Islam and Slavery — Page 47
THE PRISONERS OF WAR. IF there is any teaching of Islam which may be represented as sanctioning slavery, it is its teachings with regard to the prisoners of war. But, as it will presently appear war prisoners were not actually treated in Islam as slaves, and if they were sometimes called by that name it was only due to a nominal resemblance. . In this connection, it should be mentioned at the very outset that, as borne out by history, it was in the prisoners of war that the institution of slavery had its origin. . Subsequently, however, other ways were invented, owing to which slavery, which was originally an inevitable outcome of the early conditions of the world. assumed a heinous aspect, and instead of serving as a means for preventing tyranny for which it was originally meant, it became a dreadful instrument of oppression. . Originally the institution of slavery consisted in this that when one nation made an unprovoked attack upon another, and tried to blot them out from the face of the earth or reduce them to subjection by unjustly depriving them of their liberty, the latter, in case of their triumph over the aggressive party, took their men as captives and detained them as prisoners of war. This course was necessary, for, if it had not been adopted, international wars would never have come to an end, nor would the aggressors ever had desisted from committing excesses upon public peace, and tyranny and oppression would have