Slavery in Islam Between the Past and Present Case Study the Arab World and Africa

Abstract

The coming of Islam did not prohibit slavery due to several measures, instead, it tolerated it in a way that avoided bringing harm to the society and its economy, since the latter was based on slave trade at that time. In addition, Islam narrowed the acquisition of slavery into one source which is the source of war and multiplied the gates of emancipation in an attempt to eliminate slavery one day. Furthermore, Islam grew and became a large empire in a short time controlled by the followers of Prophet Muhammad Peace Be Upon Him. The Muslims reached Africa in the mid-7th century conquering the North, the West and parts of the East aiming to spread their faith, while acquiring slaves at the same time under the name of the Holy Wars. By the end of the 11th century the expansion of Islam in Africa stopped, and so did Holy Wars. Nevertheless, acquiring slaves never stopped, instead it thrived thanks to Muslim merchants and visitors who travelled across the sub-Saharan desert and explored the hinterlands. That resulted in the creation of trade routes and slave markets causing a large campaign called the Islamic slave trade that lasted for more than seven centuries, where huge number of slaves and concubines were transported to the Arab world. Moreover, the abolition of slavery in the 20th century never demolished it, in fact slavery still exists in the Arab world in the form of domestics services, where many Africans and especially Kenyans, who they were offered deceiving contracts and promised good jobs with tempting salaries, but in fact found themselves exploited and trapped into a modern slavery working for long hours and exposed to different kinds of abuse and humiliation. in addition, this slavery became online regulated and controlled by employers (modern-day slaveholders) and business men bypassing both local and international laws of modern slavery and human rights.