Islam and the Abolition of Slavery

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Book Description

Present-day discussions regarding the institution of slavery among Muslims take place within the backdrop of a violent polemic between Islam and other belief systems. In spite of the fact that Islamic organizations had a mixed and, for the most part, insignificant impact on the legal repudiation of slavery, a growing religious commitment to abolition was absolutely necessary in order for legislation to be enforced in the twentieth century. Using examples from all around the ‘abode' of Islam, from the Philippines to Senegal and from the Caucasus to South Africa, Gervase Clarence-Smith covers a wide range of topics pertaining to the history of Islam, with a particular focus on the time period beginning in the late 18th century and continuing up until the current day. Even while they did not completely abolish slavery, he demonstrates that “sharia-minded” efforts to seek a closer obedience to the holy law were successful in reducing its prevalence. The Sharia, on the other hand, was not as unambiguous regarding the validity of servitude as is typically imagined, and progressive scholars within the schools of law may have even achieved full emancipation over the course of a long period of time. The influence of mystical and millenarian Islam was contradictory; in some instances, it provided a supportive agenda of freedom, but in other instances, it caused significant spikes in the number of people who were owned by slaves. Revisionist Islam, which originated in the 18th century, has been separated into two distinct camps. The “fundamentalists” of Islam placed a strong emphasis on the literal validity of the foundational writings of Islam, and as a result, they found it challenging to entirely reject slavery. The most ardent opponents of slavery were born from the “Modernists,” who appealed to the spirit of scripture rather than the letter of scripture. Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan, sometimes known as the Islamic William Wilberforce, was one of the most prominent examples of this. It was the Sufi mystics who did the most to integrate former slaves socially and religiously after the liberation of slavery. They did this in order to avoid the significant societal gaps that have afflicted Western cultures in the aftermath of the abolition of slavery. A comprehensive overview of the Islamic discourse on slavery is presented for the first time in this significant new book written by Clarence-Smith. Through the elimination of long-held misconceptions, he intends to encourage additional research on this understudied subject, with the ultimate goal of making a contribution to the healing of the religious rifts that threaten to rip our globe apart in the 21st century.