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Originally Posted by Jamroll
Hi,
I'm not sure if I've understand the point you're trying to make, but if you're imagining that "slavery" as understood in the American South, and "slavery" as understood in Islam is anyway comparable I think you're mistaken.
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I'm not saying that. I'm saying the fact that people need to contrast it to such a heinous period, doesn't really do anything to make it more palatable.
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A great emphasis was placed on early Muslims freeing their slaves - this is not something we find in recent American-style slavery.
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Well, sort of. Thomas Jefferson (a slave holder, as was the Prophet) and others made it clear it was an objectionable practice and explicitly said should end. It unfortunately took all out civil war to do it.
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The only possible remaining source would be prisoners-of-war.
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Great. Again, that still doesn't sound any more palatable. How many of the female concubines found in the possession of slave holders were members of enemy armies?
I've heard so many arguments about how "it's better to free your slaves" and this is supposed to translate somehow into Islam making slavery humane and effectively banning it long term. Maybe it did make it
more humane - but it certainly isn't. And it definitely wasn't successful in banning it, for more than a milennia slaves were held in Muslim societies, until the 20th Century. In the 19th, the British and other colonial powers did in fact exert pressure on various Muslim lands to bring them closer in accordance with the ban on slavery in British law.
So to me, having sex with captured females, tended to by castrated slave men - isn't something that sounds divinely sanctioned.