“Lord, am I my brother’s keeper?” Genesis 4:9
AT THE TIME THAT Christianity was founded, two thousand odd years ago, slavery was an integral part of the religious, social, and economic activities of those times and those places. The Old Testament, The Torah, the New Testament, and the Qur’an all contain writings, scriptures and verses that condone some forms of servitude, including slavery.
In Christianity, both the pro- and anti-slavery factions have used the Bible selectively to support their positions.
In Genesis 9:25, Noah curses Ham’s son Canaan to “the lowest of slaves to his brothers”. This scripture has been used by some Christians – and some Muslims – to say God supports slavery. The two faiths have identified black Africans as the descendants of Ham. The only problem is that Canaan and his descendants did not settle in Africa! Another argument used to support slavery is that Abraham and all the patriarchs held slaves without God’s disapproval (Genesis 21:9-10) and that the Ten Commandments mention slavery twice (servant), showing God’s implicit acceptance of it (Exodus 20:10, 17).
Then many parables by Jesus involve a master and servant scenario. The Epistles of Paul to Philemon, to the Ephesians, and to Titus do not help either. They seem to support the status quo of slavery, imploring the slaves to obey their masters. St Paul was also quoted extensively by slave-holders as imploring servants/slaves to count their masters worthy of honour so as not to blaspheme the word of God and his doctrines. The Gospel according to St 358
John was also used to support slavery. St John wrote that…
“And the servant abideth not in the house forever, but the Son abideth forever. And if the Son, therefore, shall set you free, then you are indeed free.”
The slavers seized on this verse to infer that Jesus was referring to slavery and that only He, God, can set the slaves free.
It would seem that some early Saints, including St Thomas Aquinas, did not condemn slavery outright. Christian Europe and fundamentalist Christians of the American South used the above passages, together with numerous papal bulls, to support their enslavement of Africans.
There is also the story of the Slave Bible. In this Slave Bible, the whites in America apparently removed all references to equality before God and emphasised passages that implored slaves to obey their masters. In Bibles in British colonies, including America, this verse was apparently expunged: Exodus 21:16, “Whoever steals a man and sells him and anyone found in possession of him, shall be put to death.” Another hidden verse was Deuteronomy 23:15, “If a slave has taken refuge with you, do not hand them over to their master.”
St Augustine did not support slavery and said it was against God’s intentions. St Patrick and St Eligius were also very much opposed to slavery. Then in Christian teachings, some texts teach that slaves must be freed or treated as brothers.
Curiously, there is nowhere in the Bible where Jesus tackles slavery directly, despite the practice being widespread at the time and place where he was born and grew up. The place Jesus was born and grew up was part of the Roman Empire, and slavery was the norm. Jesus repeatedly spoke about sin and stood up to the moneylenders. Jesus also told off all those who wanted to be the first to cast stones on an alleged prostitute, Jezebel. Jesus repeatedly preached love and forgiveness. But from the records in the New Testament Bible, he apparently never addressed the question of slavery directly. This is puzzling, quite puzzling.
There is one possible explanation, and it goes like this: In the released Bible, Jesus was apparently quite ambivalent about slavery. However, as God, Jesus had full knowledge of slavery at the time and knew what was to come. Therefore, it is not possible that Jesus could have been so ambivalent about slavery. The only possible explanation is that for whatever reason, the people who wrote and edited the Word of God deliberately left out his aspersions on slavery for their own purposes.359 Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and Slavery
Due to this apparent anomaly or lack of clarity with regard to slavery by Jesus, the clergy and those who called themselves Christians in America asserted that no man was authorised to pronounce slavery wrong without a new revelation from God. However, to a bona fide Christian, on slavery, what Jesus Christ said or did not say, and what he did or did not do, was very clear. What Jesus Christ demonstrated for Christians to follow was crystal clear. What Christianity was not was also crystal clear. However, if the True Word is that Christ was okay with enslaving some of his own creatures, then, for sure, Africans need another religion.
Just a thought: could it be that Africans were really ugly ducklings, waiting for God to give them a mirror?
In 1686, the Holy Office condemned unjust enslavement and clearly outlined the implications of this for slave traders and slave-holders. Then for the centuries after that the Catholic Church and the popes through papal bulls, papal instructions, and directives from the Vatican Council maintained that just slavery was not contrary to natural and divine law (Pope Pius IX, in 1886). For unjust slavery in Europe, the Americas, and the Atlantic Ocean islands, many papal bulls were issued against this practice, and many were ignored by the allies of the devil. Slavery of Muslims and Africans was supported by papal bulls and, therefore, considered as just.
Pope Martin V issued his bull authorising Portugal to enslave Africans in 1441. Pope Nicholas V (1452), Pope Calixtus III (1456), Pope Sixtus IV (1481), and Pope Leon (1514) renewed these bulls against African heathens.
The Spanish thought they were losing out and sought the Vatican’s permission to allow them as well to enslave the free people in the New World. Pope Alexander VI on 03 May 1493 granted the Spanish “…to reduce their persons in perpetual slavery, …wherever they may be”. On the same day, the same pope renewed this same right to the Portuguese, first granted to them by Pope Martin V in 1441.
Papal bulls in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were usually not to stop slavery but to counter certain abuses and also against unjust slavery (Pope Eugene IV in 1435; Pope Sixtus IV in 1484; Pope Pius II; and Pope Paul III in 1537). It would seem, however, that most popes accepted just slavery, and had no problem… “for a slave to be sold, bought, exchanged, or donated, provided that the vendor should do nothing to endanger life, virtue, or Catholic faith of the slave”.
There were exceptions. Pope Benedict XIV in 1741 condemned slavery in a papal bull. In 1815 Pope Pius VII condemned slavery, as did Pope Gregory XVI in 1839 after a little pressure from the British Government. Pope Leo XIII 360
in 1888 and Pius IX also condemned slavery. In 1685 the College of Cardinals commanded the missionaries in Africa to stop the slave trade. The missionaries on the ground reinterpreted this order to mean slaves were to be sold to Catholic and the Dutch slave buyers only.
Other Christians opposed slavery because it was against natural justice “to live by wringing bread from the sweat of other men’s faces”. Genesis 3:19 was clear: “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return to the ground”.
In America, African slaves were considered by many as sub-human, ignoring the Christian teaching that “All have the same master in heaven, and with Him, there is no partiality”. In America, Catholic Church Orders had African slaves. The Catholic Church by and large supported slavery outright and with gusto. The protestant faiths were divided. Those in the southern states were fervent slave-holding Christians. This led to schisms in the protestant churches in America along the North/South divide. The divide became very pronounced, and many churches split into pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions. It seems that the two groups were using the same Bible, but praying to different gods, to paraphrase Diana Butler Bass.
In America, Christianity was used by some to try and pacify the Negroes, promising them a cushy reward in the afterlife. Special instructions on how to best dispense Christian religious instruction to slaves were prepared and disseminated. Without batting an eyelid Christianity was bastardised to fit the preservation of slavery. What was emphasised to the slaves was that slavery was sanctioned by God, and insolence was an offence against God and the earthly master. Disobedient slaves would be punished in the hereafter, and rewards awaited those who followed the teachings of Christ.
In small communities, slaves at times were allowed to congregate with their masters but had to sit at the back of churches. The usual practice was for a white preacher to visit a Negro church, or for the master or the mistress to gather their slaves on Sunday and read from the redacted scriptures. Only in exceptional cases were Negroes allowed to preach to fellow Negroes. But even then, a master or overseer had to be present.
The Catholic Church lagged well behind the slave abolition movements. It was only in the late nineteenth century that the popes and the Vatican Council started coming out against slavery. This was one hundred years after 361 Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and Slavery
the abolition movement in Britain had gathered pace, and many decades after slavery had been banned in the British Empire altogether in 1833 and in almost all western countries. In the southern states of America, Christians prostituted the Bible in defence of slavery. In the opinion of these Christians, the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments did not disabuse the slave-holders from their God-given right to hold Africans in bondage.
Overall, and quite clearly, the Christian faith legitimised slavery for centuries. They put blood money into their treasuries, which, according to their own Word of God, was unlawful. They also glibly forsook the Golden Rule: “Do unto others, as you would like them to do unto you”. Sadly, the allure of money from the blood of Africans attenuated the numerous signals from the Bible.
Judaism is little different from Christianity in as far as slavery is concerned. The Holy texts of Judaism, the Torah (the Hebrew Bible), and the Talmud (the written version of Jewish oral law) all recognise slavery and have no problem with it. The Hamitic hypothesis of Noah’s son Ham and his son Canaan being cursed and condemned to servitude is well-enunciated in Judaism. Some claim these Jewish Holy texts go further and proclaim that the black skin of the African and some of the physical characteristics are all a result of this curse. Jewish authorities push back and say this is a misrepresentation of the texts by non-Jewish scholars. The fact is both Christians and Jews use the Holy Texts to claim that Africans are descendants of Canaan and hence cursed.
Starting from the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, the Jews were expelled from first Spain and then Portugal. They ended up all over Europe and in Morocco. In many of their new homes, the Jews were involved in commerce.
In the early seventeenth century, the Dutch West India Company was a major force in the buying and transportation of slaves from the west coast of Africa to the Caribbean and the Americas. The Jews, like the Christians and non-believers, put money into this venture.
In America, the Jews also participated in the whole gamut of the slave trade morass: slave-holding, slave ship owning, slave ship outfitting, brewing rum for sale in Africa, and so on. Some claim that for their numbers, the Jews punched way above their weight in the slave trade.
The Jews have admitted their role in the slave trade but insist it was no more than the other players who benefitted from this awful trade, including Africans. Whether the Jews were proportionately more involved in the African Slave Trade is immaterial at this juncture. The pot calling the kettle black is not going to help anyone. All players must just admit culpability. In 362
any case, in Europe and the Americas, the Christians by whatever measure were far, far more shit-deep in the slave trade than the Jews. Denying involvement is another thing. That would call for action of shaming and naming.
In Islam, the topic of slavery is covered at length. Islam was founded in the seventh century CE. At the time, slavery was very widespread in Arabia and the surrounding lands that included Christendom. Islam recognised slavery, viewing it as an exceptional condition and restricting its scope. The Prophet Muhammad had slaves. In fact, the Prophet freed some slaves, married one, and adopted a boy slave as his son.
The mainstream view of Islamic scholars is that the Qur’an accepts the institution of slavery and the fundamental inequality between master and slave and the rights of the former over the latter. In Islam, no man is allowed to take away another’s freedom and choice unlawfully. The Christians used the word unjustly.
In Arabia, at the time of the Prophet Muhammad, there were many ways of enslavement: war, kidnap, and debt repayment were the common ones. Islam restricted these to one main one: prisoners of war who were not Muslims together with their women and children, especially those taken in self-defence or if fighting Allah and his messengers. After enslavement, the prisoners could be freed after a ransom was paid, or they could be freed without a ransom. Unlike in Islamic teachings, the New Testament did not state under which conditions free people could be enslaved. This dubious assertion, in the case of Africans south of the Sahara, was made by papal bulls.
Many Islamic scholars state that victors were allowed to have non-consensual sexual relations with women so captured or “those whom their right hand possesses”. This meant women slaves/concubines/bond-maids. This privilege of non-consensual sex was not allowed if the slave women were married. The cynical, echoing Raymond Floyd, say the Arabs and the Europeans hated Africans until they discovered that half of them were women.
Another lawful way of automatic enslavement was for a person born of both parents who had been enslaved lawfully.
Islam has three courses of action when it comes into contact with non-believers: conquer and convert; conquer and subjugate; or conquer and eliminate.363 Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and Slavery
As elaborated above, the advent of Islam in Arabia stopped many forms of slavery there. This led to a severe shortage of labour in the region as slave labour of all shades had been the norm. Because of the need to fill this gap, the Arabs opted for mostly conquer and subjugate. Convert was not a priority in Africa south of the Sahara.
Eliminate was just that, though women and children were more likely to be carted off than killed. African men were not usually so lucky. One can argue though if facing a thousand-kilometre desert trek, possible castration, and lifelong servitude can be considered as being lucky.
Clearly, the Arabs who went to Africa south of the Sahara to enslave and sow untold misery did not go in self-defence, to fight a Jihad, or to spread Islam. Nor could it be said that the Africans enslaved from Chief Kazembe’s area in the Luapula Valley in Zambia were fighting the messengers of Allah. The Arabs did not go in the name of Islam, or following Islamic teachings, but went primarily to secure slaves for personal gain.
Converting Africans to Islam was not the Arabs’ primary aim, as this would have reduced the desired slave numbers. Therefore, leaving the Africans as non-believers provided a justifiable way to enslave them.
In fact, the Holy Qur’an has this covered as it states clearly that:
“Allah loves those who are just. Allah implores believers to be righteous and just to those who have not waged war against them nor driven them from their homes because of their religion.”
The people enslaved by the Arabs in Africa south of the Sahara did not wage any wars against the people of North Africa or Arabia. In this regard, they were just. Though this has not always been followed, Islam is clear on coercion into the faith and states that:
“There is no compulsion in religion for truth stands out clearly from falsehood.”
From its advent, Islam moderated slavery as practised at the time and showed ways of manumission, that is the ways a slave could become a free man or woman. In their physical form, slaves were not considered as equal to their masters in this world. However, if they converted to Islam, what awaited them was the same as what awaited their masters. This indicated that slaves were considered as having souls under Islam, which was not always the case under Christianity. Slavery in Islamic law did not have a race or colour 364
component, but in practice, this was not always followed.
Islam urged masters not to be cruel to their slaves and also presupposed that slaves could be freed, and this was to be considered by those who held them. Islam also gave guidelines on how this could be done. Examples of the ways to free slaves were by the master as an act to pay for a sin he or she may have committed (expiation), or simply as an act of kindness by the master. Another way was by someone – including the slave – paying for his or her own freedom. If a master so desired, slaves could be freed on his death. Contrast with some American slave states where it was illegal to free slaves under any circumstances. Like with the earlier conversions to Islam, manumission of slaves by believers of the Islamic faith led to a shortage of slaves. Consequently, this led to an increase in demand for more slaves from outside Arabia.
Killing a slave unjustly had consequences. A slave committing a crime would be punished but had a lessened responsibility and a lessened punishment. If, for instance, the punishment for a crime by a free man was one hundred lashes, the slave would receive fifty lashes. In American-style slavery, the opposite was true as slaves received far greater punishments than whites for the same offence.
Some scholars of Islam still say – emphatically and without shame – that slavery is permitted in their religion and that this right to possession is affirmed by the Creator of All. Some Muslim scholars and some sects still insist that non-Muslims and people captured in war can be enslaved. Some even go so far as to say those who say slavery has been abolished are not scholars, but writers and infidels.
Some scholars differ and state that there has been a misunderstanding. They state that the slavery mentioned in the Holy Qur’an was to do with what went before and not what was to come.
Both Holy texts of Islam and Christianity were written many centuries ago, at a time when slavery was a norm. Therefore, these texts were coloured by the prevailing circumstances of the time. In the case of Christianity, there have been many translations from the original language the Bible was written in. Sometimes it is impossible to translate precisely the intended meaning of a word or phrase and the context it was used in thousands of years ago.
Translations can thus lead to misunderstandings.
In the Bible some genuine mistakes were made by manual translators and publishers. In some instances, deliberate changes were made.
The New Testament in the Bible was written decades after Jesus had gone back to the Father. The Qur’an and the Hadith – sayings and teachings of 365 Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and Slavery
the Prophet Muhammad – were memorised and then compiled after the Prophet’s death. In both cases, there is scope for interpreting differently some messages and perhaps conveying a slightly different meaning to what was intended, more than a thousand years ago.
As stated above, at the time of the founding of Islam, slavery was a part of life in Arabia and contiguous societies. Islam recognised and accepted slavery but did not set out to abolish it, but to moderate it. In the process, the Islamic faith, like Christianity, clearly legitimised slavery for centuries.
Regarding the abolition of slavery, for several reasons, Christendom took the lead. The Muslim world was rather slow in coming to the table. Some Muslims have not come to the table at all.
In Africa south of the Sahara, the Arab/Berber/African slave axis was very reluctant to stop slavery in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Only colonialism by the French and the British made the die-hard Arab/Berber/African slavers end the enslavement of Africans south of the Sahara, if indeed they have stopped the practice.
Some reasons Christians were more amenable to slavery abolition in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are in the main story.
The question is why Islamic countries were so dilatory in ending slavery, as indeed they were. One of the reasons must be that the Prophet Muhammad had slaves, and the Qur’an states clearly when slave-holding is permissible. So, Islam had a very clear take on slavery, and removing these slave-tinted lenses proved very difficult for some of its adherents. Another reason for the resistance by Muslim countries in ending slavery was that industrialisation was behind that of Europe and the Americas. Slavery was the engine oil of these societies. Engines do not run well without oil: they seize up or knock.
The implication for Muslim countries stopping slavery was severe economic pain and severe social rupture. For adherents who followed their religion religiously – excuse the pun – there was another serious psychological barrier to overcome: suspending belief in their interpretation of some parts of their Holy Book. The last was, and still is, a big ask for some Muslims.
Finally, freedom of speech in Muslim countries two hundred years ago was muted compared to Europe and the Americas. If Muslim religious leaders said slavery was sanctioned by the Creator, anyone stating or holding a contrary view was asking for real trouble. Remember that in Islam, what was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad was the last communication from the Almighty on the way to live on earth. To Muslims, this is the only route to joining Allah in the afterlife. The revelation to the Prophet Muhammad starting in AD 710 366
and ending in AD 732 – which was ably captured in the Qur’an – was the last upgrade from Above. Anything that was said or revealed before was officially superseded.
The central figure in Christianity, Jesus Christ, did not own slaves and did not leave clear-cut instructions regarding slavery. His adherents filled in the blanks, some for slavery and others against slavery. In the end, those against slavery predominated, and this resulted in a decisive tilt. The Society of Friends (Quakers) and some Protestant Christians were at the helm of the early slave abolition movements. There were a few Muslim voices for the abolition of slavery. Widespread resistance to slave abolition was the norm in predominantly Islamic countries.
Presently, though the majority of Muslims abhor slavery, countries where old-style slavery is still almost certainly practised, are all majority Muslim. These include, but are not limited to, Mauritania, Sudan, Yemen, Niger, and Mali. Those practising slavery in these countries are mostly Berbers, Tuaregs, and Arabs, with a small sprinkling of Black Africans doing the same. Many of these slavers are quite dark-skinned but do not consider themselves as African blacks. This is because they apply the reverse one-drop rule. In America, any person having some black blood coursing through his or her veins is considered as black, period. In the Sahara, the Sahel, and the adjacent regions of Africa, anyone having some Caucasian blood considers themselves as non-black. Hence the term of reverse one-drop blood rule. In all these countries, slavery has been banned by secular laws, but the adherents use some tenets of Islam to justify enslaving others.
2000 years ago, Jesus was taken off the cross at Calvary having already passed on to his Father. On that cross, the black man was then nailed instead by slave-owning and slavery-adoring white men and slave-owning and slavery-adoring Arabs. When the hour cometh, guess who will be the thief on the right and on the left?
Conclusively, through slavery – many a time under the cloak of religion – the Europeans, Americans, Berbers, Tuaregs, and Arabs returned millions upon millions of Africans unto dust, whence they came, prematurely. Clearly, in both of the two major monotheistic religions of Christianity and Islam, their adherents are frequently guilty of straining out the gnat while gleefully swallowing the camel.
