CHRISTIAN TESTIMONY RELATING TO MUSLIM HISTORY

 

 Quranic Foundations And Structure Of Muslim Society

2. WITH REFERENCE TO SERFDOM AND SLAVERY

A. CHRISTIAN TESTIMONY ^[1] RELATING TO MUSLIM HISTORY

 

Being the uncompromising upholder of human dignity and liberty, an institution like serfdom had no sanction to emerge under the law of Islam. Will Durant admits it, even as Islam’s adversary, when he observes: “The Caliphs gave reasonable protection to life and labour” (op. cit., p. 227). And the irreverent critic, H.G. Wells, confesses that “Islam established in the world a great tradition of dignified fair-dealing” and “created a society more free from widespread cruelty and social oppression than any society had been in the world before.” (Outline of History, p. 325). 

 

In respect of the institution of Slavery, Will Durant admits that the Holy Prophet (Peace be on him!) “did what he could do to mitigate its burdens and its sting” (p. 180), and observes: “The Koran recognised the capture of non-Muslims in war, and the birth of children to slave-parents, as the sole legitimate sources of slavery; no Moslem (just as in Christendom no Christian) was to be enslaved” (p. 209). As such, it was mostly and basically the unransomed prisoners of war,^[2] the exaggeration of whose numbers is discounted by Will Durant himself (p. 209), that formed in the Muslim world what has been wrongly termed as slave class. However, with all his want of love and respect for Islam, he finds himself forced to say: 

 

“The Moslem … handled them (slaves) with a genial humanity that made their lot no worse—perhaps better, as more secure— than that of a factory worker in nineteenth-century Europe … The offspring of a female slave by her master, of a free woman by her slave, was free from birth. Slaves were allowed to marry; and their children, if talented, might receive an education. It is astonishing how many sons of slaves rose to high place in the intellectual and political world of Islam, how many, like Mahmud and the early Mamluks, become kings.” (p. 209). 

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[1] For the Qur’anic stand in respect of the abolition of these evils, readers should refer to the relevant sections of the present book, especially in vol. 2.

[2] If there were ‘slaves’ of any other category, they must be taken to have come in reprisals against the continuous mischief of the neighbouring non-Muslim communities. For instance, Will Durant says, referring to Christian slave-trade: “Moslems and Greeks were kidnapped by (Christian) slave traders along the shores of the Black Sea, western Asia, or northern Africa for sale as farm hands, domestic servants, eunuchs, concubines or prostitutes … The slave trade flourished in Italy, probably due to the nearness of Moslem countries which could be preyed upon with a good conscience …” (op. cit., p. 554).

Source

to be continued . . . . . 

Quranic Foundation & Structure Of Muslim Society In The End Times

IN TERMS OF RESPECT FOR HUMAN DIGNITY - WITH REFERENCE TO THE STATUS OF WOMAN

 

 Quranic Foundations And Structure Of Muslim Society

2) IN TERMS OF RESPECT FOR HUMAN DIGNITY - WITH REFERENCE TO THE STATUS OF WOMAN

We shall confine ourselves here only to brief confessions by a Christian scholar, and shall leave out elaborate discussion—both theological and historical. (Elaborate presentation of the Qur’anic teaching in this behalf has been given in vol. 2). 

 

A.  CHRISTIAN TESTIMONY ON THE ROLE OF CHRISTIANITY

Will Durant says (The Age of Faith, pp. 825-826):

“The theories of churchmen were generally hostile to woman; some laws of the Church enhanced her subjection … To priests and theologians woman was still in these centuries what she had seemed to Chrysostom—‘a necessary evil, a natural temptation, a desirable calamity, a domestic peril, a deadly fascination, a painted ill’. She was still the ubiquitous reincarnation of the Eve who had lost Eden for mankind, still the favored instrument of Satan in leading men to hell. St. Thomas Aquinas, usually the soul of kindness … placed her in some ways below the slave: ‘The woman is subject to the man on account of the weakness of her nature, both of mind and of body … Man is the beginning of woman and her end, just as God is the beginning and end of every creature … Woman is in subjection according to the law of nature, but a slave is not … Children ought to love their father more than their mother’ … Man, but not woman, was made in the image of God; ‘it is plain from this’, argued the canonist, ‘that wives should be subject to their husbands, and should almost be servants’ …

 

“Civil law was more hostile to her than canon law. Both codes permitted wife-beatings … Civil law ruled that the word of women could not be admitted in court … it excluded even the most high-born ladies from representing their own estates in the Parliament of England or the Estates-General of France. Marriage gave the husband full authority over the use and usufruct of any property that his wife owned at marriage.” (Italics, present writer’s).

        

B.   CHRISTIAN TESTIMONY ON THE ROLE OF ISLAM

Will Durant states (The Age of Faith, pp. 180-181, 183):

“In like manner He (Muhammad) improved the position of woman … He allowed women to come to the mosque, but believed that ‘their homes are better for them’; yet when they came to his services he treated them kindly even if they brought suckling babes: if, says an amiable tradition, he heard a child cry, he would shorten his sermon lest the mother be inconvenienced. He put an end to the Arab practice of (feminine) infanticide (17:31). He placed woman on the some footing with man in legal processes and in financial independence; she might follow any legitimate profession, keep her earnings, inherit property, and dispose of her belongings, at will (4:4, 32). He abolished the Arab custom of transmitting women as property from father to son. Women were to inherit half as much as the male heirs, and were not to be disposed of against their will … a tradition quotes the Prophet as saying to women, ‘It is permitted to you to go out for your needs’ … we find Moslem women moving about freely and unveiled in the Islam of his time, and a century thereafter. 

 

“Morals are in part a function of climate: probably the heat of Arabia intensified sexual passion and precocity, and some allowance should be made for men in perpetual heat. Moslem laws were designed to reduce temptation outside of marriage, and increase opportunity within. Premarital continence was strictly enjoined (24:33), and fasting was recommended as an aid. The consent of both parties was required for marriage … Mohammed accepted polygamy to balance a high death rate in both sexes, the length of maternal nursing, and the early waning of reproductive powers in hot climes … He forbade concubinage (70:29-31). 

 

“… the ethic of the Koran is sternly puritan as Cromwell’s; only the uninformed think of Mohammedanism as a morally easy creed.” (Italics, present writer’s).

 

Source

to be continued . . . . . 

Quranic Foundation & Structure Of Muslim Society In The End Times