http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Pages/Myths-of-Islam.htm#slavery
The Truth:
There is not the least bit of intolerance for slavery anywhere in the
Qur=92an. In fact, the =93holy=94 book of Islam explicitly gives slave-
owners the freedom to ***ually exploit their slaves =96 not just in one
place, but in at least four separate Suras. Islamic law is littered
with rules concerning the treatment of slaves, some of which are
relatively humane, but none that prohibit the actual practice by any
stretch.
The very presence of these rules condones and legitimizes the
institution of slavery. Adding to this is the fact that Muhammad was
an avid slave trader. After providing ample evidence of his
activities according to the most reliable Muslim biographers, the
Center of the Study of Political Islam summarizes their findings:
Muhammad captured slaves, sold slaves, bought slaves as gifts of
pleasure, received slaves as gifts, and used slaves for work. The
Sira is exquisitely clear on the issue of slavery. (Muhammad and the
Unbelievers: a Political Life)
As such, this deeply dehumanizing horror has been a ubiquitous
tradition of Islam since the days of Muhammad to the current plight of
non-Muslims in the Sudan, Mali, Niger and Mauritania, as well as other
parts of the Muslim world.
There has never been an abolitionary movement within Islam (just as
the religion produces no organized resistance to present-day
enslavement). The abolition of slavery was imposed on the Islamic
world by European countries, along with other political pressures that
were entirely unrelated to Islamic law.
Although horrible abuses of slaves in the Muslim world were recorded,
there has been little inclination toward the do***entation and earnest
contrition that one finds in the West. The absence of a guilty
conscience often leads to the mistaken impression that slavery was not
as bad under Islam... when it is actually indicative of the tolerance
that the religion has for the practice
So narcissistic is the effect of Islam on the devoted, that to this
day many Muslims believe in their hearts that the women and children
carried off in battle, and their surviving men folk, were actually
done a favor by the Muslim warriors who plucked them from their fields
and homes and relegated them to lives of demeaning servitude.
Shame and apology, no matter how appropriate, are almost never to be
found in Dar al-Islam.
Caliphs, the religious equivalent of popes, maintained harems of
hundreds, sometimes thousands of young girls and women captured from
lands as far away as Europe and consigned to ***ual slavery.
Hungarians were hunted like animals by the Turks, who carried 3
million into slavery over a 150 year period.
African slaves were often castrated by their Muslim masters. Few
survived to reproduce, which is why there are not many people of
African descent living in the Middle East, even though more slaves
were taken out of Africa in the 1300 years of Arab slave trading than
in the 300 years of European slavery. The 400,000 slaves brought to
America, for example, have now become a community of 30 million, with
a much higher standard of living than their African peers.
There is no William Wilberforce or Bartoleme de las Casas in Islamic
history as there is in Christianity. When asked to produce the name
of a Muslim abolitionist, apologists sometimes meekly suggest Muhammad
himself. But, if a slave owner and trader, who commanded the capture
and ***ual exploitation of slaves, and left a 13-century legacy of
religiously-based slavery, is the best that Islam can offer, then no
amount of sophistry will be enough to convince any but the most
ignorant.
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