Islam And The Abolition Of Slavery

Contemporay debates about Muslim slavery occur in a context of fierce polemics between Islam and other belief systems. While Islamic groups had an ambivalent and generally muted impact on the legal repudiation of slavery, a growing religious commitment to abolition was essential if legislation was to be enforced in the twentieth century. In this book, William Gervase Clarence-Smith provides the first general survey of the Islamic debate on slavery. Drawing on examples from the whole "abode' of Islam," from the Philipines to Senegal and from the Caucasus to South Africa, he ranges across the history of Islam, paying particular attention to the period from the late 18th century to the present. He shows that "sharia-minded" attempts to achieve closer adherence to the holy law restricted slavery, even if they did not end it. However, the sharia itself was not as clear about the legality of servitude as is usually assumed, and progressive scholars within the schools of law might even have achieved full emancipation over the long term.

William Gervase Clarence-Smith is Professor of History in the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London.