Islam regulated slavery and encouraged manumission but never definitively abolished it. The Prophet kept concubines despite already having multiple wives. If freeing slaves was a supreme virtue, why didn't he free his own? Mariam the Copt was an Egyptian Christian slave sent as a gift by Muqawqis, Byzantine governor of Alexandria. She became the Prophet's concubine, bore him a son Ibrahim, and was freed after childbirth. Why was the sexual relationship necessary? Why not free her immediately and marry her to someone else? The Prophet already had jealous wives. If manumission was supreme virtue, why keep her as concubine long enough to bear a child? She was later freed, but only after giving birth. The sequence matters: freedom came after childbirth, not before. Rayhana bint Zayd was taken captive after her tribe's defeat. Her husband was executed. She was known for beauty. She initially refused to convert and remained a concubine for a long time before eventually accepting Islam. Earliest sources say she died a slave; others claim she married him. Either way, entry began through concubinage under extreme duress. If freeing slaves was virtuous, why keep her despite prolonged refusal? Why was sexual relationship necessary? Character defense (he married Khadijah, rejected Quraysh offers) may be true but doesn't answer why he exercised concubinage instead of immediate manumission. The prolonged refusal is key: she did not embrace Islam quickly. An unnamed concubine (Sunan an-Nasa'i 3959, Sahih) caused jealousy; Aisha and Hafsa wouldn't leave him until he forbade himself from her. Why add concubines when wives were already jealous? What purpose did sexual relationship serve that manumission without sex couldn't? The hadith shows the household tension concubinage created and the Prophet's willingness to forgo the relationship only under pressure from his wives. The Prophet owned more slaves than he freed. Ibn al-Qayyim states purchases exceeded sales. He bought and sold slaves. Sources list multiple slaves in his possession including Mariam and Rayhana. If manumission was supreme, why own slaves at all? Moral exemplars should transcend norms, not just operate within them. Alcohol prohibition took 15-16 years (Quran 16:67, 4:43, 2:219, 5:90) and was absolute. Slavery and concubinage were regulated but never prohibited. Legally permitted until 1970 in Oman: 1,360+ years. Abolished in Saudi Arabia 1962, Yemen 1962, UAE 1963, Oman 1970. Why no clear endpoint? Umm walad gave conditional protection only if pregnant; otherwise enslaved property. System incentivized pregnancy, not autonomy. The contrast is stark: alcohol got a definitive timeline, slavery did not. Consent: Conversion not legally required, but options were: remain concubine (enslaved, conditional protection), convert and marry (immediate freedom, status), or refuse (captivity indefinitely). Choice made after family massacre, captor held absolute power. Legal non-compulsion doesn't equal meaningful consent. Pro/con: Marriage = freedom, rights, but conversion. Concubinage = no conversion, but enslaved unless pregnant. Constrained choice, not free. Removal of options doesn't equate to consent. The burden of proof should not fall on the captive to prove she was coerced; circumstances speak for themselves. Banu Qurayza: executed after surrender, while Banu Nadir and Banu Qainuqa were expelled for similar treaty breaches. Their betrayal was negotiation/contact, not attack. Some tribe members opposed conflict, including leader. Modern historians question massacre numbers (600-900 or 400) and historicity. Disproportionate. The standard defense is treaty breach, but the punishment was excessive compared to other tribes. Jilbab: Concubines, even Muslim, were legally barred from wearing it. Umar whipped a woman for wearing it, saying "jilbab is only for free women." This denied Muslim concubines a visible marker of dignity, enforced inferior status. If abolition was goal, why create legal distinctions between free and enslaved Muslims? This structurally embedded slavery, not undermined it. The whipping shows active enforcement. Ownership vs manumission: He bought and sold slaves. If manumission was supreme, why keep Mariam until childbirth? Why keep Rayhana despite refusal? Why own slaves if not necessary? The institution was so embedded even the founder didn't break fully. Not abolition.

in the context of religion this argument doesn't hold up too strongly because religion needs to be timeless and ethically flawless. even with that considered, a sinless man would not remove a woman's options and coerce her into conversion when she was initially against it. we cannot definitively say that she was forced to convert to islam because that would be biased, but likewise we cannot say that she wasnt. what we can say for sure when speaking of rayhana, is that fear was most likely a factor and the option most favourable for her was to marry the prophet. she had just watched the people of her tribe get stripped and executed for a battle they surrendered and given two options; be a concubine to the man that did it, or be his wife. the latter, gave her more rights and status, even so, she held out for a long time until deciding to become a muslim. the quran is not a rulebook, i agree, i believe it should be viewed more philosophically, however when told outright that "you are allowed to take concubines at war", there's not much room for false interpretation. if it truly was the religion of ethics and righteousness, there would have been a sunset clause to this issue like there was for alcohol. if the west can abolish slavery by the 1800s, then why cant arabia, when arabia has been influenced by the so called "word of god"? i am not simply judging the prophet, i am judging him and the religious laws as a whole. i dont think that a religion can hold rules that only apply to one class, why exactly could muslim concubines not wear the jilbab? was their awra worth less than a free woman, despite their mutual creator? if its core ethics leaned towards mercy and care for the weak, then the practice would have been abolished way earlier than it was, and your claim can be untrue if we look at actual historical contexts, such as hazrat umar whipping a slave for wearing a jilbab to not "imitate a free woman" (Al-Sunan al-Kubra by Al-Bayhaqi and Musannaf Ibn Abi Shaybah), does that sound peaceloving to you? does the execution of 900 men from bannu qurayza after their surrender also sound peace loving to you? note that this value is said to be exaggerated, but none the less a genocide is a genocide even if you move a few numbers around. the prophets wives were even jealous of eachother and his concubines, so why did the best men among all men choose his worldly lustful desires rather than the happiness of his wives? these are contextual passages, not ripped out.

i do not claim to want immediate abolition, i agree with the choice to do it slowly. what i dont agree with is allowing it to continue for 1360 years. i think if it was truly looked down upon then quranic verses in the prophet's life would atleast begin to look down up on it the way it was done with alcohol, or the prophet himself would spea out against it throughout his life, yet instead the man who im supposed to take example of participated in it! after the umm walad laws, there were no significant changes to the concubine legal system and no efforts made to abolish it until very late after. slavery was also the backbone for the west, yet they abolished it before arabs did. an all knowing all powerful god should not be bested by heathens, right?

if its such a righteous act, why didnt the prophet free his slaves? and if slaves were a necessity, why did they have to be sexual for a man who claims to be sinless? i dont doubt that these laws were progressive my point is that they were not timeless. the only reason arabia abolished it is due to ijmaa', caused by political and societal changes, not because of quranic verses or hadith. a text that calls towards manumission and calls its owners to justice sounds morally righteous on paper, but what else does the text say? only those of a specific class are allowed to cover themselves you can take any concubines you wish from war, but its "morally righteous" because youre encouraged to release them. if you agree that the sunset clause should have appeared then that also denotes that you agree concubines lasted longer than they should have in arabia, which tells us that god should have known better than to have a moral void in an area like this. gradual reform is great, except there was no islamic reform it was done after the prophets death and the end of the quran several years too late. war time treason did carry capital norms, however the aggregator was heavily injured from battle and possibly had a biased choice. moreover, other tribes that had betrayed the prophet were excommunicated while bannu qurayza was executed even after surrender without even having gone to battle (they negotiated). additionally, not everyone in bannu qurayza was on board with betraying mohammad, there's reports of atleast 2 individuals (an old man and a woman) who did not want to. they were spared, however what about the ones that werent? if 2 were against it, how do we know others werent as well? the prophet only freed mariam after having sex with her. the prophet freed several slaves thats undisputed, but many estimates believe he had more slaves than he freed, but then again that is just an estimate, so my point still stands though; why did the sinless man choose worldly lustful desire over the joy of his wives who were already jealous? if the so called 7th centrury reformer took efforts to make changes to the system years after, his following caliphs couldve continued in his footsteps, however he does not speak against concubinage.

if the book itself says nothing against it, then how can we definitively say it is ethical? the book encourages freeing slaves, yet no where does it enforce it. i believe that it was very progressive for the quran to encourage this that has never been my issue. once again my issue is that the quran let it last for so long. if the prescription given to the patients is wrong in the first place, do you blame the doctor, or the patient? my issue is also the classism of jilbab and the prophets lack of effort. but since we're going in circles here ill introduce another example of the prophet's lack of ethics: hypocrisy. islam is largely against hypocrisy and it is a major theme of the quran, that we know for certain. so why is it that the prophet married aisha at 6 years old, then consumated the marriage at 9 years old, then when his daughter, fatima, was proposed to twice at approximately 15 years old, he told his companions who had proposed to her that she is "too young"? this tells us theres an opinionated viewpoint on the prophet's side on whats too young and what's not. to further back my claim lets look at empires around arabia, such as byzantine and roman. the minimum age for a woman's marriage was 12 to 15 years old. arabia, being a tribal society had no minimum, yet the prophet clearly held an opinion of what was too young when it came to his daughter, so why not for his wife? a sinless man does not go back on his own beliefs, especially when it is regarded as a severe sin. and an omnibenevolent god does not send his prophet dreams of marrying a 6 year old knowing full well he would have issues with his own daughters marriage at a young age.

yes children continued to work, sure, but atleast the government made an effort progressively after that to reduce child labor. your strongest point in contrast is that islam did something in the first place, but you completely miss the part where they gave up after umm walad. im not measuring islam by later empires i even state in my previous message that it was just a comparison of the timeline to highlight the prophet's own actions and their lack of coherence with his own beliefs. you've yet to address the hypocrisy i highlighted previously, and keep repeating how the quran promoted the freedom of slaves, completely missing the part where they gave up on fixing the issue, and completely missing the blatant classism that it brought up through the prevention of covering ones awrah. followers dragged their feet because they had no reason to believe what they were doing was wrong. regulation does not equal to abolition. muslims are told to follow the prophet's life, so thats what they did. is it their fault if their prophet never even spoke out against concubinage? is it their fault that he had several?

yeah its no argument that declining suitors for your daughter is a fathers right, but if he's okay with marrying a girl that was young even for the standards of 7th century arabia and has an issue with his own daughters marriage to 40 and 50 year old men then that points out hypocrisy. he later allowed her to marry ali at around 21 years old, so his issue seems to be with relative age rather than age in general, doesnt that further prove my point here about hypocrisy? the core beliefs of islam is that muhammad is allahs prophet's and that he's the best among all men so whys that true if he's a hypocrite? "This day I have perfected for you your religion and completed My favor upon you and have approved for you Islam as religion.", — Surah Al-Ma'idah 5:3. a perfect religion is infact, timeless, and without flaw. if you deem the 1360 year lack of a sunset clause as a flaw, then you deem it as an imperfect ruling, therefore deeming the quran itself as imperfect. the quran dictates a way of life, so when a rule is put out in plain text you are expected to follow it as a muslim. i have shown that the quran contradicts itself, ""O Prophet! Tell your wives and your daughters and the women of the believers to draw their outer garments (jalabib) close over themselves. That will make it more likely that they will be recognized and not molested."Surah Al-Ahzab (Chapter 33, Verse 59), this should apply to all women, yet concubines were not allowed to wear the jilbab. my main point is not just contradiction, my main point is a lack of objective ethics in the religion as a whole and in muhammad's character. ive made several comparisons through the viewpoint of 7th century arabia and i have not viewed it with 19th century morality, ive made comparisons from events in that time period and you still keep repeating the same points.