Islam and Slavery — Page 31
• 31 character of individuals as well as on the social life of the nation as a whole. . Hence, the Holy Prophet, who was a true reformer and who wished to do for the slaves that which was really beneficial for them, did not follow any such course as might prove disastrous to society and do the slaves more harm rather than good. Just consider what would have been the result under the circumstances which then existed if all the slaves, who numbered hundreds of thousands, had been suddenly set free without any prude atial arrangements having been made for their maintenance, comfort and control. Certainly such a step would have meant their total ruin both temporally and morally; temporally, because most of them would have been left without any support or means of livelihood, and without having any opportunity to learn some trade or profession; and morally, because their sudden and universal liberation would have exercised a corrupting influence on their morals and habits, particularly because owing to their long subjection to tyrannical treatment they had acquired meanness, stony-heartedness and similar other low morals, and God knows in what channels their degraded morals would have run and what fruit they would have borne if all the slaves had been set free immediately. . It was in view of such wise considerations that Islam very judiciously followed two courses with regard to slavery. . In the first place, it put an end, once for all, to all the tyaannical ways of reducing free human beings to slavery and thus stopped further extension of the system. Secondly,