Islam and Slavery — Page 50
50 innocent Muslims by vilest treachery, made them their slaves, and murdered some of them in the most barbarous manner. (¹) They conspired to enslave their women and made war upon them with that object in view. (2) They mutilated the bodies of Muslim martyrs, and having cut off their noses and ears, strung them together and garlanded themselves therewith. (3) They made brutal attacks on their sick and suffering women bringing about in certain cases a miscarriage. (4) They killled the chaste wives of the Muslims by piercing them with spears in the most horrible and shameless manner. (5) If, under circumstances like these, the tyrants who committed such barbarities had been deprived of their liberty and reduced to a state of bondage, that would have been by no means unjust. But such was the kindness of the Holy Prophet that even the perpetrators of these heinous crimes were pardoned by him, and those of them who were taken captives in the war had no restraint put on their liberty save that they were temporarily detained, during that temporary detention also the Holy Prophet gave such directions for their comfort and convenience that under their influence, his Companions put off their own shirts, and gave them to the prisoners to wear (6)-aye the very prisoners who had been thirsty for their blood. They ate dry dates giving cooked food to the (1) Bukhari, and books of history under Tragedies of Raji and Bir. Mauna. (2) Abu Daud under the story of Nadhir, also. Zurqani, under the expedition of Dhu Qird. (3) Books of Tradition and History under the Battle of Ohud. (4) Ibn-i-Hisham, under the accounts of the prisoners taken at Badr in section relating to Abu Al-Ass bin Rabi. . Usud Al-Ghata under Sumayya; also Zurqani, Vol. I, page 266. . Bukhari, Kitab Al-Jihad, under the heading "Garments for the prisoners. "