The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 4) — Page 361
PT. 18 AN-NŪR CH. 24 men could scarcely be reconciled their speedy enfranchisement. Slaves with the practice of slavery which were to be treated as members of the was so widespread as to have become family as long as they were in inextricably interwoven and deeply bondage, and at the same time it was rooted in the social conditions and declared as a most heinous crime ideas of his time. His heart burnt to tantamount to murder to deprive a see the iniquities and enormities free man of his freedom and reduce practised by man upon man. He him to slavery (Muslim Kitābul- grieved and pined for this unfortunate Iman). But those persons were section of humanity. He would, if he excepted from this commandment could, abolish altogether by a stroke who should themselves incur the loss of the pen a system so repugnant and of their freedom by participating in a revolting, so destructive of all noble war undertaken to destroy Islam and human instincts, of all that to impose their own beliefs and distinguishes man from beast and doctrines upon the Muslims at the brute. But this institution had become point of the sword. Even this denial an integral part of the whole fabric of of freedom to war prisoners was to human society in his time. To abolish last only till those prisoners had it all of a sudden was neither wise, discharged their share of the guilt, nor practicable or even possible. It either by paying off their part of the should have meant a death-blow to cost of war by getting themselves the entire existing social order. The ransomed or by the Muslims sudden emancipation in hundreds of themselves setting them free as an act thousands of those persons who of favour which the Quran has so having been held in bondage for repeatedly and emphatically enjoined generations had lost all initiative to on them (47:5). See also 23:7. lead an independent life, would have seriously told upon the whole moral tone of society. Jobless and workless they would have stooped to all sorts of immoral acts. This was exactly what the Holy Prophet sought to avoid and he did succeed in avoiding it. On the other hand, he laid down precepts and injunctions which were calculated to do away with slavery gradually but surely and effectively. These injunctions were of two categories: (i) Temporary provisions bearing upon the general improvement and betterment of the moral and social conditions of the existing slaves and (ii) Provisions of a permanent nature aiming at the complete and total extinction of slavery in every shape or form. One of such provisions by means of which a slave could earn his emancipation, independently and irrespective of the fact whether his master liked it or not, was that he could enter into a civil written contract with the latter. It is this written contract which is known as mukātabat (deed of manumission) and to which the verse under comment refers. According to this contract a definite amount of money or labour is fixed as the price of the freedom of a slave. After the contract 2275