The slave trade under Islam
The slave trade in Mohammedan lands has been fostered through the consecration of the war system by Mohammed and his recognition of slavery as a part of the established social order. Throughout the first century of the career of Islam the propaganda of the faith by the sword provided an unfailing source of slaves, such as had not been opened up since the completion of the conquest of the world by the Roman legions.[668] This religious legitimatizing of the slave trade filled Moslem lands with slave markets, and, when the wars of the religious propaganda had ceased, tended to give a fresh impulse to the African slave traffic, which had been in existence from time immemorial. This trade by Mohammedans has been just such a curse to eastern and central Africa as the European Christian slave traffic—which, beginning in the fifteenth century, continued till its final suppression in the nineteenth—was to the west African coast and the hinterland. The Moslem trade is still carried on clandestinely,[669] since there has as yet been little or no moral disapprobation of the traffic awakened in Mohammedan lands.
Drunkenness in Mohammedan countries
The absolute prohibition in the Koran of the use of all intoxicating liquors has been wonderfully effective in preserving Mohammedan lands from the great evil of drunkenness. This vice, so common in Christian lands, is almost unknown in countries where the faith of the Koran is really dominant and the influence of Europeans has not been felt.
In Afghanistan the penalty inflicted for drunkenness is death. So rigorously is the law of Islam in this matter enforced that persons in a state of intoxication are almost never seen. Nor is the evil simply driven under cover; there is practically very little drinking going on in the privacy of the home.
Moslem charity
Islam has been only less effective than Buddhism and Christianity in fostering the attractive virtue of charity. The precepts of the Koran respecting almsgiving and other deeds of benevolence have greatly promoted the habit of giving among the followers of the Prophet. The giving of direct relief to the poor in the form of alms is probably quite as general as among Christians, though much of this charity is indiscriminate and tends to foster that mendicity which is such an ever-present evil in Mohammedan lands. The building of caravansaries, the construction of aqueducts, the opening of fountains along the routes of travel, and the founding of asylums are forms of benevolence which recall similar works of philanthropy in the later period of the pagan Roman Empire.
Respecting this charity, however, it must be said that much of it has the taint of self-interest. Many of these good works are performed not so much from genuine philanthropy as from self-regarding motives, the dominant thought of the doer being to gain religious merit for himself.
Moral influence of Islam on races low in civilization
The spread of Islam has been almost from the first largely among tribes and peoples low in the scale of civilization. In the earlier centuries of its career, besides its conquests among the peoples of ancient culture, it won over a great part of the uncivilized clans and tribes of Asia, and to-day is making constant and rapid progress among the negro tribes of central Africa. What renders this fact of significance to the historian of morals is that Islam has shown itself to be one of the most potent forces at work in the world to-day for the moral elevation of peoples still on or near the level of savagery. Canon Isaac Taylor affirms that it “causes the negro tribes of Africa to renounce paganism, devil worship, fetishism, cannibalism, human sacrifices, infanticide, witchcraft, gambling, drunkenness, unchastity, cruelty, and personal uncleanliness.”[670]