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He did not set out to abolish slavery, but rather to improve the conditions of slaves by urging his followers to treat their slaves humanely and free them as a way of expiating one's sins. According to sahih (authentic) hadith Muhammad encouraged gifting of slaves to be a better alternative to setting them free. [70]
The majority of the slaves were women and children, [22] many of whom had been dependents or harem-members of the defeated Sassanian upper classes. [23] In the wake of the conquests an elite man could potentially own a thousand slaves, and ordinary soldiers could have ten people serving them. [22]
According to a BBC summary, "the Prophet Muhammad did not try to abolish slavery, and bought, sold, captured, and owned slaves himself. But he insisted that slave owners treat their slaves well and stressed the virtue of freeing slaves. Muhammad treated slaves as human beings and clearly held some in the highest esteem". [333]
Because of this, any slave owned by a Muslim was distinct from its owner in terms of ethnicity, and any slave owned by a Muslim Arab was unquestionably a foreigner. Due to the recognized dubious status of slave merchants, it has been inferred that Ibn Battuta employed an intermediary, an agent to complete the trade. [93]
The earliest documented Christian knowledge of Muhammad stems from Byzantine sources, written shortly after Muhammad's death in 632. In the Doctrina Jacobi nuper baptizati, a dialogue between a recent Christian convert and several Jews, one participant writes that his brother "wrote to [him] saying that a deceiving prophet has appeared amidst the Saracens". [17]
The Caliphal harem had a great number of slaves: Caliph Al-Mutawakkil (r. 847–861) reportedly owned 4,000 slave concubines Al-Muqtadir (r. 908–932) 11,000 slave eunuchs, while the Caliph Al-Mansur (r. 754–775) was given 100 slave virgin girls as a gift after the death of his wife Arwa bint Mansur al-Himyari in 764. [51]
Lewis states that in Muslim lands slaves had a certain legal status and had obligations as well as rights to the slave owner, an improvement over slavery in the ancient world. [ 21 ] [ 22 ] Due to these reforms the practice of slavery in the Islamic Empire represented a "vast improvement on that inherited from antiquity, from Rome , and from ...
Bilal ibn Rabah was born in Mecca in the Hejaz in the year 580. [5] There are differing accounts to the racial identity of his father according to historians. One account states that his father was an Abyssinian prisoner of war who had been given the name of Rabah, in Arabic meaning profitable, he had been handed over as a slave to the Quraishi Arab clan of Banu Jumah, this account is highly ...