A Critical Exposition of the Popular 'Jihád'/Appendix B/6

by Moulavi Gerágh Ali

[Sidenote: Omar, the second Khalif, liberated all the Arab slaves.]

6. During the sovereignty of Omar, the second Khalif, in accordance with the injunctions of Mohammad to abolish slavery, all the existing Arab slaves were set free. It will appear that the wishes of Mohammad to that effect were but partially carried out. In ages that succeeded the death of Mohammad, they were altogether lost sight of, and even Arabs were allowed to be enslaved by the later jurists. Sir W. Muir, in his latest work, entitled "The Annals of the Early Caliphate," says:—

"Yet great numbers of the Arabs themselves were slaves, taken prisoner during the apostasy, or in the previous intertribal warfare, and held in captivity by their fellow-countrymen. Omar felt the inconsistency. It was not fit that any of the noble race should remain in bondage. When, therefore, he succeeded to the Caliphate, he decreed: 'The Lord,' he said, 'hath given to us of Arab blood the victory, and great conquests without. It is not meet that any one of us, taken in the days of Ignorance,^[1] or in the wars against the apostate tribes, should be holden in slavery.' All slaves of the Arab descent were accordingly ransomed, excepting only such bondmaids as had borne their masters' children. Men who had lost wives or children now set out in search, if haply they might find and claim them. Strange tales are told of some of the disconsolate journeys. Ashàth recovered two of his wives taken captive in Nojeir. But some of the women who had been carried prisoners to Medîna preferred remaining with their captors."^[2]

Even this speech of Omar shows that no one was enslaved during the wars of Mohammad, as he only refers to the captives of the days of Ignorance before the Prophet, and those taken in wars against the apostate tribes after him having been enslaved.

Footnotes

1. "The days of Ignorance, that is, the period preceding Islam."
2. "Two such are named by Tabari, I, page 248." "A light ransom was fixed for each Arab slave—seven camels and six young ones. In the case of some tribes which had suffered most severely (as the Beni Hanifa, the Beni Kinda, and the people of Omán discomfited at Dabá) even this was remitted." Annals of Early Caliphate. By Sir W. Muir, K.C.S.I., LL.D., D.C.L., London, 1883, pp. 63, 64.