By Haroon Bashir
It is often stated in contemporary discussions on slavery and Islam, almost to the point of ubiquity, that Islam always aimed to abolish slavery.[1] Yet, the first explicit articulation of this claim emerged only in the late nineteenth century, advanced by the Egyptian reformer Muhammad Abduh (d. 1323/1905).[2] As I demonstrated in the previous essay, while emancipation was viewed as meritorious and commendable, slavery itself was not subjected to institutional critique nor conceived as a moral aberration requiring dismantlement.
Abduh’s intervention fundamentally reframed the narrative, transforming an “emancipatory ethic” within a regulated institution into evidence of an inherent teleology toward abolition. Abduh’s basic argument was that the Qur’ān did not completely abolish slavery in the seventh century; rather, the foundations for abolition rested on the various calls to emancipate slaves throughout scripture, alongside the restriction of fresh enslavement delineated within Islamic law.[3] The abolition of slavery, therefore, could be fully consonant with the aims and moral trajectory of Islam.
As Abduh states, “The religion of Islam permitted enslavement in the same manner as all previous religions; however, this religion, advanced in its legal wisdom in contrast to previous dispensations, did not discontinue the harsh laws all at once.”[4] Rather, he claims, Islam challenged the application of these laws and reformed the severe exploitation of slaves practiced in the name of religion. As a result, “It can be seen that Islam narrowed the avenues of enslavement, and it becomes clear beyond a doubt that the intention of Islamic law was the fundamental eradication of slavery gradually (ibṭāl al-riqq asāsan bi’l-tadrīj).”[5]
To justify his position, Abduh lists various legal rulings to demonstrate that Islamic law sought to limit the sources of enslavement and to restrict slavery in general:
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- The Sharī’a limits slavery to those born to enslaved parents and to captives of a legal war who are non-Muslims, non-Arabs and not relatives. These are the only categories for enslavement.[6]
- Illegal enslavement is considered among the most prohibited acts (a’ẓam al-muḥarammāt), succeeded only by murder.
- Emancipation is considered the avenue through which particular sins can be expatiated, so long as the slave’s worth is equivalent to the sin committed.
- Emancipation is considered the only manner though which the entirety of sins regarding worship can be expatiated.
- The vow to free a slave is considered the most important.
- Emancipation is considered the only resolution through which a broken vow can be forgiven, so long as the vow has not infringed on other people’s rights.
- Emancipation is considered as the most complete way of demonstrating gratitude to God’s blessings, or [seeking] safety from danger.
- Emancipation is considered among the most important stipulations of the will for a Muslim, so that after his death, God may reward [and protect] him from punishment in the afterlife.[7]
According to Abduh, therefore, “Islam inclined towards obliging all Muslims to free as many of their slaves as they were able to.”[8] From this premise, he concluded that Islam ultimately sought to eradicate slavery and promote freedom. To further substantiate his argument, Abduh marshals a range of juristic rulings. He argues that, within Islamic law, “the state of slavery is removed for anyone who claims to be free, due to freedom being the natural state of humans. It is therefore incumbent on the owner to prove the slave is not free.”[9] The burden of proof, therefore, falls upon the master to prove the slave is not free, in place of the slave having to prove his freedom. Perhaps the most striking ruling invoked by Abduh was the contention that a Muslim ruler may, if warranted, set aside the legal schools to curtail slavery. This move underscored the malleability of law in service of an emancipatory trajectory. Abduh writes,
If the Caliph of the Muslims in his legal judgment (there is no doubt that the Caliph is a legal expert) considers all slaves illegal, then the ruling to free them all at one time is valid, regardless of whether this contradicts the judgements of the classical legal schools.[10]
Through his arguments, Abduh’s intervention reframes the meaning of emancipatory discourses within Islamic Law. By rereading classical rulings in this light, he transforms an inclination into a trajectory and juristic preference into a coherent intention; what had once been a legal tendency now became a divine teleology. In doing so, he simultaneously demonstrated continuity with the classical tradition while effecting a profound transformation of its interpretive horizon.
Abduh’s ideas concerning slavery and abolition were developed and propagated further by his student Rashīd Riḍā (d. 1935). Within his work, Riḍā equally emphasizes that the Qur’ān had legislated to abolish slavery using two primary methods. The first was to restrict further enslavement in the future, and the second was to emancipate those who had previously been enslaved gradually.[11]
Riḍā highlights, however, that the institution that had been permitted by Islam fundamentally differed from the exploitative practice that had preceded it. Islam had bestowed slaves with rights, whereas “ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Indians, Romans, and Arabs kept slaves for the most difficult of tasks, dealing with them in the cruelest manner possible.”[12] Riḍā’s arguments would come to feature prominently across contemporary Islamic thought on the topic (often without clear reference to him).[13]
Unlike Abduh, who appeared slightly more enamored by European abolitionism, Riḍā was far more critical of the motives of European and American abolitionists. He argues that “in neither case, however, were their actions the result of a sincere desire to promote the welfare of humankind. Rather, they did so as the result of their own particular self-interests; and not because they had any real understanding of equality.”[14] He highlights, for example, the disparity suffered across racial lines in which white descendants of Europeans exploit other races “in continuation of the system of political slavery considered legitimate by every European government and the European peoples who see nothing wrong in the oppression by whites of any people of a different colour.”[15] He further argues that that the British continue to “exploit” India, though slavery has since been abolished, and across European colonies, the vestiges of slavery are so apparent that non-whites who convert to Christianity continue to be shunned from white churches.[16]
Islam, on the other hand, sought to “abolish the injustice and suffering caused by slavery. Islam gave people laws that paved the way for the abolition of slavery by degrees, yet in a way that would not cause further suffering.”[17] Riḍā claims that slavery was not abolished at once because “to do so would have had negative effects both on the slaveholders and the slaves themselves.”[18] To that end, Riḍā’s conservatism wrapped up Abduh’s more radical inclinations in apologetic garb and diluted the stronger internal critiques proposed by Abduh through mounting a comparative civilizational defense, focusing more squarely on advancing anti-colonial rhetoric instead.
In sum, Riḍā argues,
This is a clear illustration that the abolishment of slavery, which was so widespread and such an integral part of society, could not possibly take place all at once, as the result of a religious decree. That would have been neither wise nor practical, for it would have caused untold suffering. The legal system of Islam is foremost a practical system of justice that combines the interests of society in general with human mercy.[19]
In tracing the arguments of Abduh and Riḍā, what emerges is a profound reinterpretation of the legal tradition. No prior Muslim religious scholar had ever called for the abolition of slavery. Abduh and Riḍā clearly undermined classical positions of Islamic law based on their proposals, and yet, with irony bordering on brilliance, they remained paradoxically faithful to the scholarship of that same classical tradition.
As demonstrated in my first essay, classical scholars contradicted conventional logics of Islamic law to facilitate manumission, bending the rules of jurisprudence to elevate the principle of freedom, even if such a position was incoherent, manufactured, or had no evidentiary basis. And, therefore, Abduh and Riḍā’s innovative reading of emancipation as abolition was both deeply radical and fundamentally traditional; it was novel, but it built upon a line of reasoning established by classical jurists in which emancipation transcends doctrinal consistency.
Of course, not all scholars viewed such an innovative approach in a positive light. The abolitionist thesis provoked significant criticism and contestation from those who argued for the importance of continuity and defended the permanence of slavery within the law. My third essay turns to these critiques and the debates they generated.
Notes:
[1] I argue this position is currently hegemonic in contemporary Islamic thought and has been cited by numerous scholars in the modern period in discussions on slavery and Islam. A few limited examples can be seen with Fazlur Rahman, Muhammad Asad, Mahmoud Taha, Amina Wadud, Asma Barlas, Khaled Abou El Fadl, Abdullah Saeed, among many others. For more on this, see: Bashir, Slavery, Abolition and Islam (Oxford University Press, 2025) 146.
[2] Bashir, Slavery, Abolition and Islam (Oxford University Press, 2025) 123–56.
[3] Islamic law stipulated two avenues for enslavement: capture in warfare or being born into slavery.
[4] Rashīd Riḍā, “Raqīq,” al-Manār 8 (1905): 856.
[5] Riḍā, “Raqīq,” 856. Emphasis added.
[6] While the issue of ‘Arab superiority’ (Arabs can enslave but cannot be enslaved) is not a dominant position in classical Islamic discourses, it does appear as a minority position in a number of places. For example, a similar view is espoused by al-Rāzī (d. 606/1210): “it is not permissible to enslave Arabs.” See Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, al-Tafsīr al-kabīr (Dar al-Fikr, n.d.), 23:44. Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328) also discusses this position: “Abū Ḥanīfa does not permit the enslaving of Arabs (la yajūzu istarqāq al-ʿarab)…as the Arabs have been favored by their noble lineage (ikhtaṣṣu bi-sharaf al-nasab), as the Prophet was from among them.” Ibn Taymiyya, Majmū' al-Fatāwa (Dar al-Wafa’, 1998), 31:219–20. For a more nuanced discussion on Islam, race and slavery, see Haroon Bashir, “Black Excellence and the Curse of Ham: Debating Race and Slavery in the Islamic Tradition,” ReOrient 5, no. 1 (2019): 92–116.
[7] Riḍā, “Raqīq,” 856–57.
[8] Riḍā, “Raqīq,” 857.
[9] Riḍā, “Raqīq,” 857.
[10] Riḍā, “Raqīq,” 857.
[11] Rashīd Riḍā, The Muhammadan Revelation, trans. Yusuf Talal DeLorenzo (al-Sadaawi Publications, 1996), 142.
[12] Riḍā, Muhammadan Revelation, 142.
[13] Bashir, Slavery, Abolition and Islam, 123–56.
[14] Riḍā, Muhammadan Revelation, 142–43.
[15] Riḍā, Muhammadan Revelation, 143.
[16] Riḍā, Muhammadan Revelation, 143.
[17] Riḍā, Muhammadan Revelation, 143.
[18] Riḍā, Muhammadan Revelation, 143.
[19] Riḍā, Muhammadan Revelation, 143–44.
Suggested Bluebook citation: Haroon Bashir, Abolitionist Trajectories? Modern Rereadings of Emancipation, Islamic L. Blog (May 14, 2026), https://islamiclaw.blog/2026/05/14/abolitionist-trajectories-modern-rereadings-of-emancipation/.
Suggested Chicago citation: Haroon Bashir, “Abolitionist Trajectories? Modern Rereadings of Emancipation” Islamic Law Blog, May 14, 2026, https://islamiclaw.blog/2026/05/14/abolitionist-trajectories-modern-rereadings-of-emancipation/.
