The origin and development of the moral ideas

According to Islam, a Muhammedan who is born free can never become a slave. “The slave,” says Mr. Lane, “is either a person taken captive in war or carried off by force from a foreign country, and being at the time of capture an infidel; or the offspring of a female slave by another slave, or by any man who is not her owner, or by her owner if he do not acknowledge himself to be the father.”107 The slave should be treated with kindness; the Prophet said, “A man who behaves ill to his slave will not enter into Paradise.”108 The master should give to his slaves of the food which he eats himself, and of the clothes with which he clothes himself.109 He should not order them to do anything beyond their power, and in the hot season, during the hottest hours of the day, he should let them rest.110 He may marry them to whom he will, but he may not separate them when married.111 He may, generally, give them away or sell them as he pleases, but he must not separate a mother from her child. The Prophet said, “Whoever is the cause of separation between mother and child, by selling or giving, God will separate him from his friends on the day of resurrection.”112 Nor is a master allowed to alienate a female slave who has borne to him a child which he recognises as his own; and at his death the mother is entitled to emancipation.113 To liberate a slave is regarded as an act highly acceptable to God, and as an expiation for certain sins.114 These rules, it should be added, are not only recognised in theory, but derive additional support from general usage.

In the Muhammedan world the slave generally lives on easy terms with his master. He is often treated as a member of the family, and occasionally exercises much influence upon its affairs.115 In certain countries at least, it is held disreputable or disgraceful for a person to sell his slave, except perhaps in case of absolute necessity or in consequence of intolerable behaviour on the part of the slave.116 In Persia custom demands that on certain festive occasions, such as the birth of a child or a wedding, one or several of the slaves of the family should be set free;117 and both there and in other Muhammedan countries testamentary manumissions are of frequent occurrence.118 In Morocco a slave is sometimes allowed a certain amount of liberty that he may earn enough to buy his freedom;119 whilst among the Bedouins of the Arabian Desert described by Burckhardt, slaves are always emancipated after a certain lapse of time.120 No stigma attaches to the emancipated slave. It has been truly said that in Islam slavery is regarded as an accident, not as a “constitution of nature,”121 hence the freedman is socially on an equal footing with a free-born citizen. He may without discredit marry his former master’s daughter, and become the head of the family. Emancipated slaves have repeatedly risen to the highest offices, they have ruled kingdoms and founded dynasties.122