27.1 Treating Slaves
Islam treated slaves with a treatment resulting in making easier the position of the slavery imposed upon him, and resulting in freeing them compulsorily and voluntarily. It placed many rules in this matter which the fuqaha elaborated in complete detail. These rules summarized in the following issues:
1. Islam found people owning slaves so it treated the problems of slaves between the owners with a treatment giving the slaves rights and preserving him his consideration of being a human being like the free person in relation to the natural attributes man was naturally endowed with. Allah (swt) exhorted in the Noble Qur’an as did the Messenger (saw) in the honoured hadith with kindness to slaves and living with them kindly. Allah (swt) said:
“Worship Allah and do not associate anything with Him and be kind to parents, relatives, orphans, the poor, the neighbour who is a relative and the unrelated neighbour and the unrelated (sahib) and the wayfarer and those whom your hands possess” [TMQ 4:36 ].
The meaning of “those your right hands possess” is your slaves. And he (saw) said:
“They are your brothers whom Allah placed under your hands. Feed them with what you eat, clothe them with what you wear and do not impose duties upon them which will overcome them. If you so impose duties, then assist them” (narrated by Muslim).
He also narrated via the way of Abu Hurairah (ra) of his saying: He (saw) said:
“One of you should not say: My slave and my slave-girl. All of you are the slaves of Allah and all your women are the slave-girls of Allah. Rather let him say: My boy (ghulam) and my girl (jariyah) and my son (fata) and my daughter (fatati).”
The Shar’a lifted the rank of the slave and made him like the free person when it made his blood protected so the free person is killed for it because Allah (swt) says:
“O you who believe, retaliation has been imposed upon you in deliberate murder” [TMQ 2:178].
Retaliation is similar and punishing the sinner as retaliation is used (linguistically) as recompense for the sinner, and it is used for doing upon the doer similar to what he did. The meaning of “retaliation has been imposed upon you” as recompense for the sin in murder is to kill the killer. This is general covering the male and female, free person and slave. This is strengthened by what ibn Majah narrated via the way of ibn Abbas (ra) of his (saw) saying:
“Muslims are equal in their blood”
This is general. The free person and slave are equal in that the blood of each of them is protected and it is haram to kill them, so the killer is killed whoever he is. Hence Islam made the life of the enslaved slave like the life of the free person equally, and his blood is protected like the blood of a free person. He (saw) said:
“Whoever kills his slave, we will kill him” (narrated by Ahmad and Abu Dawud via the way of Sumra bin Jundub).
Also Islam gave the slave the right to marry, divorce, study and he is a witness upon others whether a free person or slave. As for what Islam gave as a right to the owner of a slave-girl to enjoy with her, this lifts the status of the slave and result in his freedom because the enjoyment of the owner with his slave-girl is like the enjoyment of the husband with his wife, lifting the status of the slave girl to the status of the free wife and gives her a status before her master. In addition to what results from this enjoyment of pregnancy and childbirth and this prepares this slave-girl to be freed compulsorily after the death of her master.
2. Islam encouraged the freeing of slaves. It made the freeing of the slave as helping the human being to be grateful for the favour of Allah jalalah and assists him to climb the (‘aqabah). Allah (swt) said:
3. “He has not climbed the (‘aqabah). And what will let you know what is the (‘aqabah). Freeing the neck” [TMQ 90:11].
“Al-iqtiham” is the entry and cross over with strictness and difficulty, and (‘aqabah) is difficulty. It made the righteous deed as (‘aqabah) and made its performance as climbing for it due to what is therein of mu’anat the difficulty and the struggling with the soul. “Freeing the neck” is liberating it from slavery so Allah (swt) encouraged the freeing of slaves in this ayah. Similarly did the Messenger (saw) encourage the freeing of slaves. He (saw) said:
“Whoever frees a Muslim man, Allah (swt) will liberate for each of his organ an organ from the Fire” (narrated by Al-Bukhari and Muslim).
This demonstrates that Islam urged the freeing of slaves and gave it a great reward. 4. Islam legislated practical rules obliging the freeing of slaves. So it legislated rules obliging the freeing when it made the freeing on an enslaved slave to the related mahrem as being accomplished upon mere ownership whether the owner consents or not, or frees or not. Each human being who owns a relative mahrem by purchase or inheritance, his relative is freed from him completely due to mere ownership without need for his freeing him. Abu Dawud narrated from Al-Hasan from Sumra that the Prophet (saw) said:
“Whoever owns a relative who is within the prohibited degrees, that person becomes free.”
It made punishing the slave by burning, cutting an organ, spoiling him or striking him with a painful strike as obliging his freedom. So if his owner does not free him, the ruler frees him entirely from his owner. He (saw) said:
“Whoever slaps his slave or strikes him, his atonement (kaffara) is to free him” (narrated by Muslim by the way of ibn Umar)
The meaning of the strike is the painful strike due to the ahadith permitting the owner to strike his slave a disciplinary strike. Islam made the freeing of the slave as a compulsory atonement (kaffara) for many sins. So whoever kills a believer accidentally, his atonement is freeing a believing slave. Allah (swt) said:
“It is not (allowed) for a believer to kill a believer except by mistake. And whoever kills a believer by mistake, then freeing a believing slave and blood money to be delivered to his people except if they give (it as) charity. If he is of a people between them and you is a covenant, then blood money delivered to his people and freeing a believing slave” [TMQ 4:92].
And whoever perjures his oath, then among what atones his mistake is freeing a slave. Allah (swt) said:
“Allâh will not punish you for what is unintentional in your oaths, but He will punish you for your deliberate oaths; for its expiation (a deliberate oath) feed ten Masâkîn (needy persons), on a scale of the average of that with which you feed your own families, or clothe them or manumit a slave” [TMQ 5:89].
Whoever does Dhihar with his wife by saying to her, ‘You are like my mother’ then he returns to her, his atonement is freeing a slave. Allah (swt) said:
“And those who make unlawful to them (their wives) by Zihâr and wish to free themselves from what they uttered, (then penalty in that case is) the freeing of a slave before they touch each other.” [TMQ 58:3].
Whoever invalidates the fast of Ramadhan by sexual intercourse, his atonement is freeing a slave. It is narrated from Abu Hurairah (ra) who said:
“A man came to the Prophet (saw) and said: I have perished, O Messenger of Allah. He said: And what has caused you to perish? He said: I had sexual intercourse with my wife in Ramadhan. He said: Do you have what would free a slave? He said: No. He said: Are you able to fast two months consecutively? He said: No. He said: Do you possess what would feed sixty poor people? He said: No. So he sat down, then there was brought to the Prophet (saw) an (‘urq) (i.e. basket or panier/dry gourd) within which were dates. He said: Give sadaqa with these. He said: Are there people poorer than us? There is none between these two lave plains (of Madina) more needy of them than us. The Prophet (saw) laughed until there appeared his eye-teeth were visible and said: Go and feed your family with them.”
Firstly the Prophet (saw) commanded him with freeing a slave, and he did not change anything except after his inability of doing so was clear to him. All these rules of atonements oblige the atoner to free the slave.
Nor was Islam satisfied with this, but it also made more the slave a way to work to free himself as it made for the owner a way to be compensated the value of the slave by it. This is in the encouragement of the manumission contract. Islam encouraged this and Allah commanded it by the Qur’an. Allah (swt) said:
“As for those among you whom you possess who seek the manumission contract, then contract them if you know good in them and give them of the wealth of Allah which He gave you”[TMQ 24:33].
If the master contracts his slave by saying to him: If you give me so much in such and such time then you are free, it is obligatory upon the master to free his slave so that he works to attain the money which he contracted upon him. It is obligatory upon him to free him if he brings the money and it is not correct for him to revert from this manumission contract. The fuqaha recognised the manumission contract as the immediate freeing of a slave and his neck in time, and that if the contract is validated then the slave leaves the hands of his master and whenever he pays the substitute he leaves the ownership of his master.
All of these rules are for freeing slaves. It is noted therein that they take the path of directing the encouragement and desire, and the path of legislating rules executed by the State forcefully if the individual does not execute them by the push of piety of Allah (swt). All of these rules lead to creating thinking and action among the owners to free slaves, and lead to creating thinking and action among the slaves themselves to work to free themselves from slavery. This makes the course directed to ending slavery in society. 5. Nor was Islam satisfied with encouraging the freeing of slaves and formulating rules compelling freeing, but rather made in the Bait al-Mal of Muslims a specific category for freeing slaves when it made zakat expended to freeing slaves and made this one of the eight categories. Allah (swt) said:
“Verily the sadaqat is only for the poor, the indigent, those who work upon it, those whose hearts are to be reconciled, for the freeing of slaves, debtors, for the way of Allah and the wayfarer, an obligation from Allah and Allah is knower wise” [TMQ 9:60].
His statement: “and for (riqab)” means freeing slaves. It did not specify for this category a specific amount, so it is allowed for the State to allocate an amount for freeing slaves. Rather it is allowed for it to make all the zakat money for freeing slaves if at that particular time there is no necessity for other expenditure from the expenses of zakat. This is because the expenditure of zakat is not obliged to be only for the eight categories but rather it is allowed to be specified for one category from these categories according to what the Khalifah of the Muslims views.