Tom Facchine – Why Didn’t Islam Abolish Slavery-Q&A Series

			Why didn't Islam abolish slavery? Okay, and the way that that question is worded is perfect, because
it shows the whole problem with the framing, we have the words abolish, and we have the word
slavery. There's no such thing as slavery in Islam. There's, there's a different word and a
different concept. You can't just translate words, words across languages, and assume that they mean
the exact same thing. So when we say slavery in English, we imagine something, what do we imagine,
especially those who are from North America, we imagine the experience of slavery in North America,
which was one of the worst, most ridiculously unjust, racist forms of, of servitude or bondage,
		

			whatever you want to call it that's ever existed in human history. Right? If you want an analog to
what is permitted in Islamic law, under certain circumstances, and with strict rules and guidelines,
the analog is not slavery. The analog is refugee resettlement, that has a closer analogue to what is
permitted in Assam, then slavery as we know it in North America, because and this is something that
I tried to drive home to people, you know, for, for us here in Utica, we understand the life of
refugees a little bit more than most people, because we have a lot of refugees in our community, and
you meet some of these refugees, and they've spent years if not decades in refugee camps, and ask
		

			them, What is the situation in these refugee camps? How is life like, how many people make it into
these refugee camps? What happens right, and all of this goes back to a broader question, which is
about what should happen with non combatants after a war or a battle has taken place, because that's
the only possible way for someone to become, quote, unquote, enslaved within Islamic law is there's
a battle. It's military aged men against military aged men on the battlefield. Okay, let's say one
side wins, the other side loses, all the men are killed, or most of them and some of them are taken
prisoner, and some of them flee. They leave behind dependents, they have women that they left
		

			behind, they have children that they left behind, they have elderly, it's in different sort of
religious people that are left behind who's gonna take care of them out? That's the question that
Islamic law tries to solve when it talks about it. Okay, what happens now, I want anybody if you
know, anybody from Palestine, or from Iraq, or from Syria, or these countries that have experienced
warfare in the last 10 years and have had a huge refugee populations, ask them what happens to
refugees, they're okay. Sometimes they're slaughtered mercilessly. Women, children, elderly,
sometimes, if they're fortunate, they make it to a refugee camp, where they live for decades, on
		

			handouts. Sometimes they're exploited in order to get bare necessities. Sometimes they're sexually
exploited. Sometimes children are captured and sold into sexual slavery, sometimes women are raped,
or women are taken advantage of in order to be given their basic needs to survive. Is this a great
system? It's a horrible system, we see a very, very few amount of people who are able to get on a
plane and come to places like the United States or Europe or something like that. And we say, wow,
you know, mashallah, this is working great, right? But what about all the people that are left
behind? Right? They're out of sight. And so they're out of mind? We don't see them. We don't
		

			recognize that that's actually the norm, much more the norm than the person who gets on a plane and
comes to the west. The other thing What about those few people who do make it to the west, what
happens here we showed a documentary, not us personally as a machine but us as a community down at
the at the at the theater, Utica, the last refuge, beautiful documentary about the refugee kind of
resettlement process here in Utica. Okay, so Gord It was a wonderful documentary, a huge community
moment. And then what was the first person for the q&a, the first person to get up and ask a
question, what did they say, for those who are there? And these people and they come and they take
		

			our tax dollars, and they take whatever? What was that resentment, resentment from the native
population against people from outside, people feeling that they shouldn't have to pay for other
people to come here, even though the person completely misunderstood the situation? refugee
resettlement is different from immigration, refugee resettlement, the refugees actually have to pay
the money back at the end. They didn't understand any of that they were lumping together refugees
with migrants. But you could tell the register the resentment, and many people in the United States
and in Europe now what do they have towards people who come from outside resentment? Okay, so these
		

			are I'm just bringing these things to show. What does Islamic law what are the problems that it has
to solve? It has to solve who's going to take care of these people? And how do you do it in a way
that there's not going to be tons of resentment from the native population? Okay, the solution and
Islamic law. Okay, third thing before I talk about what the actual solution Islamic law is, Does
something have to be 100% Good to be halal? No, it does not. It can be halal and be 60% good. 70%
good. 80% good. Does something have to be pure evil to be haram? Yes or no? Not
		

			I'll give you the fence yes or no? No, no, Allah says in surah sonbhadra that alcohol has been
added. The alcohol has benefit. And yet it's haram. Right? Something can be 60% harmful 70% harmful,
80% harmful and it can be haram. Okay. There are things within the Cydia that they are permissible,
although they have harm, although they have harm, right. And there are things that are haram in the
Sharia, even though there are benefits, or maybe one in 1000 people can do it and like be okay.
Right. So there's a probabilistic reasoning. That's what it's called within the Sharia. Okay, so
when we're thinking about solutions to these real problems, actual people, refugees, non combatants,
		

			the solution, it does not have to be 100%. Good for it to be Hello. Okay. And so what is the
solution that Islamic law comes up with that the Sharia has for these types of people, the solution
is something called Rick. Okay, which is often and I think mistranslated as slavery, where as people
are placed, not within camps, not isolated or ghettoized off by themselves, but they're placed in
individual homes, and they are assimilated into the culture. How are you going to incentivize that
for people? How are you going to stop people from being resentful? You're going to stop people from
being resentful by making it halal that that person uses that person's labor, with all of the
		

			restrictions that the Sharia also places on that thing. Remember, this is not the slavery of North
America, where the the field hand works, you know, they live in this hut, this shack that's
completely falling apart and they eat, you know, leftovers, table scraps. The Prophet alayhi salatu
salam said that if you have someone like this in this situation, they eat the same food you eat,
they wear the same clothes you wear, if you give them something hard to do you help them with it.
And all these different guidelines to make sure that what happened in North America doesn't happen
within the Muslim lands. Okay? Is it 100%? Good? No, it's not 100% Good. And we don't have to
		

			imagine that it is. The person is away from their culture away from their homeland, away from their
all those sorts of things. They've got relatives that maybe they were separated from, or relatives
that were, you know, slain in battle. There's harm, but this is the greatest possible the greatest
possible answer and situate answer to this delicate situation, how are you going to assimilate and
then all of this sort of thing, don't forget all of the guidelines in the Quran and the Sunnah for
when to free a slave. You break your fast, intentionally during Ramadan for your slave, right? The
secondary interpretation of the eye and Surah to know where Allah says, if you see any good in your
		

			slaves, and they come to you asking you for freedom, do it. Write them a freedom contract is called
keytab. It's basically a contract to ease them into society. So when you ask the question, Why
didn't Islam abolish slavery, because this mechanism is important for society. This mechanism is
important for a way to assimilate the families, non combatants within a situation of war into a
society where they have a likelihood of accepting Islam, where they're going to be taken care of,
they're going to have their basic needs a roof over their head, food, shelter, clothing, and they're
not going to be taken advantage of or oppressed in any sort of undo, undo way. And Allah knows best