Muslim Woman

Before the advent of Islam slavery prevailed all over the world. To men in those days, it seemed perfectly normal for the strong and wealthy to have slaves whom they had captured in war or purchased in the market. The Greeks were the leaders of thought in the ancient world. No Greek thinker had ever raised his voice against the institution of slavery. The Quran proclaimed the equality of all men in the sight of God. It struck at the root of slavery by recognizing the moral worth of man as man. However, there were, at the time of the advent of Islam, numerous slaves, both men and women, in Arabia as elsewhere in the world. The Arab economy was based on slavery. To abolish it at one stroke was impracticable. It could not be done without plunging the whole society into confusion. Yet, in every conceivable way, the Quran discouraged slavery and improved the lot of the slaves. The Muslims were urged to be kind and considerate to their slaves. They were told that to emancipate a slave was a meritorious act. They could atone for some of their offences by setting a slave free. Thus the number of slaves was gradually reduced and society was made less dependent on slave labour. The words "whom your right hand possessed" occurring in the Quran are in the past tense and refer to those who had already been enslaved. When they were emancipated through a gradual process, slavery died a natural death. The main source of slaves-men and women-was prisoners in war. The Quran laid down that they should be set free either for a ransom or as a favour (47 : 4). The door for future slavery was thus closed by the Quran for ever. Whatever happened in subsequent history, was the responsibility of the Muslims and not of the Quran.

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What is the good of sudden revolutionary changes? What does mankind gain by accelerating the working of eternal laws for a time and securing their extraordinary results if after a while human mind and those results are to revert to their old level? In a concrete form the question might be, what contribution did early Islam make to the betterment of mankind?  The answer is “immense” Firstly, Islam gave the world God’s eternal laws in the form of a book (Quran) so that who so wishes might give them practical shape and obtain their happy results. Secondly, Islam showed the world that the laws are workable, that they are not mere utopia but a practicable code of life which was given a trial in a particular period of history and produced positive results. Emergent evaluations help mankind go ahead. As already explained human intellect works by experimentation. 1t evolves a plan, executes it and then finds after centuries that the plan was defective and hence a failure. Then it begins experimenting with some other plan. If, however, it can have the benefit of seeing the results achieved by a revolution, the precedent will help it assess much better the results of its own planning. A comparative study of pre and post Islamic history will show at once that the progress man has made during post Islamic period is unparalleled. The progress would appear much more marked had the history of early Islam been available in its unalloyed form. A revolution gives the ever-moving vehicle of time a push which accelerates its speed and enables it to cover a lot of distance with the momentum gained. It was the momentum generated by the short lived Islamic Social Order, which helped Muslims maintain for centuries their leadership of the world in science and art. Western thinkers and historians admit the truth of the statement. In his book The Making of Humanity, Briffault has devoted a whole chapter to the theme under the caption Dar Al-Hikmat and says,

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