What happens when authorities you venerate condone something you know is
wrong? Are you right or are they, and what does this mean about what
you've been venerating? No issue brings this question into starker
contrast than slavery. Every major religion and philosophy condoned or
approved of it, but in modern times there is nothing seen as more evil.
Americans confront this crisis of authority when they erect statues of
Founding Fathers who slept with their slaves. And Muslims faced it when
ISIS revived sex-slavery, justifying it with verses from the Quran and
the practice of Muhammad.
This book explores the moral and ultimately theological problem of
slavery, tracing how the Christian, Jewish and Islamic traditions have
tried to reconcile modern moral certainties with the infallibility of
God's message, in particular on the issue of sex-slavery. It
investigates the challenge of defining what slavery is in the first
place, showing that this remains more than ever a highly politicized
question. This book lays out how Islam viewed slavery in theory, and
also how slavery was practiced across the reality of Islamic
civilization. Finally, it explains how Muslims have argued for the
abolition of slavery in Islam, asking whether their arguments are
sincere and convincing.
