To understand the unfairness, consider the values of today or our actions that future generations may criticize. This can be very difficult, as we have already likely convinced ourselves that our actions and our standards are correct. If we did not think that our values were correct, we would not believe in them. Of the possibilities, the most obvious possibility is climate change. If our current actions lead to some of the calamities forecasted by some scientists, then future generations could criticize our lack of action and our unwillingness to give up our standard of living. For them the calamities would be free of the fog of the unknown, and they would not be able to understand why we ignored such grave warnings. Just as we can look back at history and claim that racial inequality, gender inequality, and religious inequality were wrong, future generations will likely look back on us and easily find our mistakes.

The fact that each new generation can identify the mistakes of the former – and rectify these mistakes – is a sign of humanity’s progress. It is evidence that each new generation is taking a step forward, solving social issues, and learning new ways to live together more peacefully. Of course, this is not always the case, as every so often humanity takes a step back, as exemplified by the horrors of World War II, the enslavement of Africa in the 18th and 19th centuries, and other such tragedies. The hope for humanity rests on moving forward; our steps forward must outnumber the steps backward.

Learning from the past in order to take the next step forward is each generation’s responsibility. However, in the process of looking back, my fourth grade self could not help but criticize the people of the past and be shocked by their actions. I did not realize that George Washington was a man of his time, just like the rest of the Founding Fathers of the United States. He lived in a world where slavery was not only rampant, but routine. In this context, one would have to possess a strong moral compass to thrift through the wrongs of his time.

And Washington, as a Virginia plantation owner, demonstrated his moral compass and vision for the future by freeing all of his slaves in his will. Other Founders also opposed slavery: Benjamin Franklin, once a slave owner, later freed his slaves and became president of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society; Thomas Jefferson considered slavery a violation of individual rights (though he, too, owned slaves). Faced with the realities of deep-seated racial prejudice, the economic and political implications of the abolition in the South, and the need for a unified nation after the American Revolution, the Founders did not abolish slavery (1). Indeed, slavery and racial inequality proved difficult to overcome, and even now, more than two hundred years later, social issues originating from slavery remain.

Ignoring the effect of the time period George Washington lived in on his actions would be a big mistake. Of course, norms of one’s society cannot be an excuse for crimes and immoral actions, but it is also unfair to single out the individual, when society as a whole is to blame. It is the responsibility of all members of society to identify their shortcomings and attempt to remedy them. For example, as racism, religious feuds, and hatred of the “other” grip current societies, community members and visionaries have mobilized through intercultural and interfaith dialog in the hopes of uniting through familiarity and shared humanity. Additionally, there are hundreds of charities and non-profit groups based in the U.S. alone attempting to remedy issues ranging from animal rights to world hunger. As issues arise it is the responsibility of the members of society to provide answers, but singling out one individual from the whole society and criticizing them is unfair.

Additionally, the reason I can look back at the past with my current values and morals is because of the progress of humanity through the efforts of people of the past, the important figures in history. They contributed to the development of the current value systems. I did not develop my values; I merely adopted them. Thus, what right do I have to judge the people of the past who did not have the same opportunity?

To conclude, it is important not to forget that society as a whole is responsible. Understanding why the person acted in a certain way by examining the society allows us to draw lessons that we can apply to our society today. Too much focus on the individual distracts from the remedial function of reflection on the past.

Reference

1. “The Founding Fathers and Slavery.” Encyclopedia Britannica. Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica Inc., 2013. Web. 16 Mar. 2013.

Global traffickers in humans bring people from underdeveloped or developing countries, enticing them with the promise of work or a better life, to developed countries, where there is an immense demand for labor. These people are forced to work painstakingly long shifts at unskilled and demeaning jobs; for example, men are forced to do dangerous tasks that require physical strength, often working without any safety precautions. Minors are forced to work in less labor-intensive jobs, but again for extremely long hours without any proper training. Women are forced to work in socially degrading and debasing jobs, which in some areas are no different from slavery, and the worst, they are used in prostitution.

Nowadays there is a global sector abusing minors and women for these vicious purposes. On the other hand, the acquisition of the global dimensions of TH can be seen to be an outcome of poverty and the misery that results from the poor socio-economical situation of third world countries. Most international trafficking in humans is from poor countries to developed countries. It has also been witnessed that this problem is aggravated by the peculiar traits of prosperous societies.

What is Trafficking in Humans?

In most countries where TH is committed, there are no conceptual or legal precautions taken to protect against such abuses. Within the classical conception, TH is usually defined as the abuse of people in actual physical slavery. Yet today, since the problem has become so widespread as to be global, and as TH is committed for the sake of contemptible purposes, this narrow-scoped definition is no longer sufficient. Thus, the United Nations felt the need to define TH in a broader context.(1)

The ultimate goal of TH is to force people to work in oppressive and exploitative situations in a way that will benefit the organized human traffickers. These conditions include the coercion of men to work in the most menial and labor-intensive jobs, women and girls to partake in debasing activities, servanthood, counterfeit marriages and adoptions, even prostitution, with secret contracts that are in no way legal, forcing them to work under harsh conditions.(2)

The Factors that Nourish TH

For the most part, human traffickers utilize new technological tools of transportation, communication, and media to accomplish their goals. The Internet is a commonly used tool. Some matchmaking companies in developed countries work outside of legal boundaries. Not only do they put ads in the national newspapers, they also put the c.v. and photographs of women and girls who are willing to marry rich men onto the Internet.(3)

This evil marketing approach illegally prospers under the guise of matchmaking and is generally ignored by the countries from where it originates. This, in part, stems from the mutual benefit of the involved parties (for example, bribing officials while transporting people across borders.)(4)

TH is also related to what is called “pleasure tourism.” Third world countries that depend heavily on tourism revenue tend to neglect the conditions that contribute to such problems. For example, Kenya has overlooked TH in order to support tourism. In order to please the increasing number of tourists, women are even brought from neighboring countries, like Uganda.(5)

Undoubtedly, the International Development Banks as well as multinational financial institutions are also responsible for TH by supporting the countries involved and ignoring the socio-ethic consequences. Among developed countries, according to Focus, the Germany is the country most involved in tourism for base purposes. Between 200,000 and 400,000 Germans travel to Far Eastern countries, mostly Thailand and the Philippines, for this purpose each year. In Thailand, among the 1.5 million women employed in such demeaning jobs as prostitution, 800,000 of them are minors. In the Philippines, the minors involved number between 30 and 60,000. In such countries, diseases like AIDS are widespread. For instance 80% of women working in such forms of employment in Thailand are infected with HIV. According to data from the World Health Organization, there will be over 40 million AIDS patients in a couple of years.(6) Lately, there have been reports that after the Tsunami in the Far East, TH has increased in the victimized regions where children now have even less protection.

The multinational organized crime groups who commit TH usually employ two methods. One is to bring women and minors who are already in an abusive situation to developed countries. The other is to promise good wages, work conditions, and prospects to desperately poor people and then to force them to undertake unthinkable actions. For example, as the demand in the evil practice of TH for prostitution increasingly turns to younger and younger girls, due to concerns about AIDS, the second form of TH is frequently committed. As a result, there is an increasing demand for foreign women and girls in developed societies, where marriage has become something to be put off, or perhaps altogether avoided.(7) According to UN data, one million minors are traded in the global TH market.(8)

Although TH is one of the most heinous crimes and something that requires serious punishment, the victims of TH face many discouraging impediments if they try to seek their rights. Most of the time, suspects manage to get away with a very light punishment, if any, as the victims cannot prove their case. Thus, although the judicial system protects women in theory, in practice TH is easier to commit than most people think and remains unpunished. It would be useful to give the example of a trial that lasted eleven months here. At the end of the trial, which was brought to court by Thai women who were promised work in pubs as waitresses in Germany, the criminals were found guilty of “encouraging prostitution” rather than TH; the former carries a much lighter punishment. In the hearings, the women said that they were forced to marry German nationals in Denmark so that they could enter Germany legally and attain a work permit. But later, they were forced to engage in prostitution “to pay for the expenses.”(9) The abuse of women sometimes can be hidden behind a legal disguise. For example, in Berlin a female computer programmer had been laid off from work, and was on unemployment benefit. When a brothel owner saw her c.v. on a database of job seekers and offered her a position, she refused on moral grounds. The government then threatened to cut her unemployment benefits, as she had refused a job. Surprisingly, brothels were legalized two years ago in Germany, and now are considered to be just “another workplace.”(10)

Final Remarks

The people who are forced to work underground or in demeaning jobs know neither the language nor the laws of the country to which they have been brought with fake documents. As the dependents or guardians of these people are paid in advance, it is even more difficult for these people to return to their families as long as their financial dependence continues. On the other hand, if they notify the authorities, they will face deportation and be arrested, as they are not legally residing in that country.

TH can be said to be modern slavery from the perspective of the methods used, the purposes it serves, and the exertion of physical and psychological oppression on the victims. Hence, it is necessary to protect people who are victims of TH wherever they live through the law, and to severely punish the human traffickers. 

References

1. The declaration of UN-General Secretary about “Trafficking in Women and Girls,” number A/50/369. date:08/24/1995.
2. The decision of UN-General Committee, number: 49/166, date:12/23/1994.
3. Bundesministerium fur Familie, Senioren, Frauen, und Jugend (BMFJ) (Federal Ministry for Family, Seniors, Women, and Youth). Materialen zur Frauenpolitik (Materials of Women Politics). Nr.63. Bonn 1997. p.20.
4. Marjan, Wiyers and Lin Lap, Chew; Trafficking in Women; Forced Labor and Slavery-Like Practices in Marriage, Domestic Labor and Prostitution, Utrecht. 1996, p45.
5. BMFJ, same issue.
6. Focus, Nr. 2; 1995. pp 111-114.
7. Licia, Brussa. Survey of Prostitution, Migration and Traffic in Women: History and Current Situation; EU, EG/Prost (91) 2; p.42.
8. Der Spiegel. Nr. 35, 1996, p.31.
9. Elvira, Niesner et al. A woman’s Dignity is Inviolable: A Trial on Trafficking in Women, Forschungsprojekt im Auftrag des BMFJ (Research Project on behalf of BMFJ); Frankfurter Institut fur Frauendforschung (Frankfurt Institute for Women Research). Frankfurt; 1991.
10. The world at a glance…The Week, volume 5, issue 196, February 25, 2005. 

First of all, it is useful to recall why the institution of slavery is thought of or remembered with such revulsion. Images of the brutal treatment of slaves, especially in ancient Rome and Egypt, provokes sorrow and deep disgust. That is why even after so many centuries, our conception of slaves is of men and women carrying stones to the pyramids and being used up in the building process like mortar, or fighting wild animals in public arenas for the amusement of their owners. We picture slaves wearing shameful yokes and chains around their necks.

Nearer modern times there is the practice of slavery on an enormous scale by the Western European nations; the barbarity and bestiality of this trade beggars all description. The trade was principally in Africans who were transported across the oceans, packed in specially designed ships, thought of and treated exactly like livestock. These slaves were forced to change their names and abandon their religion and their language, were never entitled to hope for freedom, and were kept, again like livestock, for hard laboring or for breeding purposes-a birth among them was celebrated as if it were a death. It is difficult to understand how human beings could conceive of fellow human beings in such a light, still less treat them thus. But it certainly happened: there is much documentary evidence that shows, for example, how ship-masters would throw their human cargo overboard in order to claim compensation for their loss. Slaves had no rights in law, only obligations: their owners had absolute rights over them to dispose of them as they wished-brothers and sisters, parents and children, would be separated or allowed to stay togather according to the owner’s mood or his economic convenience.

After centuries of this dreadful practice had made the West European nations rich from exploitation of such commodities as sugar, cotton, coffee, they abolished slavery-they abolished it, with much self-congratulation, first as a trade, then altogether. Yet the Muslim regions had also known considerable prosperity through the exploitation of sugar, cotton, coffee (these words in European languages are of Arabic origin), and achieved that prosperity without the use of slave labour. More important, let us also note, when the Europeans abolished slavery, it was the slave-owners who were compensated, not the slaves-in other words, the attitude to fellow human beings which allowed such treatment of them had not changed. It was not many years after the abolition of slavery that Africa was directly colonized by the Europeans with consequences for the Africans no less terrible than slavery itself. Further, because the attitude to non-Europeans has changed little, if at all, in modem times, their social and political condition remains, even where they live amid the Europeans and their descendants as fellow-citizens, that of despised inferiors. It is barely a couple of decades since the anthropological museums in the great capitals of the Western countries ceased to display, for public entertainment, the bones and stuffed bodies of their fellow human beings. And such displays were not organized by the worst among them, but by the best-the scientists, doctors, learned men, humanitarians.

In short, it is not only the institution of slavery that causes revulsion in the human heart, it is the attitudes of inhumanity which sustain it. And the truth is, if the institution no longer formally exists but the attitudes persist, then humanity has not gained much, if at all. That is why colonial exploitation replaced slavery, and why the chains of unbearable, unrepayable international debt have replaced colonial exploitation: only slavery has gone, its structures of inhumanity and barbarism are still securely in place. Before we turn to the Islamic perspective on slavery, let us recall a name famous even among Western Europeans, that of Harun al-Rashid, and let us recall that this man who enjoyed such authority and power over all Muslims was the son of a slave woman. Nor is he the only such example; slaves and their children enjoyed enormous prestige, authority and respect within the Islamic system, in all areas of life, cultural as well as political. How could this have come about?

Islam amended and educated the institution of slavery and the attitudes of masters to slaves. The Qur’an taught in many verses that all human beings are descended from a single ancestor, that none has an intrinsic right of superiority over another, whatever his race or his nation or his social standing. And from the Prophet’s teaching, upon him be peace, the Muslims learnt these principles, which they applied both as laws and as social norms:

• Whosoever kills his slave, he shall be killed. Whosoever imprisons his slave and starves him, he shall be imprisoned and starved himself, and whosoever castrates his slave shall himself be castrated. (Abu Dawud, Diyat, 70; Tirmidhi, Diyat, 17; Al-Nasa’i, Qasama, 10, 16)
• You are sons of Adam and Adam was created from clay. (Tirmidhi, Tafsir, 49; Manaqib, 73; Abu Dawud, Adab, 111)
• You should know that no Arab is superior over a non-Arab and, no non-Arab is superior over any Arab, no white is superior over black and no black is superior over white. Superiority is by righteousness and God-fearing [alone]. (Ibn Hanbal, Musnad, 411)

Because of this compassionate attitude, those who had lived their whole lives as slaves and who are described in ahadith as poor and lowly received respect from those who enjoyed high social status (Muslim, Birr, 138; Jannat, 48; Tirmidhi, Manaqib, 54. 65). ‘Umar was expressing his respect in this sense when he said: ‘Master Bilal whom Master Abu Bakr set free’ (Bukhari. Fada’il al-Sahaba, 23). Islam (unlike other civilizations) requires that slaves are thought of and treated as within the framework of universal human brotherhood, and not as outside it. The Prophet, upon him be peace, said:

• Your servants and your slaves are your brothers. Anyone who has slaves should give them from what he eats and wears. He should not charge them with work beyond their capabilities. If you must set them to hard work, in any ease I advise you to help them. (Bukhari, Iman, 22: Adab, 44; Muslim, Iman, 38:40; Abu Dawud, Adab, 124)
• Not one of you should [when introducing someone] say ‘This is my slave’, ‘This is my concubine’. He should call them ‘my daughter’ or ‘my son’ or ‘my brother’. (Ibn Hanbal, Musnad. 2, 4)

For this reason ‘Umar and his servant took it in turns to ride on the camel from Madina to Jerusalem on their journey to take control of Masjid al-Aqsa. While he was the head of the state, ‘Uthman had his servant pull his own ears in front of the people since he had pulled his. Abu Dharr, applying the hadith literally, made his servant wear one half of his suit while he himself wore the other half. From these instances, it was being demonstrated to succeeding generations of Muslims, and a pattern of conduct established, that a slave is fully a human being, not different from other people in his need for respect and dignity and justice.

This constructive and positive treatment necessarily had a consequence on the attitudes of slaves to their masters. The slave as slave still retained his humanity and moral dignity and a place beside other members of his master’s family. When (we shall explain how below) he obtained his freedom, he did not necessarily want to leave his former master. Starting with Zayd bin Harith, this practice became quite common. Although our Prophet, upon him be peace, had given Zayd his freedom and left him a free choice, Zayd preferred to stay with him. Masters and slaves were able to regard each other as brothers because their faith enabled them to understand that the worldly differences between people are a transient situation-a situation justifying neither haughtiness on the part of some, nor rancour on the part of others. There were, in addition, strict principles enforced as law:

Whosoever kills his slave, he shall be killed, whosoever imprisons his slave and starves him, he shall be imprisoned and starved himself.

Beside such sanctions which made the master behave with care the slave also enjoyed the legal right to earn money and hold property independently of his master, the right to keep his religion and to have a family and family life with the attendant rights and obligations. As well as personal dignity and a degree of material security, the Islamic laws and norms allowed the slave a still more precious opening-the hope and means of freedom.

Human freedom is by Allah, that is, it is the natural and proper condition which must be regarded as the norm. Thus, to restore a human life, wholly or partly, to this condition is one of the highest virtues. To set free half of a slave’s body has been considered equal to saving half of one’s own from wrath in the next world. In the same way to set free a slave’s whole body is considered equal to assurance of one’s whole body. Seeking freedom for enslaved people is one of the causes for which the banner of war may be raised in Islam. Muslims were encouraged by their faith to enter into agreements and contracts which enabled slaves to earn or be granted their freedom at the expiry of a certain term or, most typically, on the death of the owner. Unconditional emancipation was, naturally, regarded as the most meritorious kind, and worthiest of recognition in the life hereafter. There were occasions when whole groups of people, acting together, would buy and set free large numbers of slaves in order to obtain thereby the favour of Allah.

Emancipation of a slave was also the legally required expiation for certain sins or failures in religious duties, for example, the breaking of an oath or the breaking of a fast: a good deed to balance or wipe out a lapse. The Qur’an commands that he who has killed a believer by mistake must set free a believing slave and pay the blood-money to the family of the slain (al-Nisa’, 4.92). A killing has repercussions for both society and the victim’s family. The blood-money is a partial compensation to the family of the victim. Similarly, the emancipation of a slave is a bill paid to the community-from the point of view of gaining a free person for that community. To set free a living person in return for a death was considered like bringing someone back to life. Both personal and public wealth were expended to obtain the freedom of slaves: the examples of the Prophet, upon him be peace, and of Abu Bakr are well known; later, especially during the rule of ‘Umar bin ‘Abd al‘Aziz, public zakat funds were used for this purpose.

A possible question: ‘It is true that Islam has commended humanity in the treatment of slaves, and encouraged most forcefully their emancipation. We can see from the history of many different peoples in the Islamic world that slaves quickly integrated into the main society and achieved positions of great prestige and power, some even before they gained their freedom. And yet, if Islam regards slavery as a social evil, why did the Qur’an or the Prophet not ban it outright? There are, after all, other social evils which pre-existed Islam, and which Islam sought to abolish altogether-for example, the consumption of alcohol, or gambling, or usury, or prostitution. Why does, Islam by not abolishing slavery, appear to condone it?’

Answer: Until the evil of the European trade in black slaves, slavery was largely a by-product of wars between nations, the conquered peoples becoming the slaves of their conquerors. In the formative years of Islam, no reliable system existed of exchanging prisoners of war. The available means of dealing with them were either (i) to put them all to the sword; or (ii) to hold them and attend to their care in prison; or (iii) to allow them to return to their own people; or (iv) to distribute them among the Muslims as part of the spoils of war.

The first option must be ruled out on the grounds of its barbarity. The second is practicable only for small numbers for a limited period of time if resources permit-and it was, of course, practised-prisoners being held in this way against ransom, many so content with their treatment that they became Muslims and changed sides in the fighting. The third option is imprudent in time of war. This leaves, as a rule for general practice, only the fourth option, whence followed the humane laws and norms instituted by Islam for what is, in effect, the rehabilitation of prisoners of war.

The slave in every Muslim house had the opportunity to see at close quarters the truth of Islam in practice. His heart would be won over by kind treatment and the humanity of Islam in general, especially by the access the slave had to many of the legal rights enjoyed by Muslims, and, ultimately, by getting his freedom. In this way, many thousands of the very best people have swelled the numbers of the great and famous in Islam, whose own example has then become a sunna, a norm, for the Muslims who succeeded them-imams such as Nafi’, Imam Malik’s sheikh, and Tawus bin Qaisan, to name only two.

The reality is that in Islam it is overwhelmingly the case that being a slave was a temporary condition. Unlike Western civilization, whose values are so much in fashion, slavery was not passed down, generation after generation in a deepening spiral of degradation and despair, with no hope for the slaves to escape their condition or their status. On the contrary, regarded as fundamentally equal, the slaves in Muslim society could and did live in secure possession of their dignity as creatures of the same Creator and had steady access to the mainstream of Islamic culture and civilization-to which, as we have noted, they contributed greatly. In the Western societies where slavery was widespread, particularly in North and South America, the children of the slaves, generations after their formal emancipation, remain for the most part on the fringes of society, as a sub-culture or anti-culture-which is only sometimes tolerated, and mostly despised, by the still dominant community.

But why, our critics will ask, when the Muslims were secure in their conquests did they not grant emancipation wholesale to former captives or slaves? The answer has, again, to do with realities not theories. Those former captives or slaves would not have either the personal, psychological resources or the economic resources needed to establish a secure, dignified independence. Those who doubt this would do well to examine the consequences upon the slaves in the former European or American colonies of their sudden emancipation- many were abruptly reduced to destitution, rendered homeless and resourceless by owners who (themselves compensated for their loss of property) no longer accepted any kind of responsibility for their former slaves. We have already noted the failure of these ex-slaves to enter upon or make a mark in the wider society from which they had been so long excluded by law.

By contrast, every good Muslim who embraced his slave as a brother, encouraged him to work for his freedom, observed all his rights, helped him to support a family, to find a place in the society before emancipating him, might well be pleased with an institution that opened to him a means of pleasing Allah. The example that comes first to mind: Zayd bin Harith who was brought up in the Prophet’s own household and set free, who married a noblewoman, who was appointed as the commander of a Muslim army which included many of noble birth. But one might swell the list of examples to many thousands if one had the space.

There are two important points to emphasize concerning the attitude of Muslims to slavery, one on the part of Muslims themselves, the other of slaves and non-Muslim countries. Although slavery is accidental to the Islamic fiqh, a matter which is to be solved step by step until it almost completely disappears in the course of time in parallel with spiritual, cultural and social developments, it was sometimes observed that some Muslims, especially some Muslim rulers, continued to hold slaves in their possessions. Islam, however, cannot be blamed for this practice, which came from the spiritual deficiency of such Muslims in practising Islam in their lives. The other point is that habits and the lifestyle of a man cause him to develop a second nature in him. When Lincoln legally abolished slavery in the US in the previous century, most of the slaves had to return to their owners because they had already lost initiative and the ability to make a free choice so as to be able to lead their life as free people. It is because of this psychological fact that the prisoners of war were first distributed among Muslims so that they, after their emancipation, would be able to lead a true Islamic social life as free human beings in a Muslim society and to enjoy their legal rights fully. Islam, thus, sought to solve the problem by steps: in the first step it enabled slaves to realize their true human consciousness and identity; then, it educated them in Islamic, human values, and inculcated in them love of freedom. When, at last, the slaves were emancipated, they found themselves to be fully equipped with all kinds of possibilities to be useful members of the community as farmers, artisans, teachers, scholars, and commanders, governors and ministers or even prime ministers.

Islam attempted to destroy the institution of ‘individual slavery’, and never envisaged nor tried ‘national slavery’. So, as a Muslim, I pray to God that enslaved-coIonized, oppressed-peoples of the world should enjoy real freedom.

Western culture throughout the centuries has taught fear and contempt of racially and culturally ‘different’ people and in its languages has retained derogatory terms for these ‘others’. By contrast, the history of the Islamic civilization shows little evidence of racism. However, in recent times, some Muslims, under the impress of the Western example, have begun to develop feelings of racial prejudice. Following the retreat of Western imperial powers, Muslims have the opportunity to develop away from Western attitudes and ideologies. God willing, more Muslims will rediscover their Islamic heritage, and racist feelings will be removed from their hearts.

We must remember that in the days before Islam racism and slavery existed, but Islam effectively abolished the inferiority associated with slavery and integrated people of various ethnic origins into a single civilization. Muslims are one ummah and Islam is their culture and allegiance. God says in the Qur’an: Verily this brotherhood of yours is a single brotherhood (21.92). God has created us different so that we may know and distinguish one another: worth lies not in belonging to this or that nation but in belonging to God, in taqwa or consciousness of Him. Getting on with the differences in creation is a part of the trials of this life, a test of our kindliness and humanity towards those who are ‘other’.

Do you not see that God sends down rain from the sky? With it We then bring out produce of various colours. And in the mountains are tracts white and red, of various shades of colour, and intense black in hue. Similarly, among men, and crawling creatures, and cattle, they are of various colours (35.27-8).

We should rejoice in the variety of mankind and try to learn about the cultures and languages of others. We enjoy fruits of diverse kinds, and take pleasure in the differences in nature, so why not also take pleasure in the differences between peoples?

The Muslim world has never been afflicted with the intense problems which still affect the Western world. There still exist in the US groups of white supremacists who want to bring back racial apartheid and even slavery. Then, besides the problems of race, there are also problems arising from the discrimination of the rich against the poor. However, God does not judge human beings on the basis of their race or nationality or social class, but on the basis of their quality of worship and their actions.

In the first days of Islam, the pagan Arabs practised slavery. Many slaves liked the message of equality and, attracted to the truth of Islam, converted. The behaviour of the first Muslims tells us that they did not uphold racist attitudes. For instance, Abu Bakr rescued Bilal from torture by buying and then freeing him. Bilal was then honoured with the dignity of being appointed to make the call to prayer: he was the first muezzin. God commands in the Qur’an that to express remorse for certain sins a Muslim should emancipate a slave if financially able to do so. If a slave woman bore a child she was immediately considered free. Also, Islamic law provided legal means to enable slaves to purchase their freedom. Islam was thus the first civilization to gradually abolish slavery and, much more important, the attitudes of racial and cultural superiority which, in non-Muslim societies, have kept the descendants of slaves-even after a hundred years of emancipation-in positions of inferiority. In Islamic societies, slaves were considered a part of the household and fully integrated into the community, many attaining positions of great eminence- Harun al-Rashid was the son of a slave.

It is of the highest importance that Muslims should avoid becoming infected by Western ideologies. The Western nations have nowhere created a successful, stable plural society. Even between nations there is not so much peaceful co-existence as a cynical balance of power. Only Islam has ever succeeded in establishing and sustaining a feeling of common humanity among different peoples and cultures. Many verses of the Qur’an and the ahadith of the Prophet, upon him be peace, reiterate that all people are equal. A hadith qudsi related by Abu Dharr al-Ghifari records the words: ‘0 my servants, I have forbidden oppression for Myself and have made it forbidden amongst you, so do not oppress one another’ (Muslim). In another hadith in the Sahih of Muslim, Abu Huraira related that the Prophet said:

Do not envy one another; do not inflate prices one to another; do not hate one another; do not turn away from one another; and do not undercut one another; but be you, 0 servants of God, brothers. A Muslim is the brother of a Muslim: he neither oppresses him nor does he fail him, he neither lies to him nor does he hold him in contempt. Piety is right here-and he pointed to his breast three times. It is evil enough for a man to hold his brother Muslim in contempt. The whole of a Muslim for another Muslim is inviolable: his blood, his property, and his honour.’

As long as Muslims hold to the Qur’an and Sunna and make these sources a part of their lives, they shall be spared the social evil of this age. But, having practised what they have heard preached, Muslims must have the conviction to commend (by example as well as by word) Islam to others. Unless the Western peoples come to respect Islam and learn from it, they will end up destroying themselves because of their national and cultural separatism. Muslims need to work at getting rid of the racism in the world and promoting brotherhood and peace instead.