To be frank, the present-day followers of the Prophet—those who have not been brought under the influence of European civilisation—have far less sympathy with the opinions expressed in the opening paragraph, than had Muhammad himself. Humanly speaking, the British crusade against slavery is not only beyond their comprehension—it is also above it. Their outlook on life, with its rights, its limitations, and its responsibilities, differs fundamentally from that of the followers of the Founder of Christianity. The Christian, who speaks of himself as “a child of God and an inheritor of the Kingdom of Heaven,” believes, if we misinterpret him not, that the first step is with him, and the road with God. In other words, he holds the inspiriting belief, which is, indeed, the source of all his worldly progress and his prosperity, that God has given him the right to act of his own initiative, but not the power—or only a circumscribed power—to foresee whither his actions will lead him. Therefore, in calling himself “a child of God,” he has chosen the title that would best express his independence and his limitations. The Muhammadan, on the other hand, cannot admit that he has the power to move of his own free will, much less the right to do so. He holds that every true Muslim is, and must be, “the slave of God,” the theory of free-will being to the Muslim trend of thought so antagonistic that it has come to bear much the same meaning as lawlessness. Hence his aversion from Europe and all its ways. “How,” he asks, “can morality and law flourish in a continent, in which thought is free, in which women are free, in which God’s will is superseded by the will of man? Freedom? I say we are all the slaves of God, even when we are the slaves of other men. There is not one creature who is free to act. Only the Creator is free. It is our predestined lot to be submissive to His will.”
I hope the reader is following the thread of my argument. It is the feeling of the East which I would attempt to lay bare. The existence of slavery in these days is the natural outcome of that feeling. Many a child is kept illiterate for no other reason than because its father is illiterate. If the father is a pea-parcher or a bean-roaster, the son must be a pea-parcher or a bean-roaster; for a son is nothing more than a child of its father. This thraldom, to a lad of originality and spirit, is unbearable, but he must either endure it, or else run the risk of being an outcast. Thus the son is the slave of his father. In his turn the father is under the bondage of his spiritual director, who too often serves no other God than Mammon. The tendency of the Muslim, however, is to accept the guidance of his “master” with unquestioning humility. All might go well with him if his “master”—we mean his priest—were always a man to be trusted, and the right man to lead. Unfortunately the Muslim priest more often than not is more unenlightened, more selfish, more avaricious, more unscrupulous than most of his flock, and thus there is a danger of his enslaving the whole fold. Poor sheep, they, believing him to be the shepherd of God, are accustomed to follow him whithersoever he may ensnare them. They are doomed to perish together on the rock of Predestination, unless these “masters” can be brought to revise the interpretation they have put on their Prophet’s teaching. Muhammad, as a matter of fact, was careful not to draw a too narrow line between the scope and the limitations of the human will. There is nothing in his message which need deter a progressive Muslim from accepting the belief that the first step is with him always, and there is no doubt that the acceptance of such a belief by the whole Muslim world would go far to breathe new life into the body politic. For it would give to the imagination an ever-widening vision of human responsibility, of human knowledge, and of human destiny. It would emancipate every race that is proud to pay allegiance to the Prophet, and would make slavery, in its widest as well as in its literal sense, a curse of the unredeemed past.
“We know,” says Mr. J. H. Shorthouse, speaking in the words of an oracular voice, addressing the King of Diamonds in a pack of cards, “that we possess a power by which the fall of the cards is systematised and controlled. To a higher intelligence than ours, doubtless, combinations which seem to us inscrutable are as easily analysed and controlled. In proportion as intellect advances we know this to be the case, and these two would seem to run side by side into the infinite—law, and intellect, which perceives law, until we arrive at the insoluble problem whether law is the result of intellect or intellect of law.”
Now, the Mussulman, in trying to solve this problem, seems to me to have chosen the solution which is more likely than not to paralyse the intellect and clog the wheels of progress. For if he is oppressed or poor or ignorant or unhappy, he may say it is God’s will that he should be so; and thus he may remain stationary, making no effort to keep abreast with the march of civilisation. In other words, he may come to be a slave to his god. And so, to make an end of this preamble, it is not surprising that in countries where most men are to some extent slaves, socially and politically speaking, there should be men and women who belong, as purchasable and saleable chattels, to such families as can afford to buy them. But—and this is an all-important point—the Prophet wrought his manly utmost to mitigate the ill-effects of slavery: it flourished exceedingly, as every schoolboy knows, long before his time, and in other countries besides his own; but, thanks to Muhammad’s laws, the lot of the slaves of Islám was, and is still, immensely happier than was ever that of the slaves of pagan Rome or of Christian North America. It is related that Abdullah Ansari went one day to visit the Prophet, and received from him the following instructions; “On this the last Friday of Ramazán, you must devote yourself ‘to taking leave’ of the month, and to redeeming as many slaves as you can: and these things you must do in order that God may be gracious unto you.” The “leave-taking,” be it known to the reader, is practised every year, but the old custom of setting one’s slaves free on the last day of the congregation of the Muslim Lent has completely died out. However, though it was not possible for Muhammad to abolish slavery in a lifetime, the system being far too deeply rooted in the customs of the country, he fully realised the oppression to which the slaves had been subjected, and left nothing undone which would ameliorate their fate.
Thus, in Súra xxiv. of the Kurán, entitled “Light,” it is written: “And unto such of your slaves as desire a written instrument allowing them to redeem themselves on the payment of a certain sum, write one, if ye know good in them: that is, if ye have found them faithful, and have reason to believe they will fulfil their engagement; and give them likewise of the riches of God which He hath given you, either by bestowing on them of your own substance or by abating them a part of their ransom.” Some commentators believe the last admonition to be addressed not only to the masters but to Muslims in general, making it an obligation on them all to assist those who have obtained their liberty and paid their ransom, either by giving the ransomed slaves of their own stock, or by admitting them to have a share in the public alms. One of the Imáms, as we read in a Shi’ah book of traditions, put a very generous interpretation on the Prophet’s words; for on the approach of the Hájj Day he would buy as many slaves as he could afford to set free—a signal and heartening proof that Muhammad had not preached in vain. But, alas! in these modern days a slave is rarely allowed to buy his freedom—unless, indeed, he be utterly worthless as a servant—until such time as his master is dead. A good Muslim either releases his slaves on his death-bed, having no further use of their services, or makes provision for their redemption in his will. The money and the belongings which they may have amassed, as well as they themselves, are during his lifetime his inalienable property, and, therefore, on the first day of the moon of Shavvál he must, on paying his Zikkát (that is, one-tenth of his gross estate), include therein the purchase-price of his slaves and the value of their hoards.
Another instance of the Prophet’s solicitude for the best welfare of the slaves must not be omitted here. In his reverence for virtue he took such steps as would, to a certain extent, guard the female slaves from the indelicacy of their masters. If the masters have deteriorated morally, less than one might expect from the burden of their responsibility and the force of their temptation, dealing as far as in them lies with kindness by their slaves, what can be said in respect of morality of the unfortunate slaves themselves? In a play modelled on the European drama, an Oriental writer has chosen for his hero a Negro slave by name Pistachio, to whom he attributes the lowest traits of ignorance and cunning. Pistachio is the evil genius of the family. He turns the house into a secret gambling hell. He brings about a liaison between his master’s daughter and a suitor rejected by her parents; and, by winning his mistress’s favour, excites the apprehension and jealousy of her husband. Every act of treachery is committed under the cloak of folly. His perversity has no limit, and his ingratitude no end. Making every allowance for reasonable exaggeration, we have in Pistachio a type of what an Oriental slave too often is. For there is no manner of doubt that a man, born and bred in slavery, knowing next to nothing of the refining influence of education, is more apt to represent rather the worse, than the better, side of human character. Some slaves there are, doubtless, who, like Arab horses, are surpassingly faithful to their masters, but there are others—perhaps more numerous—who, in the effrontery of deceit and moral degradation could hardly be matched by the most thankless rascal in the sink of hypocrisy. Of the majority connecting the extreme types whose portraits I have sketched, two things may be said with almost unquestionable certainty. They are self-willed and effeminate when young, and indolent and self-willed when old. In their youth, provided they be good-looking, they are regarded with suspicion by their masters, if they are male, and with jealousy by their mistresses if they are female. They live, whether they be men or women, in the strength-sapping seclusion of the harems, and hence, for one reason, their lack of such qualities as go to the making of healthy manhood. For intellect they must be placed not much above the level of the dog—in fact, if the dog could speak, he would put in his claim to the higher rank.
I have hardly heard of a single slave in an Oriental house who deserves to be noted for his intellectual power. Since he is so cunning and can set the whole family by the ears, how comes it that he is so dull of understanding? Does the cause lie solely in the neglect of education? Surely not, for if it did his master’s case would often be no better than his own. Is the reason, then, to be sought beneath the surface of his skin? Scarcely, I think, since, under the British flag in South Africa, his brother blacks are gaining fast in intellectual strength. No; set your slave free; let him have a body he can call his own. Educate him that he may develop a mind to rule himself. Give him light, and room, and liberty. Do this, you master of Islám’s slave, and your jesters shall have no cause in the future to satirise the wretched victim who, bought in chains and reared in sloth, is nothing less than a living stigma cast on your manhood. If anything could emancipate your sense of justice, it would be a visit to the Slave Market of Mecca. Go there, see for yourself the condition of the human chattels you purchase. You will find them, thanks to the vigilance of the British cruisers, less numerous, and consequently more expensive, than they were in former years; but there they are, flung pell-mell in the open square—in crowds that clamour for a recrudescence of Muhammad’s attitude towards slavery.
One group, that of a mother and daughter, excited the sympathy of many pilgrims. The girl, unthinking, giddy, broke every now and then into shrill laughter. In her mirth, more terrible to witness than grief, it seemed as though she would while away the hours of exciting expectation. For the girl was bent on winning a master; slavery had for her no terror, a mother no reclaiming tie. Every time the daughter laughed her mother’s face twitched all over, and then grew rigid. It was plain, to the sympathetic eye, that she had forced herself to rejoice in her own anguish—her daughter’s unconcern, telling herself, it may be, that, though her own pain would soon be the greater, her daughter’s would be so much the less. The one, dreading the parting, disguised her secret anguish, or found her consolation in her child’s heartlessness; the other, who could not conceal her anxiety lest she should be overlooked, was innocent of a qualm. The dealer, standing by, cried out: “Come and buy, the first fruits of the season, delicate, fresh, and green; come and buy, strong and useful, faithful and honest. Come and buy.” The day of sacrifice was past, and the richer pilgrims in their brightest robes gathered round. One among them singled out the girl. They entered a booth together. The mother was left behind. One word she uttered, or was it a moan of inarticulate grief? Soon after, the girl came back. And the dealer, when the bargaining was over, said to the purchaser: “I sell to you this property of mine, the female slave Narcissus, for the sum of £40.” “And I,” replied the pilgrim, “agree to pay you £40 for your property, Narcissus.” Thus the bargain was clinched. This time the mother’s despair was voiceless; for it meant to stay with her always.
Most of the slaves, male and female, came from Nubia and from Abyssinia, and these are said to be the most faithful. “Hájí Ráz” tried his best to determine the extent of the traffic at Mecca, but in a country where the census is unknown, where every nobleman is an independent ruler, and where the revenue cannot be calculated with any degree of accuracy, he found it impossible to form even a working hypothesis as to the number of human beings that are sold yearly in the city of God. That the trade by sea is on the decrease is certain; but many a slaver escapes from the clutch of the British cruisers owing to the shallow waters of the Red Sea and to the fact that the pursuer cannot go ashore. Moreover, the overland route is always open. Thus he was told that the generality of the richer pilgrims commemorated the sacramental journey by buying at least one slave, and often two. The price varied. A woman-slave, if she were good to behold, fetched by far the higher price—from £20 to £80. Men slaves could be bought for sums varying from £15 to £40. The children-in-arms were sold with their mothers, an act of mercy; but those that could feed themselves had to take their chance. More often than not they were separated from their mothers, which gave rise to scenes which many a sympathetic pilgrim would willingly forget if he could.
It is the custom among the Muhammadans to change the names of their newly-acquired property. Thus the slaves that go to Persia and to Central Asia are called by the names of the flowers if they are women, and by those of the precious stones if they are men. Of the precious stones Turquoise and Cornelian are the most common. Flowers and precious stones! Are they not men and women, O children of Islám, and if they are, why do you not restore to them, in accordance with the express commands of Muhammad, the Prophet, the breath that would reanimate and the light that would redeem them?... “But zeal outruns discretion. Here I end.”