Question: “There is no greater title and position than servanthood to God. Even if there is, it must be freedom, which is actually another dimension of this servanthood.” In our age when everybody talks about freedom, what is freedom, from a believers’ perspective?

Answer: A person who becomes a true servant to God is freed from all types of servanthood which might sometimes even make them knock every door like a beggar and resort to mean ways. That person will similarly not be a slave to passing fancies and desires.

Obstacles to freedom

As for people who fail to be servants to God in the true sense, they may sometimes become slaves to their desires and lust and thus lead a bohemian life. Sometimes they give in to their greed and engage in different speculations for the sake of amassing wealth, without caring whether it is lawful or not. Sometimes, they give in to a desire for worldly status and titles and thus seek to allocate the people’s wealth for themselves by abusing their position.

People who do not lead their life with a profound consciousness of servanthood sometimes become slaves to their envy and cannot even tolerate people dedicated to good acts who try to conquer hearts. Because of this intolerance, they burn with a desire to sabotage their work. However, they actually do the greatest harm to themselves. As they eat their hearts out before the accomplishments of the people they envy, they also ruin their own deeds with respect to the Hereafter. Note that the noble Prophet stated that malicious envy consumes one’s good deeds, like fire consumes wood (Abu Dawud, Adab 44; Ibn Majah, Zuhd 22).

Fame is another pitfall for those who are not true servants to God. Seekers of fame try every means for the sake of being the center of attention and for receiving applause and appreciation. If such poor ones make the slightest achievement or make the slightest degree of sacrifice, they immediately expect some others to say, “the entire country is proud of you.” They do not talk without applause, and do not give anything without receiving compliments. They go through fits of delight and are enraptured in the face of applause. Such people with egotistic souls actually become servants and slaves to fame.

Other than that, there are also people who become slaves to ease and comfort, to money and wealth, to benefits and opportunism… Such unfortunate ones who fail to savor and appreciate the worth of the servanthood to God keep running after their own ambitions, greed, desires, passions, and addictions. They knock all doors and try every possible reference. However, they cannot feel satisfied nor find true happiness in any way. Actually, what lies in the root of idolatry is weakening of the feeling of servanthood to God. Since idolaters cannot properly be servants to God and cannot savor the delight of servanthood, they resort to different means in order to satisfy this hunger of theirs. With the added influence of some devilish considerations, they, for example, posted a stick on the ground hoping to make rain fall; they resorted to beseeching those in the grave for realizing some other wish; they wanted to realize their goals by means of pieces of cloth or candles they left in tombs; but they gradually fell into the pitfall of associating partners with God.

Some others objected to servanthood to God, claiming that this—God forbid—goes against human dignity. They claim that a person who observes servanthood to God becomes accustomed to servanthood and might be a servant before the created also. Namely, they mistook servanthood to God as contradictory to freedom. Actually, attaining true human freedom depends on this very point. A person can be freed from other servanthood only by becoming a servant to God. It firstly needs to be acknowledged that a person chooses faith with free will and believes in the essentials of faith with free will. The person similarly observes worship with free will. In short, a person observes servanthood to God out of free will.

In this respect, there is a very close relation between freedom, worship, and profound devotions. While those unable to throw off the shackles around the neck imposed by fame, hedonism, and the like cannot ever be free, they can neither be servants to God in the true sense. Namely, as freedom is crucial for the sake of thorough servanthood to God, attaining real freedom depends on being a servant to God in the true sense.

Given that God Almighty endowed humanity with a very significant dynamic like free will, it matters where and how we use it. One must aim for great wishes and demands with free will. Seeking simple worldly delights and pleasures would hurt human honor and dignity; running after trivial things would be a bad investment for the capital of a lifetime. What suits a proper human being is not to be captivated by physicality and carnal desires; instead, they should fear only God and no one else, never bow to this or that person like beggars, but bow only when necessary – namely, in the presence of God.

While this is the meaning of giving free will its due, it is the only way for real freedom. Only people who get rid of negative feelings like greed and envy, worldly expectations and fears are the ones who attain inner peace and relief. Since they are ready to leave this world as they came, they do not bend to any worldly power.

Is freedom in an absolute sense possible?

Some understand freedom as absolute liberty without any restrictions or conditions whatsoever. However, such liberty has never existed anywhere in the world to date. Neither in capitalist systems nor in liberal or communist ones, have people lived as they wished with unrestrained liberty. All systems sanctioned some rules to restrain freedom. For example, although communist systems broadened the limits of what is permissible and came up with an understanding alluring to passing fancies and desires, when it came to fidelity to the system, they acted strictly and tyrannically. They deprived people of their property rights, they killed the freedom for personal enterprise, and banned many actions that contradicted human nature and reason.

Likewise, although some states in our time have given much freedom to their citizens, they never allow any ideas that contradict the official ideology. They bring certain limitations regarding what they term as freedom of thought and conscience: they impose heavy sanctions when certain ideas that disagree with their worldview are voiced. No matter how much they refer to freedom, they cannot forbear the slightest degree of opposition to their own system.

A society’s general welfare and harmonious continuity necessitate adopting certain disciplines. If freedom is perceived and practiced as unlimited satisfaction of all desires and fancies, then this will cause corruption of lineages, breaking up of families, and degeneration of society. Likewise, although “freedom” might seem to allow it, we cannot approve of acts like profanity against the sacred, verbal abuse against religion, and making fun of the nation’s values, for allowing these will cause all moral values to be ruined. It is similarly not possible to accept as lawful, acting against the country or nation under the name of freedom, for in such a case the concepts of nation and country will lose importance, and it will become difficult for society members to co-exist.

On account of all these reasons, almost all legal systems have passed laws to provide shelter for the essential rights of religion, life, lineage, property, and reason; they imposed heavy sanctions against any crimes posing a threat to these. Namely, all states felt the need to draw a frame for freedom through certain laws and regulations. In fact, even while describing freedom, it is pointed out that your freedom ends where the limits of others’ freedom begins. In other words, although all citizens own certain rights and freedoms, they extend to the limits where others’ rights and freedoms begin. If we take the issue from a believer’s perspective, we can express this fact that God and faith too have some rights upon the individual, and they set certain limits for them.

In this respect, the notion of unrestrained freedom does not exist even among animals. They have certain limitations and boundaries, and there are consequences when they are violated.

Animals lead their life with astonishing solidarity and mutual assistance. Take penguins in the Antarctic: we feel dizzy before their system. Had people been able to establish such a system among themselves, all of us would live in peace.

God instilled certain rules in the brains of animals to let them live in an orderly fashion. However, humans possess reason and free will. We can even say that these are the most essential and indispensable human qualities. A human is neither a pile of wood, nor a sunflower stem. In this respect, for the sake of being able to live with others in an orderly and harmonious fashion, a person is supposed to comply with certain rules by means of reason and willpower. This is very important in terms of giving free will its due.

By giving willpower its due, humans will not only live harmoniously together but will even surpass angels. The noble Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, who used his free will to the best of his capacity, left the archangel Gabriel behind during his journey on the night of Ascension. Therefore, things like bidding for Paradise and being blessed with the honor of seeing God all depend on using one’s free will properly. On this path it might be necessary to sacrifice some aspects of freedom and to accept certain disciplines by means of free will.

Freedom is a great blessing God bestowed on people. If some people have lost such a divine blessing on account of their neglect and laziness, namely if they failed to retain their freedom, they will be held responsible before God. Furthermore, if they are not aware of being dominated by other ideologies, and not even endeavoring to be saved from this by refusing to regain certain opportunities they have lost, then they are not only betraying their freedom, but also their faith.

In this respect, appreciating the value of the freedom God granted us, upholding it and using it in the right way, are very important. In this respect, every nation needs to know well their era, have plans and projects for the future, and take promising steps as much as their cognition and circumstances allow.

Free thinking and science

Scientific thought has been shaped in the last few centuries by ideas based on positivism, materialism, and naturalism.

Scientific terminology has developed so extensively with these ideas that we are not able to think differently. And with these ideas we cannot reach the truth about our lives. For this reason, it is necessary for believing scientists to re-adopt free thinking as a principle and revise all their scientific conclusions. While doing this, they must be freed from attachment to the status quo and question everything, for it is not possible to establish something new without questioning. To this end, we need to consider that there is a possibility of being mistaken—be it a slight one—about the data we find before us. For example, a doctor specializing in medicine should be able to re-evaluate everything he or she has learned and re-test whether these are correct or not.

This surely is not an easy endeavor; it demands a very serious love for knowledge, research, and truth. Furthermore, it requires being able to dedicate a lifetime to this cause, to undertake very serious troubles and make serious sacrifices. If an industrial revolution happened in the West and serious distances were covered in science and technology, it happened thanks to the people who dedicated their lives to this issue. Some dedicated their lives to studying animal life, some to discovering the secret of historical relics, and some to decoding the tongue of natural phenomena. However, these studies of theirs ended up with materialism and naturalism. It is necessary to overcome this present situation and relate every truth about sciences to the One beyond existence and things. Like unweaving a sweater and re-weaving it with a new pattern, everything must be de-constructed and then re-constructed. While doing this we might sometimes be correct and sometimes err; we might take certain issues further than their present state and walk along with others at certain issues, and we even refer to their help.

However, these are not things to be realized by ordinary people. They require very serious resoluteness. But without such a struggle, it is not possible to be freed from dualism and to eliminate the contradiction between science and religion. Actually, while the origin of the Qur’an is Divine Speech, the Universe is similarly another divine book to be studied, as originated by His power and will. Given that these two books come from the same origin, it is not possible for there to be any contradiction between them.

Pursuing science under domination is no less painful than living under the rule of others’ domination. Merely quoting others but not being able to coming up with any new and original ideas should only be the growls of lowly souls surrendered to domination. Here I am saying like the poet Mehmed Akif did, “I have lived free and do live free for eternity/Who is to dare bring me under chains, I surprise, so crazy!” Actually every believer must possess this honor. They must look at their glorious past, turn to their spiritual roots, and then consider the present wretched condition and ask themselves whether or not it is shameful. Afterwards, they must absolutely set about being saved from these shames by building up their own world.

As souls under domination will not be able to realize such a revival, there is the absolute need for free thoughts. Actually, freedom begins in thinking. It is not possible to talk about freedom concerning people whose thoughts are dominated others.

they set out for eternity

And wherever the journey led, they carried their gift of radiance.

Gleams of Beauty unfading so entranced their souls,

they heard at night in their dreams angels

singing of bliss and the music of other worlds.

More enchanted, more earnestly they searched in every place, and

yearned for their homeland

the dream of a beloved of matchless excellence, hero or saint or both.

Without pause, they strove on in high, passionate hope;

some mysteries of life they unraveled

as they journeyed apace, and at last obtained the promised happiness.

Lovers of the Light are pledged to a long journey, its end Unseen:

the very roads are proud upon which they journey:

the rhythm of their surging on is Certainty,

and their rank as slaves of the King.

Whoever disdains that rank, disdains his own good fortune,

Exchanging hope for a regret everlasting:

he shall not attain, not ever,

the further horizon of all that is.

Only passionate lovers of the Ideal,

may behold that far horizon,

eternity itself impressed upon their faces,

their names rehearsed in hymns of praise.

They desire life reborn only to be martyred again,

hearts forever surrendered to the Light,

forever remembered in our hearts.

They raise now light-filled eyes,

in their hands translucent beakers held aloft, at ease,

filled to their brim from rivers of Paradise.

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.