al-Bukhari 254: “The Prophet sent Ali to bring the Khumus (fifth of the war booty) and he brought a slave girl from the Khumus and the Prophet took her for himself.”

Not abolished. Not discouraged. Institutionalized.

This isn't the rogue behavior of followers misinterpreting their scripture. It's the blueprint — with the Prophet at the helm.

The Sharia System: Legalizing Ownership of Human Beings

Slavery wasn’t just permitted in Islam. It was codified into Sharia with chilling precision. Four major schools of Islamic jurisprudence (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi’i, and Hanbali) agreed on:

Legitimacy of capturing slaves in jihad
Sexual use of female slaves without marriage
Buying, selling, inheriting, and gifting slaves
Punishing slaves with more severe standards than free people

Example? The Maliki manual “al-Risalah” outlines how to beat disobedient slaves, and when to sell or kill them.

In fact, slavery formed a bedrock of Islamic economic and social structure for over 13 centuries — from Medina to the Ottomans. And for those with short memories: Saudi Arabia only formally abolished slavery in 1962. Mauritania? 1981. But enforcement? Laughable. Slavery persists there today in Islamic tribal contexts.

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Contradictions and Cognitive Gymnastics: Islamic Apologetics in Meltdown Mode

Let’s torch the most common myths trotted out to excuse Islamic slavery:

❌ “But Islam improved the condition of slaves!”

Yes, and arsenic is healthier than cyanide. That doesn’t make it medicine. Improving the treatment of slaves is not the same as abolishing slavery. A “kinder, gentler” slave system is still enslavement.

❌ “Slavery was common back then. Islam just went with the times.”

Then don’t call it timeless moral truth. If Islam was simply conforming to its era, then it's not divinely guided ethics — it’s bronze-age mimicry with divine branding.

❌ “Muhammad encouraged freeing slaves!”

He also captured, owned, and distributed them. You don’t get points for cleaning up part of the mess you helped create. Selective manumission is not abolition. It’s a reward system to control piety, not a liberation campaign.

❌ “There’s no slavery in Islam today.”

Ah yes — the age-old fallacy of appeal to modern practice. The issue isn’t what Muslims do today. The issue is what Islam canonized forever. Scripture doesn’t expire.

Race and Islamic Slavery: The Unspoken Arab Supremacy

Islamic slavery wasn’t race-neutral. The Qur’an doesn’t specify race, but Islamic history did.

Arab Muslims were central players in the East African slave trade, enslaving millions of Black Africans over 13 centuries — far outlasting the Transatlantic slave trade.

Arab-Muslim slave traders like Tippu Tip carved out entire empires off the backs of African bodies. Castration of Black male slaves was common in Abbasid Baghdad. Blackness was so associated with slavery in Islamic culture that medieval Arab literature — and even classical tafsir (e.g., al-Tabari, Ibn Khaldun) — linked dark skin with servility and inferiority.

Even today, terms like “abd” (slave) are still used as slurs against Black people in parts of the Arab world.

But sure, let’s pretend this was all just contextually benign.

Logical Breakdown: The Doctrine That Eats Itself

Let’s apply formal logic to this mess.

Premise 1: God is perfectly moral and just.

Premise 2: God gave Islam as a final, universal moral system.

Premise 3: Islam legalized and regulated slavery, including sexual slavery.

➡ Conclusion: Either God’s morality includes slavery, or Islam isn’t from God.

You don’t need to be a philosopher to see the paradox. If a system permits ownership of human beings, it's not a moral system. It’s a justification engine for oppression.

And when slavery is tagged as “for all time” in scripture, you can't just issue a modern apology tour and walk away.

Scholars Speak: No Denial Left Standing

Let’s toss in some actual experts — not imams moonlighting as PR agents:

Dr. Jonathan A.C. Brown, author of “Slavery and Islam”: “There is no denying that slavery is part of the Sharia.”
Bernard Lewis, historian of the Middle East: “The institution of slavery was sanctioned and regulated by the Quran and by Islamic law.”
Dr. Kecia Ali, in Sexual Ethics and Islam: “The Prophet’s sexual relationship with his concubines is not merely historical — it shapes Islamic sexual ethics.”

These aren’t critics of Islam. These are Muslim scholars and historians admitting what apologists won’t.

Conclusion: The Chains Remain

Slavery in Islam wasn’t a bug. It was a feature. A system rubber-stamped by scripture, practiced by the Prophet, enforced by law, and romanticized by jurists for centuries. No amount of apologetics, modern discomfort, or “contextual nuance” can whitewash what the source texts scream at full volume:

Islam sanctioned slavery — not as a regrettable social ill, but as a righteous norm.

If that makes you uncomfortable, good. It should. The only path forward is truth — not revisionism, not deflection, not sugar-coated interfaith brochures.

Because when your morality needs a footnote, it’s already bankrupt.

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📚 Bibliography / Sources

Qur’an (Translations: Sahih International, Pickthall)
Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim, via sunnah.com
Jonathan A.C. Brown, Slavery and Islam (Oneworld Publications, 2019)
Kecia Ali, Sexual Ethics and Islam (Oneworld, 2006)
Bernard Lewis, Race and Slavery in the Middle East (Oxford University Press, 1990)
Ronald Segal, Islam’s Black Slaves (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2001)
Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd Edition
“Slavery in Islamic Law and Muslim Cultures,” Brill Academic Publishers

⚠️ Disclaimer

This post critiques Islam as an ideology, doctrine, and historical system — not Muslims as individuals. Every human deserves respect; beliefs do not. Criticizing harmful ideas is not hate — it is responsibility.