there are some academics whose books are always worth purchasing for their edition ,
good judgment and readability . dr jonathan brown of georgetown university is one of them .
he never fails to deliver academic excellence . i have devoured his " hadith muhammad's legacy
in the medieval and modern world " . this is the second edition " the canonization of al-bukhari
and muslim the formation and function of the sunni hadith canon " this is basically his phd thesis
my personal favor is " misquoting muhammad the challenge and choices of interpreting
the prophet's legacy " and dr brown kindly wrote some words to me on the inside cover
and this work " muhammed a very short introduction " published by
oxford university press is meant for the general public a very readable little book very good .
now his most recent offering is this " slavery and islam " and it's by far his
most challenging and controversial book . he says he suffered as he wrote it . quote :
" as i worked on this book , the insults and accusations directed at me by others in the
academy at times caused me to doubt my credentials as a scholar " . it's an extraordinary thing to say
his book opens with this dilemma which is a key theme of the book : if slavery is a manifest and
universal evil why did no one seem to realize this until relatively recently and what does
that mean about our traditions of moral reasoning or divine guidance . why do our scriptures condone
slavery and why did our prophets practice it ? how can we venerate people in texts the prophets
founding fathers a scripture or founding document that considered slavery valid or normal in chapter
one brown looks at the surprisingly difficult problem of defining exactly what slavery is
and whether there is one thing we can call slavery across history . a leading scholar of slavery in
western civilization professor david brian davis observed : the more we learn about slavery the more
difficult we have defining it . brown gives us examples of this difficulty from history
going back in time in his imaginary tardis . tardis is the doctor who's famous time machine . brown
observes the powerful prime minister of an expansive empire who enters the throne room
surrounded by dozens of armed guards and we sense the trepidation in the hushed muttering
of the audience around us . one voice whispers : the minister is worth 80 million gold ducats
he's married to the king's daughter remarks another . surely this man was not a slave
the minister was sakulu mahmed pash the grand vizier of the ottoman empire in 1578
yet he was also the slave of the sultan . brown goes forward in time in his imaginary tardis
and visits a colder land where he encounters a man laboring in a large shop . he is exhausted
by daily work hours that leave him little time to sleep so brown agrees to take him with him
but the shop owner catches him leaving and the man is imprisoned is the man a slave ? well he
lived in industrial england in 1860 although the worker was a free man , according to the labor laws
in england at that time , a worker who failed to show up for work was guilty of stealing
from his employer . he could be tried and sentenced as a criminal and this often occurred
brown voyages onwards in his talis to a new land where passing down the road he sees a crew
of black youths clearing brush all day in the hot sun their legs are shackled and joined by
chains . a white man watches over them with a gun in hand . are these men slaves ? well this place was
rural arizona in 2004 whether and where the local sheriff was overseeing a chain gang
from a juvenile prison . and there's a fascinating bit here about the question of slavery in
the united states today . we all think of course that slavery has been abolished in america
but actually it hasn't , the critically acclaimed 2016 documentary 13th raised awareness of the fact
that the 13th amendment to the united states constitution which formally abolished slavery in
1865 exempted those convicted of crimes from the prohibition on slavery or involuntary servitude .
so brown argues that it's undeniable that at least a portion of america's prison
population labor should be categorized as slaves because they're not exempt from the prohibition
on slavery and they're treated like slaves even today . chapter 2 of his book looks at how islamic
law and theology conceptualize riiqq , that's riiqq the system of slavery in sharia . the chapter is headed
with this telling quotation : " in the end among all men who fear god slaves are part of the family
in certain ways " . this is a muslim slave dealer to a french general in colonial algeria in 1839
brown explains that the coran permits marriage between free and slave men and women
and permits the male owner of a female slave to take her as a surya that's a female slave
whose master has a sexual relationship with her . aya concubine see quran 2 2 2 1 and 4 25.
female slaves guilty of a sexual offense receive half the punishment of a free woman
and the quran tells owners to accept manumission agreements that's agreements to free slaves
should slaves propose them ? this is extraordinary when i first came across this . this is a passage
in the quran chapter 24 verse 33 which reads : " those who are unable to marry should keep chaste until
god gives them enough out of his bounty if any of your slaves wish to pay for their freedom
make a contract with them accordingly if you know they have good in them and give
them some of the wealth god has given you . do not force your slave girls into prostitution
when they themselves wish to remain honorable in your quest for the short-term gains of this
world although if they are forced god will be forgiving and merciful to them " .
by far the most striking mentions of slavery in the quran come in the many exaltations to free
slaves either as a good deed done for the sake of god or as a required expiation for certain sins or
crimes . a verse revealed early on in the prophet's career tells muslims that they have been given a
choice of two paths and that theirs is the hard path of ascent it is to free a slave , to feed the
hungary , the orphan wants kin and strangers . and this is an extraordinary short chapter of the
coran once you read it out from the beginning : i swear by this city and you prophet are an
inhabitant of this city . i swear by parents and offspring that we (this is god speaking) have
created man for toil and trial . does he think that no one will have power over him . i have squandered
great wealth he says does he think no one has seen him did he not give him two eyes , a tongue , two lips
and point out to him the two clear ways of good and evil yet he has not attempted the steep path
what will explain to you what the steep path is . so what is this most excellent way the first thing
on the top of the list is this : it is to free a slave . it's verse 13 , to free at a time of hunger
and orphaned relative to feed at a time of hunger and orphan relative or a poor person in distress
and to be one of those who believe and urge one another to steadfastness and compassion
those who do this will be on the right hand side but those who disbelieve in our revelations
will be on the left hand side and the fire will close in on them .
the quran also includes slaves among those groups that can receive zakat
and this was widely understood as offering aid to slaves who had mukataba or muqattaba agreements
in order to help complete the purchase of their freedom . see coran 2 177. in islamic law
mukataba is a contractor manumission freeing a slave between a master and a slave
according to which a slave is required to pay a certain sum of money during a specific time period
in exchange for their freedom . now regarding the hadiths and of course brown's phd is in
hadiths . brown states : the hadith corpus nearly spills over with a plethora of reports exhorting
the kind treatment of slaves and describing the tremendous rewards awaiting those who free them .
in chapter four , brown tackles what he calls 'the slavery conundrum'
he describes it thus the insistence that 1- slavery is an absolute evil throughout history
and 2- that there are no gradations within slavery that escape this verdict . since every
major religious and philosophical tradition either justified defended or at least tolerated
some form of slavery until the modern period this means that the traditions of mole and spiritual
authority to which many still adhere were and are complicit in gross moral evil . that's the
dilemma that or conundrum that he sees brown notes that although the quran encourages the manumission
the freeing of slaves and their good treatment and muhammad required muslims to treat their slaves
well neither the quran nor the prophet condemned slavery per se or banned it muhammad owned a total
of 15 slaves all of whom he eventually freed was an important point . he also had two concubines
maria and ray hannah . and on that point just to quickly touch on christianity
in his book . turning to christianity , in the new testament jesus never condemns slavery and even
assumes the master slave relationship to be an unremarkable reality of life .
the apostles included slave owners and paul instructed slaves to be submissive to their
masters and to obey them as you would christ . saint augustine explained and justified slavery
as a result of original sin or personal sin to explain how a seemingly righteous christian
could be the slave of a godless pagan , augustine drew on this stoic tradition that for the pious
the legal and material condition of slavery was meaningless . the only true enslavement was
being a slave to one's passions or sins and the faithful were all free in christ .
now in chapters five and six , dr brown examines the muslim debates over ending slavery
because there's now a universal consensus amongst the ulame in the world that slavery is
not to be practiced today and he evaluates their convincingness and the final chapter six
i find particularly interesting entitled the prophet and isis evaluating muslim abolition
and brown asks : do muslim approaches to abolition pass moral muster ? he discusses the ulama's
consensus on the abolition of slavery and how muslim scholars such as sheikh mohammed al-yakubi
have responded to the shocking resurgence of slavery within isis-controlled territory .
there are six appendices to the book which i won't go through but they're absolutely
fascinating . on a scale of one to ten one being the highest . what do i think this is
worth . well this is definitely a 10 out of 10. if you want a single book on slavery and islam
that fairly objectively and with scholarly rigor examines the historical evidence this is the book
in fact there's a recommendation by bernard k freeman who's professor of law at
harvard university who says : jonathan brown's slavery in islam is a bridgeously researched
provocatively argued learned and multi-faceted treatment of a difficult and complex problem
one might not agree with all of brown's conclusions but the book would be a must read
for students and scholars of historical and contemporary islam as well as for anyone
interested in slavery and its relationship to religion . and sherman a jackson who is the
chair of islamic thought and culture at the university of southern california
says : this insightful courageous and comprehensively argued book is bound
to constitute a new beginning , it is certain to be as widely debated as it is widely read or we
will all be the better for it . so do get this book as well written very readable . until next time