ßÊÇÈ Slavery: A Fundamental Historical Overview
CONCLUSION:

في الخميس ٢٨ - مارس - ٢٠٢٤ ١٢:٠٠ صباحاً

CONCLUSION:

Freeing of Slaves between the Quranic Sharia and the Laws of Europe and the USA:

Firstly: Europe Has Abolished Ancient Slavery that Has Been Replaced with a More Cruel Widespread Type of Slavery:

 

1- The very first industrial revolution began in 1784 when vapor machines were invented, with Britain as the pioneer followed by the other countries of West Europe, and such revolution led to various changes, as machines helped in both agriculture and industry and many farmers and peasants were fired from their work in lands as machines replaced them. More factories were built and the need for more raw material led to colonization of Asia and Africa and to more explorations in North and South America and Australia. Britain was the pioneer in both industrialization and colonialism. 

2- When millions of farmers and peasants lost their work, they had to move to industrial cities along with their wives and children, and they lived within margins of cities, suffering chosen forced labor as they worked longer hours while having lesser wages, with no medical care at all. Such workers were injured by machines, and in many cases would lose limb(s) and get fired! At the time, there were no syndicates to organize strikes and to protect their rights against the blood-sucking capitalists and there were no industrial security at all. Later on, syndicates emerged, strikes were organized, and communist ideology spread in China, East Europe, and the former USSR. 

3- Within the conditions mentioned in the above point, Europe abolished slavery; yet, a worse type of enslavement took place when free men had to accept forced labor with little wages in order to survive. Former slaves used to live in safety and security within houses/farms of their owners who dealt with them kindly and humanly in most cases, for the sake of their work and household. Unlike the case with factories owners: they dealt with workers with the worst types of laws allowing blood-sucking capitalists to exploit their labor and hours in return for so little wages, and they were not responsible for their housing, food, and medical care; thus, once workers were injured or fell ill, they were thrown out. Thus, the European industrial revolution did not allow room for abolishment of slavery; rather, it turned free European workers into impoverished slaves of different forms within forced labor and despicable conditions.

4- There were two forms of enslavement resulted from the industrial revolution in Europe.

4/1: Colonialism:  Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, and The Netherlands enslaved millions of people in countries they occupied: such as India, Indonesia, the Philippines, and the Southeast of Asia and Arab countries, as people there worked forcibly to produce raw material and other treasures needed for European industry stolen from invaded countries.

4/2: European capitalism was so unjust that communism emerged as a result, raising banners of justice for workers and equality citizens. Yet, communist regimes became more extremist and totalitarian. Capitalist West countries in open, free markets make hundreds of factories and bank owners control and monopolize wealth and power, while those outside such circle live as free poor ones. In contrast, communist regimes make the ruler/president controls and monopolizes wealth and power as well as citizens. This applies to Stalin in Russia, Mao Zedong in China, Castro in Cuba, and ruler of North Korea. Such communist rulers enslave whole nations and everything is in service of rulers, and no one is free to do anything at all even in solitude!

Secondly: USA and Slavery:

 The above applies to the USA, and conditions there were worse and more despicable; because of abolishment of slavery, the American civil war broke out, with thousands of those killed and injured and handicapped, among civilians and soldiers, and after much sacrifices, nothing is achieved as far as abolishing slavery is concerned. Those enslaved for agricultural reasons were later on enslaved of their own choice for the sake of industrialization in the USA. We give more details below.   

 

1- Abraham Lincoln, in his presidential campaign in 1860, raised the motto of freeing slaves, and shortly before his becoming president, eleven states declared their separation and the confederate states were established under the leadership of Jefferson David. Lincoln considered this as a rebellion, and the American civil war erupted on 12th of April, 1861, and it ended in the surrender of Lee Grant the leader of the confederates armies on 9th of April 1865. 

2- The economic factor is the reason behind the abolishment of slavery in the USA; as southern states had agriculture-based economy, especially in planting cotton, and it was cheaper to use slaves instead of importing agricultural machines from Europe. As for the north states, their industry-economy was influenced by Europe and its industrial renaissance, and industrialization needed work force. Hence, black slaves in the southern states brought from Africa and its western coasts must be freed by Lincoln to be forced to work in American industry. Apart from the legal and political debate evolving around that topic, such endeavor of Lincoln was merely a fig leaf to cover the over-ambition and greed of American capitalism in the northern states at the time. 

3- Hence, the formal, outward liberation of slaves by saying to them the famous phrase: ''you are free to go'', was a big act of deceit: outwardly is torment  and inside is mercy; a given former slave was set free to move away with his family members to go anywhere, after living for so long in the household and farm of his former master, getting food and shelter, but what would he do once free?! He would certainly immigrate with his family to cities where factories were there in northern states. Yet, such a slave would find millions like him, hungry and homeless, and not all factories could have the capacity to hire such millions. Hence, instead of starving with his family, such a poor slave must accept forced work with lowest wages and hardest labor for long hours daily, mercilessly and uncharitably. If such a slave would grow lazy or become ill or injured, he would not be tormented or beaten, but bill be thrown away and fired from his job! This is not to mention that the white Americans, away from mottoes of equality raised by Jefferson, despised African-American people, and considered black persons as subhuman or non-human; at the time, there was a debate around if black persons are human beings or not! 

4- Because of the culture of enslavement, racial discrimination in the USA lasted for about 100 years after freeing slaves, and such racial discrimination ended after much struggle by African-American citizens, supported in the 20th century by human rights groups, that included white persons, especially civil rights movement between 1955 to 1968 that aimed at incriminating racial discrimination against African-American citizens and at giving them the right to vote and citizenry-based equality. Such struggle resulted in the assassination of John Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Malcolm X. it is a shame that racial discrimination and latent hatred of African Americans linger in some white American citizens until now, as exemplified by American white policemen shooting African Americans on several occasions, leading African Americans to protest against such racial discrimination. Hence Lincoln did not abolish roots of slavery; he did not remove injustice and impose equality and justice for all, as he aimed to change slaves from one position and conditions to another worse position and conditions.      

5- Thus, Europe and the USA have freed few millions of slaves brought by force from Africa, but both have invented a worst type of enslavement of hundreds of millions of free persons! The reason: the basis of enslavement is still there: injustice. As far as Islam is concerned, the Quran has fought and prohibited all types of injustices and urged justice on all levels. Europe at the time has made injustice as the creed of all actions directed at the impoverished inside Europe and invaded nations outside it. 

 

Thirdly: The Genius of the Quranic Solution:

 

1- The genius of the Quranic solution does not lie only in the fact that it deals with the roots of the slavery problem by prohibition of all types of injustices and to call for justice, fairness, and charity: "God commands justice, and charity, and generosity towards relatives. And He forbids immorality, and injustice, and oppression. He advises you, so that you may take heed." (16:90), but also in urging a peaceful solution to the slavery problem alongside with the value of justice and the value of charity that is above justice in the Quran.

2- We have mentioned before in our previous writings that an Islamic country is a peaceful one that never commits aggression and never begins to transgress against anyone, and thus, there is no room for it to enslave anyone or even to capture POWs, as causing harms to peaceful civilians is prohibited. Hence, the source of enslavement is prohibited in such Islamic country. Moreover, freeing slaves coming from outside a given an Islamic country into it by buying them is available as an Islamic duty by the pious, righteous rich persons. Even those who choose to remain inside the Islamic country as  refugees will receive all justice and charity. Thus, war is never an option or a proposed solution to abolish slavery outside the Islamic country by force, as good intentions can never be cause for waging wars at all; wars are big problems in themselves, and they are allowed in Islam ONLY in cases of self-defense and stopped when aggressors stop their aggression. Hence, self-defensive wars are akin to a precise surgical operation to remove cancerous cells. Aggressive enemies are the cancer to be controlled and removed, and once aggression stops, war stops as well. 

3- This Islamic solution/remedy has been adopted partially by the victims of modern, contemporary types of slavery: Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Mandela, who managed within peaceful jihad to address the consciousness of humanity and goodness of persons of which no human soul is devoid.

4- This Islamic solution/remedy was not adopted by the leader of the Zanj rebellion during the Abbasid era. The Arabic word ''Zanj'' means literally ''black enslaved persons''. The Zanj rebellion broke out in Iraq from 255 A.H.  to 270 A.H. during the Second Abbasid Era to protest violently and through bloodshed against the Abbasid affluence and injustices. The wealth of the Abbasid affluent ones was a result of the sweat and toil of the Zanj within a feudal system that enabled caliphs to distribute agricultural lands among his cronies and retinue within many cities like Basra. The black slaves had to reclaim and plant such lands, and slave-traders procured such black slaves from Africa to the Gulf area and to the south of Iraq. Such throngs of black slaves worked in agriculture within despicable conditions, constant flogging, and lack of proper nutrition. They had to carry tons of salt layers that used to cover south of Iraq from the Persian Gulf to reclaim arable lands underneath it, and to move salt to where it would be sold. In return for such arduous tasks, they ate only few dried dates and little green leaves daily. In contrast, affluent ones in Iraqi cities, especially Baghdad, used to eat dishes of tongues of fish, with each dish cost more than 1000 dirhams. Hence, such grave injustices led to rebellion within camps of the Zanj, and such revolt was led by a nameless leader, who later on called himself as Ali Ibn Muhammad, claiming he was a Shiite rebelling against Arabs of Iraq and Najd. This leader became one of Al-Khawarij and became very soon very popular among all black slaves. This leader made use of the despicable conditions and plight of the Zanj within the Persian Gulf and southern Iraq, noticing the huge gap between the impoverished and the hungry on the one hand, and the affluent ones living in palaces on the other hand, while exploiting slaves. This leader of the revolt gathered thousands of followers, and the Abbasids could not vanquish and defeat them except with extreme difficulty. At one point, this leader and all his Zanj followers raided Basra and demolished all its houses and palaces, enslaving its women, and burning the city to the ground. Later on, a plague stuck Iraq and thousands of people died daily. A historian called Al-Suly has mentioned that Zanj rebels killed at least 1.5 Muslims, and their leader at one point killed 300 thousand people in Basra. Such leader used to ascend the pulpit in his mosque to slander and verbally abuse the so-called companions of Prophet Muhammad, who were 'holy' to the Sunnites. It was rumored that a Hashemite woman would be sold in return for three dirhams in the camp of the Zanj leader, and each black rebel, or former slave, had at least ten Hashemite women for his sexual gratification and to serve him as female slaves. Naturally, the Zanj rebellion ended in nothing at all, despite such huge number of victims!                 

5- This solution by means of committing bloodshed never brought positive results, and the same applies to the solutions offered by the Americans, the Europeans, and communists that have only replaced traditional ancient ways of enslavement by modern, contemporary forms of slavery.

  

Lastly:

 As injustices reign supreme all over the globe, enslavement lingers within its two main types: the Salafist traditional ancient one and the contemporary one from human trafficking to capitalist exploitation.

 

 

COMMENTS:

1- Saeed Ali: I assert here that the Quran is the solution as applied by the real Islamic rule that lasted for 11 years of justice, freedom, and charity in the Yathreb city-state of Prophet Muhammad in the 7th century. Islam is the religion of peace and justice, but such fact has been buried by the unjust Arab conquerors after Muhammad's death. That was why slavery lingered for centuries, as the Arabs forsook the Quran during the Middle Ages until now. May God reward Dr. Mansour for his intellectual endeavors to enlighten us.

2- Ben Levante: I agree with Dr. Mansour, may God grant him the best of health, in all his views expressed above. We remind readers here that Al-Zanj rebelled in history after being enslaved to work in return for food only to reclaim lands for the affluent ones in Iraq in the Middle Ages. Such affluent ones used to eat sumptuous dishes bough by ill-gotten money! Affluent ones of today eat caviar! Some Egyptians spend millions of US$ to import caviar to the affluent ones, whereas poor peasants in Egypt sometimes die of hunger!

3- Dr. A. S. Mansour: We thank all our beloved fellow Quranists, and we implore the Almighty to grant us health to go on writing on our website. We assert the following to Ben Levante: a given Islamic country cannot possible control other countries; of course, slavery must be banned and abolished by laws all over the globe. The unjust ones will be losers in the Hereafter, but to execute such ban, this must be within the State institutions. Peaceful ones have many choices: to have patience, to immigrate, or legitimate self-defense against aggressors. Above all, a given country or state must apply justice on all levels and to fight injustices, this is a prerequisite to abolish all forms of slavery. 

4- Khaled Saleh: I would like to assert to Dr. Mansour slavery is based on two bases: injustice and exploitation. It is unethical to allow persons to ''own'' other persons anywhere in the globe. Some people who worship money and power seek to be superior over the rest of humanity; even free ones are enslaved by capitalists in their factories and companies! Let us remember 20:60-64. Legislative and ethical relativity in relation to slaves and their likes still remains amidst poverty and plight of many races. Thank you.  

5- Abou Ayoub Al-Kuwaiti: I ask Dr. Mansour what he means by saying inside it is mercy and outwardly there is torment. Does he mean the other way round: outwardly is mercy and inside it is torment to say to slaves: you are free to go? I thank Dr. Mansour for his precise analysis that shows his genius in tackling the Quranic verses. May God reward Dr. Mansour in Heaven.

6- Saeed Ali: I greet Abou Ayoub Al-Kuwaiti and I would like to be permitted to answer his question in lieu of Dr. Mansour; he did not make a mistake by saying inside it is mercy and outwardly there is torment. He meant to say that mercy is shown by freeing slaves but torment is waiting for freed unprotected slaves who could not find jobs, protection, nutrition, housing, etc. and this is utter torment within merciless societies of inhuman notions and total lack of social justice at the time. God bless you. 

7- Abou Ayoub Al-Kuwaiti: I thank Saeed Ali very much for answering my question, and I hope he will write many useful articles of his own later on.

8- Dr. A. S. Mansour: We thank Saeed Ali and Abou Ayoub Al-Kuwaiti; their dialogue lends vivacity to our website as real Quranist brethren should act and mingle on the intellectual level; and thanks for correcting our possible mistakes. By the way, we feel acutely the long periods of absence of Abou Ayoub Al-Kuwaiti who represents the open-minded Kuwaiti culture and mentality. May God bless and reward all of you.  

9- Muhammad Shaalan: I would like to add the fact that enslavement is a devilish notion coined by Satan, by making arrogant human beings think they are the betters of some other human beings; devils want all humanity with then in Hell; see 17:62, and this can only be possible when devils control souls of people fully, and such control is akin to enslavement. Hence, devils urge human beings to enslave and exploit one another in many different overt and covert ways. Thank you!

10- Abou Ayoub Al-Kuwaiti: I thank Dr. Mansour for asking about me and for praising me; I was too busy because of matters of vital importance, but I will follow all new articles with comments without allowing transient-world matters to divert me away from this website. There are many Kuwaiti youths who are better than myself in many directions, I think. I would like to assert a phrase I hear in a movie called ''The Ten Commandments'': "God made man, man made the slave'', as this phrase fits perfectly the topic of this book.

11- Marwa Ahmed Mustafa: I salute you, dear Dr. Mansour. I feel bound to say that types of exploitation and enslavement will linger for longer durations as long as there are poverty and oppression that crush the poor and limit their hopes to just make ends meet, whereas blood-sucking capitalists control everything and consider the poor ones as insects to be crushed mercilessly. We read nowadays about female servants sexually abused, tortured, and killed by their employers in the Arab world. The Gulf countries enslave their foreign employees in the worst possible manner fit only within the Middle Ages! Why on earth such bad habits are revived within new ways in the 21st century?! 

 

Slaves in Our Modern Age:

Firstly: The Last Countries to Formally Abolish Slavery while Retaining the Culture of Slavery:

Mauritania:

1- Mauritania overtly abolished slavery in 1981because of international community pressure, and the law to consider slavery as a punishable crime was issued only in 2007. Yet, 17% of the population in Mauritania are slaves as per reports of SOS. Walk Free Foundation has made Mauritania on top of the list of countries practicing modern, contemporary slavery, suffered by 4% of the population in Mauritania: about 140.000 persons. By 2015, Mauritania issued a law considering crimes related to slavery as crimes against humanity that are imprescriptible.    

2- Yet, the deep-rooted culture of slavery still persists, especially in rural areas where no human rights groups can reach; this is consolidated by long history of enslavement and class distinction inside the Mauritanian society that include many races: Arabs, Amazigh/Berber, and black Africans.  

3- Because of this dominant culture of slavery, a black Mauritanian writer/blogger has been tried and sentenced to death, allegedly accused of insulting Prophet Muhammad. While being tried, this writer asserted that no offense is intended at all; he wants only to denounce class distinction and social injustice in Mauritania, and if his article has been misinterpreted, he announces his repentance before all people. He asserted in his article that Islam has nothing to do with caste system and class distinction, as both are against being religious. That is why he has received a death sentence despite his clearing the name of Islam and how Islam negates and refutes such social injustice: how such a former black slave he would dare to touch a raw nerve within the Mauritanian society?!

The KSA:

1- King Feisal issued a royal decree to free slaves and stop trading in slaves on 7th of Nov. 1962.

2- Before that date, it was a widespread custom to buy and sell slaves in special markets made for that purpose, an eye-witness tells us that one of the slaves markets was near the Sacred Mosque in Mecca, where male and female slaves of all age groups were bought and sold; some of them were sold as their masters wanted to get rid of them, and some were brought from outside Arabia. Girls and women would sit on wooden stools put against a wall, covered with thin veils, while boys and men would be on the other side on wooden stools, and potential buyers would check slaves in terms of health and appearance and talk to them if they knew Arabic. If acceptance to serve the new master is verbally uttered by a certain slave chosen by the buyer, the slave-trader would get his money and the new master would take his chosen slave.

3- Another witness says that after 40 years of abolishing slavery and slave-trading in the KSA, some senior elderly Saudi citizens would tell stories about the era of slave-trading in different Saudi markets in many cities, and how slave-traders were filthily rich indeed. One of such elderly citizens would tell that male and female slaves used to have ID papers that describe them physically, while mentioning names of past and present owners and their addresses. One elderly citizen said that his father once bought a male slave in return for 200 SR in Yathreb, and sold this slave for a relative in return for 8000 SR years later. This charitable, kind relative set the slave free, but the freed slave refused to leave, insisting on serving him till death, as a cherished member of the household. Elderly citizens insisted that the number of slaves was tens of thousands, who were set free as per royal decree of 1962. Some of these former slaves worked in trade or in agriculture, and some had civil posts and carried names of tribes in which they used to live. Some old documents show that slavery was practiced for centuries in Yathreb; an 18-year-old slave-girl in 1956 would be sold in return for 38.000 SR while another woman in the same year was sold in return for merely 400 SR, though her papers showed that she was a good housekeeper and a cook. Other documents reveal that there were rules and laws to protect slaves, buy obligating the masters to feed, clothe, heal, and remedy the slaves and to deal kindly with them, and never to separate a female slave from her offspring. Slaves had the right to complain to judges in cities if mistreated by their owners, and judges would warn owners to deal with the slaves kindly. If the complaints persisted for two months, judges would order owners to give up their slaves to the city. A Saudi citizen tells the story about his caring for an elderly former slave who is old enough to be his grandfather; as this citizen's grandfather bought this former slave as a boy who was kidnapped from Yemen decades ago and was castrated, and when this slave was freed in 1962, he cried and refused to leave his kind, charitable former owner, and he became a faithful helper/ servant for the household in return for a salary. All children called this former slave as ''uncle'', and treated him as a family member, and when he grew old, the family members cared for him to the last, until his recent death. A female senior citizen tells the story about female slaves in her father's household, who participated in rearing her and her siblings like kind nannies or moms. Such nannies were in most cases treated kindly and charitably as household members. One of such nannies had a son who assumed a high-rank position in the Saudi government. Among the revealed documents was a contract of selling a young female slave in return for 4000 SR in 1369 A.H., while mentioning her physical qualities and abilities in service of masters, but when slaves were freed in 1962, IDs were issued for them as Saudi citizens, with estimated birth-date, given name, etc.   

4- Indeed, the culture of slavery is still deep-seated inside the KSA; as the royal family ascribing the State and citizens to its family name, as if such citizens were enslaved to the royal family as per Middle-Ages culture like the Umayyad, Abbasid, and Ottoman dynasties. Besides, foreign working force (Muslims and non-Muslims) inside the KSA are being enslaved within the so-called sponsor system, as if foreign workers and employees are being enslaved of their own choice as per the chosen slavery in Europe and the USA a century ago, after abolishing slave-trading. Hence the royal Saudi family has imitated the West countries in enslaving workers formerly within the sponsor system, whereas the West capitalists now have given workers their rights, while slavery is deep rooted in the culture, name, and lifestyle of Saudis. 

 

Secondly: Reports on Contemporary Slavery:

 

1- This report is titled ''Slavery and its Various Manifestations'', and we quote from it: (… Slavery in ancient times was linked to fetters and chains and absolute ownership, but in our modern times, it takes various forms, from recruiting children in military actions, human trafficking, prostitution, forcing women to be sex workers, forced labor, arbitrary laws, to manipulating children as working force. Such phenomena are sometimes legalized by law and accepted by societies, but they are flagrant violations of human rights and human dignity. Many conditions support the existence of contemporary, modern slavery in the developing world, such as poverty, discrimination, and social exclusion as well as wars and economic collapse that exasperate matters in recent decades … )

2- Walk Free Foundation is concerned with abolishing all forms of contemporary slavery all over the globe. Its slavery index has mentioned on 31st of May, 2016, that about 46 million persons all over the world are suffering under the yoke of contemporary slavery; we quote words of this foundation here: (… contemporary slaves are about 45.8 million persons all over the world, and the number has increased at the rate of 28% more than the estimations of 2014, indicating that contemporary slavery has increased. Slavery index is based on indications related to human trafficking, military recruitment of children, forcing others to be sex workers, forced marriages of minor female children, being in debts, and laws violating human freedom and human rights. The report tackles data of the slavery index in 167 countries, within 42.000 interviews in 53 languages, so that enslaved people's number is reached and how governments are dealing with their conditions. Such interviews cover 44% of the world population …). 

3- CNN has launched a webpage titled the Road to Freedom, aiming at helping end modern-age contemporary slavery by shedding light on its victims and some success stories of those gaining their freedom. Under the title "Contemporary Slavery Increases at the Rate of 30% All Over the Globe", we quote the following: (… A new study has shown that contemporary, modern-age slavery rates have increased 30% all over the world … 4% of North Koreans are deemed as enslaved … 50 million persons all over the world are deemed as enslaved, mostly in India, Bangladesh, China, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Qatar, Cambodia, and Hong Kong … Such countries made no endeavors to end modern, contemporary forms of slavery … India has the biggest number of enslaved persons, while North Korea comes on top of the list in the slavery index in terms of the rate of enslaved population: 4.37% …). 

 

Asia develops its economy by compromising human rights:

 Asian countries like India and China are admired because of their rapid economic growth, but such growth has a darker side: the highest rates of contemporary slavery all over the globe; 56% of contemporary slaves are found in Asia. Asian countries suffer phenomena like human trafficking, forced labor, and forcing women to be sex workers as well as children abuse/exploitation, and such phenomena are being overlooked by the Indian and Chinese governments for the sake of economy. Let us continue quoting the report of Walk Free Foundation about the slavery index all over the world: (… the least contemporary modern-age slavery rates are found in the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Belgium, Sweden, Austria, Switzerland, Denmark, Norway, Ireland, and Luxemburg …)

Contemporary slavery in Arab countries:

 Another report asserts that no Arab country is free from modern-age contemporary forms of slavery; hundreds of thousands of people suffer from is: 570 thousand in Egypt, 454 thousand in North Sudan, apart from increasing numbers of Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, especially after the emergence of ISIS terrorists. Slavery index defines contemporary, modern-age slavery as "owning and controlling persons within depriving them of individual freedom for the purpose of exploitation and making use of them or to move them forcibly or to get rid of them". Undoubtedly, fighting and combating contemporary, modern-age slavery entail international solidarity, as human trafficking that cross international borders constitutes the biggest form of contemporary, modern-age slavery and its illegal gains reach over 150 billion $ annually. Under the title "Slavery in the Arab World", we quote the following: (… as usual in such surveys, Arab countries are never absent, where thousands of persons suffer contemporary, modern-age slavery , with Qatar on top of the list in terms of rate, while Egyptians working outside Egypt in Arab countries form the biggest rate of those suffering contemporary, modern-age slavery. Lowest rates are found in Oman and the KSA due to their lower rates of population growth in comparison to the rest of the Arab world at large …). Under the title "The Gulf Countries Enslave Others", we quote the following: (… Asian and African employees and workers inside the Gulf monarchies suffer persecution and racial discrimination especially within arbitrary laws of stay and labor; they might get deported anytime without notice and they have no legal rights at all … this makes women suffer exploitation by their employers … such despicable conditions are because of the sponsor system adopted by all the Gulf monarchies, seen by Amnesty International as embodying contemporary, modern-age slavery in its worst form … Qatar was accused many times of several human rights violations because of such despicable conditions, especially because of the dire, inhuman circumstances of workers in projects preparing Qatar and its infrastructure to host World Football Cup 2022 … female minors coming from Egypt, Morocco, and Lebanon are forced to marry old men or to be sex workers for Gulf rich men … such men sometimes go to borders of Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey to marry Syrian and Iraqi female minors from refugees camps, caring nothing about their tragedy …). Under the title " ISIS Terrorists Enslave Women and Recruit Children in Military Actions", we quote the following: (…Syrians and Iraqis suffer flagrant violations of human rights committed by all warring parties, but ISIS terrorists are the worst, as they revive slavery of ancient times typically of the Middle-Ages, when they enslaved and captured about 3000 Yazidi Iraqi women to sell as slaves in return for money … ISIS terrorists have recruited children and trained them militarily to use arms and weapons and drove them to commit suicide bombings, as shown in many ISIS videos …). Let us not forget that military service in Egypt is akin to forced labor under the cover of military recruitment, as uneducated young men are spending their period of military service in serving high-rank officers for free for several months. Such frustrated, angry young men end their military service while hating Egypt because of bad memories of being exploited in conditions akin to unpaid forced labor. Let us not forget that Egyptian and Arab prisons – overt and secret ones – are locations of enslavement and torture, especially for political prisoners. Such political prisoners, like ourselves in the 1980s in Cairo, never forget such horrible experience all their life. The Egyptian prison is alive inside ourselves till this very moment!  

 

 

Lastly: To Accuse the Great Religion of Islam of Endorsing and Justifying Enslavement Is Utter and Adamant Stupidity:

 Islam provides the ideal solution to end slavery without this Quranic solution, injustice dominates along with ignorance, corruption, tyranny, exclusion, and enslavement; when tyranny dominates, enslavement dominates as well either within outright slavery or within the worst contemporary widespread types as per international reports of human rights. Instead of defending Islam against the accusation of its purported encouraging of slavery and clearing its name, the mortal gods/deities of the Sunnite religion in particular revive enslavement in our modern age, in its ancient ways as perpetrated by Sunnite Wahabi terrorists of ISIS and Boko Haram, or in an covert ways perpetrated by Arab tyrannical regimes within contemporary forms of slavery. The best discourse: "O people! We created you from a male and a female, and made you races and tribes, that you may know one another. The best among you in the sight of God is the most righteous. God is All-Knowing, Well-Experienced. " (49:13). God says nothing but the Truth.    

 

COMMENTS:

1- Abou Ayoub Al-Kuwaiti: I desire to talk about the Japanese in relation to enslavement; I was watching a documentary about the problem of human trafficking, and I felt shocked by this story: a Columbian pretty young girl was promised decent job in japan, but upon her arrival in Tokyo, a her male employer took her passport and made her sign IOWs unbeknownst to her! She was entrapped! She was forced to work as a sex worker to pay up, and she had to have sex with at least ten men per night! When she fled and went into the police station, policemen let her down and never helped her! It seems that countries of the First World are not totally free from forced slavery and enslavement! Japanese have yet to apologize for using Korean women as forced sex workers during WWII. Yet, Japan is looked upon now as a leading pioneer country on many levels. Japan now stopped being unjust to other countries. Let us learn from its example to make the world respect Arabs. Thank all of you, especially dear Dr. Mansour.   

2- Ben Levante: About injustices, enslavement, and slaves, I would like to add that the old ways of bondage are now revived in new ways. There is vast difference between injustices supported, overlooked, or tolerated by laws and injustices being fought by laws. In many cases, the results are the same in both cases. For instance, in Germany, where I live, unemployed persons are paid money and have medical insurance, etc. and so are refugees; yet, poverty, exploitation, and prostitution still exist. Germany does its best to control such vices, but the problem linger despite all this. Another example is the USA; it allowed enslavement once and then abolished slavery, but poverty, exploitation, and prostitution still exist. I feel that the Quran is against enslavement, as it urges its being abolished by the best possible way: to provide enticements for freeing slaves. I feel that the expression ''what your right hand possesses'' refers to the past: those who owned slaves already; this is NOT a sort of encouragement to own more and more slaves even by buying them. Within such gradual freeing of slaves of both genders, a given Islamic country must stop human trafficking. I feel bound to say that I like very much the last sentence by Dr. Mansour about prisons; what he writes apply to all Arab prisons and third-world prisons as well. May God reward him in Heaven for his intellectual endeavors.

3- Ahmed Drami: I feel bound to say that imams/narrators of hadiths fabricated them to serve the unjust and to spread and justify injustices, especially related to slaves in the Middle Ages; such fabricators urged the notion that an escaped slave can never perform prayers deemed acceptable by God! How dared they to tell such lies?! Such notions are effrontery to God! Indeed, I do believe that such hadiths are opium of the masses (we allude here to Karl Marx). The Sunnite religion is the opium of the Muhammadans masses, for sure; it is a system of intoxicating brains of the oppressed ones, in Mauritania for instance, to have a tarnished image of Islam to accept oppression as the norm and never to rebel against it. Mauritanian slaves there are urged to accept bondage in return for protection and food! What a shame! God will certainly  punish the unrepentant oppressors in Hell; see 13:5.    

4- Saeed Ali: I urge all of us to remember always that piety is the ultimate goal; this is the useful, great lesson we all learn from our dear Dr. Mansour, may God protect and preserve him and grant him the best of health. We are looking forward to other books of similar nature that expose the falsehoods of the Sunnite religion. I thank Abou Ayoub, Ahmed Drami, and Ben Levante for their very useful comments, may God reward and protect you and all our brethren the Quranists all over the globe. All of us are to remember that piety is the target to be attained by all acts of worship and good deeds. Piety is reflected in what we call conscience; pangs of conscience are good indicators of sinning and sense of guilt when one commits bad deeds that entail repentance, atonement, and imploring God for forgiveness. People trespass against God and against their fellow human beings; people commit injustices, and Arabs began such sins that go on until now when they committed the crime of Arab conquests in the 7th century, and as a result, many types of injustices, including many forms of slavery, linger. Pious believers fear God, and if they commit mistakes, their pangs of conscience make them stop trespassing, make amends, and apologize to the wronged parties. We must follow the example of Dr. Mansour in his urging us never to lose hope in anything. I seize the chance here to welcome novices to the Quranism website, hoping they will be good, faithful Quranists, and I hope they will help us propagate Quranism all over cyberspace, with due thanks and respect to the novices.     

5- Dr. A. S. Mansour: We thank all our beloved Quranists, and we assert here that all your important comments have enriched the topic of this book; may God reward all of you in Heaven. We say to Ben Levante that the Islamic country of justice in the manner of the Yathreb city-state led by Prophet Muhammad in the 7th century is not an impossible imaginary utopia; rather, it is possible and it is existing at varying degrees within the West countries. Sometimes we wish that the Quranic expression ''what your right hand possesses'' would be written in the past tense or in a manner that indicates its being something in the past; yet, it gives us comfort that there are Quranic legislations urging freeing of all types of slaves and acting charitably to them and even getting married to them. Hence, within this light, a real Islamic country is a realistic one that takes great care to apply and ensure human rights; hence, it is its duty to free slaves by buying them beforehand and freeing them at once, while dealing with them kindly and fairly as citizens, without engaging into wars with other countries that permit buying and selling slaves. Some rich volunteers have bought enslaved ones from ISIS terrorists and helped them to be refugees in European countries – despite all risks involved – this is better than waging wars that exacerbate the problem of enslavement, increase number of those killed, and elongate the duration of the crisis without possible quick solutions. Thus, the poor innocent victims would be saved instead of losing their lives; and we personally tend to think that we belong to the innocent victims from all colors, races, and religions.