page_title: Criticism of Islam
section_title: Slavery
hierarchical_section_title: Criticism of Islam / Morality / Slavery
context_page_description: Criticism of Islam is broadly defined as criticism of the Islamic religion in its beliefs, principles, or any other ideas attributed to Islam.
  Criticism of Islam has existed since Islam's formative stages. Early written disapprovals came from Christians and Jews as well as from some former Muslims such as Ibn al-Rawandi. Later the Muslim world itself suffered criticism. Western criticism of Islam has grown in the 21st century especially after the September 11 attacks and other terrorist incidents, over its scriptures and teachings being claimed to be a significant source of terrorism and terrorist ideology. As of 2014, about a quarter of the world's countries and territories had anti-blasphemy and had anti-apostasy laws or policies. In 2017, 13 nations, all of which were Muslim majority nations, had the death penalty for apostasy or blasphemy.
  Objects of criticism include the morality of the life of Muhammad, the founder of Islam, in both his public and personal lives. Issues relating to the authenticity and morality of the scriptures of Islam, both the Quran and the hadiths, are also discussed by critics.
context_section_description: Bernard Lewis writes: "In one of the sad paradoxes of human history, it was the humanitarian reforms brought by Islam that resulted in a vast development of the slave trade inside, and still more outside, the Islamic empire." He notes that the Islamic injunctions against the enslavement of Muslims led to massive importation of slaves from the outside. According to Patrick Manning, Islam by recognizing and codifying the slavery seems to have done more to protect and expand slavery than the reverse.
  According to Brockopp, on the other hand, the idea of using alms for the manumission of slaves appears to be unique to the Quran, assuming the traditional interpretation of verses  and . Similarly, the practice of freeing slaves in atonement for certain sins appears to be introduced by the Quran (but compare Exod 21:26-7). The forced prostitution of female slaves, a Near Eastern custom of great antiquity, is condemned in the Quran. Murray Gordon notes that this ban is "of no small significance." Brockopp writes: "Other cultures limit a master's right to harm a slave but few exhort masters to treat their slaves kindly, and the placement of slaves in the same category as other weak members of society who deserve protection is unknown outside the Qur'an. The unique contribution of the Qur'an, then, is to be found in its emphasis on the place of slaves in society and society's responsibility toward the slave, perhaps the most progressive legislation on slavery in its time."
  Critics argue unlike Western societies which in their opposition to slavery spawned anti-slavery movements whose numbers and enthusiasm often grew out of church groups, no such grass-roots organizations ever developed in Muslim societies. In Muslim politics the state unquestioningly accepted the teachings of Islam and applied them as law. Islam, by sanctioning slavery, also extended legitimacy to the traffic in slaves.
  According to Maurice Middleberg, however, "Sura 90 in the Quran states that the righteous path involves 'the freeing of slaves.'" Murray Gordon characterizes Muhammad's approach to slavery as reformist rather than revolutionary. He did not set out to abolish slavery, but rather to improve the conditions of slaves by urging his followers to treat their slaves humanely and free them as a way of expiating one's sins which some modern Muslim authors have interpreted as indication that Muhammad envisioned a gradual abolition of slavery.
  Critics say it was only in the early 20th century (post World War I) that slavery gradually became outlawed and suppressed in Muslim lands, largely due to pressure exerted by Western nations such as Britain and France. Gordon describes the lack of homegrown Islamic abolition movements as owing much to the fact that it was deeply anchored in Islamic law. By legitimizing slavery and – by extension – traffic in slaves, Islam elevated those practices to an unassailable moral plane. As a result, in no part of the Muslim world was an ideological challenge ever mounted against slavery. The political and social system in Muslim society would have taken a dim view of such a challenge.
  However, In Islamic jurisprudence, slavery was theoretically an exceptional condition under the dictum The basic principle is liberty (al-'asl huwa 'l-hurriya), so that for a foundling or another person whose status was unknown freedom was presumed and enslavement forbidden.
  The issue of slavery in the Islamic world in modern times is controversial. Critics argue there is hard evidence of its existence and destructive effects. Others maintain slavery in central Islamic lands has been virtually extinct since mid-twentieth century, and that reports from Sudan and Somalia showing practice of slavery is in border areas as a result of continuing war and not Islamic belief. In recent years, according to some scholars, there has been a "worrying trend" of "reopening" of the issue of slavery by some conservative Salafi Islamic scholars after its "closing" earlier in the 20th century when Muslim countries banned slavery and "most Muslim scholars" found the 
caption: 13th-century slave market in Yemen
exif: {}