Spotlight On Islam

Part 6 – Why Didn’t Islam Abolish Slavery?

Design Flaw or Moral Failure? The Inescapable Legacy of Servitude in Islam

🔥 Introduction: The Missing Verse

Throughout history, we have witnessed countless societies evolve from brutal norms to higher ethical standards. Slavery — once ubiquitous — is now condemned as one of humanity’s greatest evils.

But here’s the paradox:

Islam claims to be the final, perfect, unchanging moral system from God... and yet it never abolished slavery.

If Islam is truly:

A “complete way of life”
A “mercy to mankind”
A “universal ethical system”
The “final revelation for all time”

...then why does it preserve the legal ownership of human beings — in the Qur’an, Sunnah, and Sharia — without ever condemning it as wrong?

This part of the series explores what Islam could have said… but didn’t. What it could have done… but didn’t. And why that omission is not a minor historical detail, but a fatal design flaw in the core of the religion.

📜 Step 1: The Uncomfortable Truth — There Is No Abolition Verse

Let’s begin where all Islamic ethics begin: the Qur’an.

❌ What You Will Not Find in the Qur’an:

“You shall not own another human being.”
“Slavery is abolished.”
“Set your slaves free because it is unjust to own them.”
“Human beings are equal in dignity and rights.”

Nowhere. Not even close.

Instead, we find normalization, regulation, and ritual compensation via manumission — but never moral condemnation.

📖 Step 2: What the Qur’an Actually Does Say

📌 Surah 4:3

“...marry women of your choice... but if you fear that you shall not be able to deal justly [with multiple wives], then [take] those whom your right hands possess.”

Slaves are offered as alternatives to wives.

📌 Surah 24:33

“And those of your slaves who seek a contract (for freedom), write it for them if you know there is good in them…”

That’s conditional manumission, based on the owner's discretion — not a command to abolish the system.

📌 Surah 2:178

“...and whosoever kills a believer by mistake... then he must free a believing slave...”

Freeing slaves is part of ritual compensation — like donating or fasting. It’s a means of redemption, not a moral imperative against slavery.

📌 Surah 8:67

“It is not for a prophet to have prisoners of war until he has made a great slaughter in the land…”

This verse scolds Muhammad for taking prisoners too early — not for enslaving them afterward.

Bottom line: The Qur’an never abolishes slavery. Instead, it:

Assumes its legitimacy
Incorporates it into divine law
Regulates it as an economic and sexual institution
Never declares it unjust or immoral

🧕 Step 3: Muhammad Didn’t Abolish It Either

Muhammad had full political control by the end of his life. If he wanted to abolish slavery, he could have done it.

Instead, he:

Owned slaves
Captured and distributed slaves as war booty
Had sex with slave women without marriage
Never outlawed the practice
Left behind a legal system where slavery was institutionalized

Even when he encouraged manumission, it was always:

Voluntary
Conditional
Transactional

There was never a moment where Muhammad stood up and said, “Slavery is wrong.”

Not once.

🏛️ Step 4: The Sharia System Is Built on Slavery

Every classical Islamic legal school — Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi’i, Hanbali — fully integrated slavery into their rulings.

Slavery was:

A recognized category in civil law
A legitimate source of sexual gratification (concubinage)
A cornerstone of economic transactions
A central issue in inheritance, ownership, contracts, and war

Manumission is rewarded, yes. But the system of slavery itself is assumed to be:

Legal
Moral
Perpetual

That’s why Islamic empires upheld slavery for centuries after the Prophet — until they were forced to stop.

🌍 Step 5: A Historical Audit — What Did Muslim Empires Do?

Let’s test the “trajectory toward abolition” myth.

The Rashidun Caliphate (632–661 CE):

Continued slavery
Expanded it via conquest
No abolition efforts

The Umayyads, Abbasids, Mamluks, Ottomans:

Institutionalized slavery
Mass importation of African, European, and Central Asian slaves
Massive harems, child slaves, eunuchs, and war captives

The Ottoman Empire:

Maintained slavery until 1924
Legal reform came from Western pressure, not Islamic jurisprudence

Saudi Arabia:

Slavery abolished in 1962, under pressure from the U.S. and U.N.

Mauritania:

Abolished slavery in law in 1981, criminalized it in 2007
Still exists in practice

No Islamic government ever outlawed slavery on religious grounds.

Not one.

🧠 Step 6: Apologist Excuses — and Why They Fail

❌ “But Islam Encouraged Freeing Slaves!”

True — as acts of piety or expiation.

But:

Freeing is optional, owning is legal
The Qur’an never condemns ownership
Encouragement ≠ Abolition

Would you say a religion that encourages kindness to your slaves is moral if it never forbids slavery itself?

❌ “Islam Was Abolishing Slavery Gradually!”

Then why:

No verse mandating eventual abolition?
No declaration of human equality?
No binding law to prohibit future slaveholding?

Even Christianity (despite its flaws) developed clear abolitionist movements rooted in theological principles. Islam did not.

❌ “Muhammad didn’t abolish it because it was too radical!”

But:

He outlawed alcohol
He banned adoption by name
He abrogated tribal laws
He changed the direction of prayer, shattered idols, and redefined marriage law

So yes — he made radical social changes when it served the religious agenda. But not on slavery.

Why? Because slavery was not seen as wrong. It was integrated into the moral and legal structure.

🔄 The Trap in Action

Here’s how to spring this trap in debate:

You ask:

“If Islam is a complete way of life, why didn’t it abolish slavery?”

They say:

“It encouraged freeing slaves!”

You reply:

“Encouraging isn’t abolishing. Where is the command that says slavery is immoral or prohibited?”

They say:

“That wasn’t possible at the time.”

You counter:

“So Islam couldn’t rise above its culture? Then it’s not a divine revelation — just a man-made product of its time.”

Now they must choose:

Admit Islam is incomplete
Or admit Islam intentionally preserved slavery

Either way, the foundation cracks.

🔚 Final Verdict: By Design, Not Accident

Slavery in Islam is not a “problematic legacy.”
It is a core design feature:

Explicitly permitted in the Qur’an
Practiced by Muhammad
Codified in Sharia
Perpetuated by Islamic empires
Abolished only under secular and Western pressure

You cannot claim:

Islam is perfect, and
It failed to end slavery

Either it was never divine
Or it is divinely immoral

There is no other option.

⏭️ Coming Next in the Series…

Part 7 – Can These Verses Be Reinterpreted Today?

Modern Muslims try to soften the blow:

“Those verses were for a different time.”
“We need to reinterpret them.”

But if Allah’s eternal word needs rebranding to fit modern values, then what exactly are we calling “divine”?

Get ready. The moral relativism of modern reinterpretation is about to collapse under its own weight.