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).
[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).
Quranic Foundations And Structure Of Muslim Society
B. CHRISTIAN TESTIMONY ON MUSLIM CONQUESTS
Says Will Durant [1]
in The Age of Faith (pp. 187-190, 218-219, 227):
“Mohammed had appointed no successor
to his power, but he had chosen Abu Bekr (573-624) to conduct the prayers in
the Madina mosque … this mark of preference persuaded the Moslem leaders to
elect Abu Bekr the first Caliph of Islam … Abu Bekr was … simple and
abstemious, kindly but resolute; attending personally to details of
administration and judgment, and never resting till justice was done; serving
without pay till his people overruled his austerity; and then, in his will,
returning to the new state the stipends it had paid him … the Moslem leaders
were passionate disciples of Mohammed, prayed even more than they fought … The
Arab troops were more rigorously disciplined and more ably led; they were
inured to leadership … could fight on empty stomachs … ‘Be just’, ran Abu
Bekr’s proclamation, ‘be valiant; die rather than yield; be merciful; slay
neither old men, nor women, nor children. Destroy no fruit trees, grain, or
cattle. Keep your word, even to your enemies. Molest not those religious
persons who live retired from the world’ …
Omar (the second Caliph) … Having
beaten a Bedouin unjustly, he begged the Bedouin— in vain—to inflict an equal
number of strokes upon him. He was a severe puritan, demanding strict virtue of
every Moslem … Moslem historians tell us that he owned but one shirt and one
mantle, patched and repatched; that he lived on barley bread and dates, and
drank nothing but water; that he slept on a bed of palm leaves, hardly better
than a hair shirt; and that his sole concern was the propagation of the faith
by letters and by arms. When a Persian satrap came to pay homage to Omar he
found the conqueror of the East asleep among beggars on the steps of the Madina
mosque … The Patriarch Sophronius agreed to surrender Jerusalem if the Caliph
would come in person to ratify the terms of capitulation. Omar consented, and
traveled from Madina in stately simplicity, armed with a sack of corn, a bag of
dates, a gourd of water, and a wooden dish … He received Sophronius with
kindness and courtesy, imposed an easy tribute on the vanquished, and confirmed
the Christians in the peaceful possession of all their shrines … Omar forbade
the conquerors to buy or till land…
“The Jews of the Near East had welcomed the Arabs as
liberators … they stood on equal terms with Christians, were free once more to
live and worship in Jerusalem, and prospered under Islam in Asia, Egypt, and
Spain as never under Christian rule. Outside of Arabia the Christians of
western Asia usually practised their religion unhindered; Syria remained
predominantly Christian until the third Moslem century; in the reign of Mamun
(813-33) we hear of 11,000 Christian churches in Islam—as well as hundreds of synagogues
and fire temples. Christian festivals were freely and openly celebrated;
Christian pilgrims came in safety to visit Christian shrines in Palestine; the
Crusaders found large numbers of Christians in the Near East in the twelfth
century; and Christian communities have survived there to this day. Christian
heretics persecuted by the patriarchs of Constantinople, Jerusalem, Alexandria,
or Antioch were now free and safe under a Moslem rule that found their disputes
quite unintelligible. In the ninth century the Moslem governor of Antioch
appointed a special guard to keep Christian sects from massacring one another
at church. Monasteries and nunneries flourished … relations between the two
religions were so genial that Christians wearing crosses on their breasts
conversed in mosques with Moslem friends. The Mohammedan administrative
bureaucracy had hundreds of Christian employees … Sergius, father of St. John
of Damascus, was chief finance minister to Abd-al-Malik, and John himself, last
of the Greek Fathers of the Church, headed the council that governed Damascus.
The Christians of the East in general regarded Islamic rule as a lesser evil
than that of the Byzantine government and Church.
“Despite or because of this policy of
tolerance in early Islam, the new faith won over to itself in time most of the
Christians, nearly all the Zoroastrians and pagans, and many of the Jews, of
Asia, Egypt, and North Africa … Gradually the non-Moslem populations adopted
the Arabic language and dress, the laws and faith of the Koran. Where
Hellenism, after a thousand years of mastery, had failed to take root, and
Roman arms had left the native gods unconquered, and Byzantine orthodoxy had
raised rebellious heresies, Mohammedanism had secured, almost without
proselytism, not only belief and worship, but a tenacious fidelity that quite
forgot the superseded gods. From China, Indonesia, and India through Persia,
Syria, Arabia, and Egypt to Morocco and Spain, the Mohammedan faith touched the
hearts and fancies of a hundred peoples, governed their morals and molded their
lives, gave them consoling hopes and a strengthening pride …
“… We must concede that the early
Caliphs, from Abu Bekr to al-Mamun, gave successful organization to human life
over a wide area, and may be counted among the ablest rulers in history. They
might have devasted or confiscated everything, like the Mongols or the Magyars
of the raiding Norse; instead they merely taxed. When Omar conquered Egypt he
rejected the advice of Zobeir to divide the land among his followers, and the
Caliph confirmed his judgment: ‘Leave it’, said Omar, ‘in the people’s hands to
nurse and fructify’. Under the caliphal government lands were measured, records
were systematically kept, roads and canals were multiplied or maintained,
rivers were banked to prevent floods; Iraq, now half desert, was again a garden
of Eden; Palestine, recently so rich in sand and stones, was fertile, wealthy,
and populous … the caliphs gave reasonable protection to life and labor, kept
career open to talent, promoted for three to six centuries the prosperity of
areas never so prosperous again, and stimulated and supported such a
flourishing of education, literature, science, philosophy, and art as made
western Asia, for five centuries, the most civilized region in the world.”
[1] It may be remembered here
that, as a good Christian, Will Durant is always ready to attack and insult
Islam and its promulgator on the flimsiest grounds.
