Bashir signals his outlook in the first paragraph: “Let us for a moment imagine a world in which Muslim seminaries are training scholars to actively challenge ‘modern slavery’ across the globe.” Having established that, he poses a first question, one derived from Muhammad Abduh: Given that Islam “eagerly anticipates the liberation of slaves, why have Muslims spent centuries enslaving the free?” Then comes a second question: How did it come to be that “In the contemporary world, Muslim nations have unanimously rejected the institution of slavery on numerous occasions”?
Despite his requisite fashionable academic signaling, invoking Edward Said and bashing Bernard Lewis, Bashir offers a sophisticated analysis that reviews classic Qur’anic exegesis and legal rulings, then looks at reform ideas generally before focusing on two main schools of interpretation: what he calls Qur’anic abolition and Qur’anic gradualism. The final section attempts to reconcile these many contradictions, exploring “why there remain such clear differences among scholars.”
Bashir finds that “the dominant position among modern adherents to the ‘orthodox’ school” (including Jonathan A.C. Brown of Georgetown University) is “to restrict the practice of slavery in the modern day, while emphasizing that, scripturally speaking, Islam permits slavery in certain circumstances.” Such scholars “refuse to condemn slavery [but] simply argue for its limitation due to political pragmatism.” Bashir quotes a scholar who calls such reasoning “theological hand grenades” that did much to justify ISIS’ medieval behavior, though he has reservations about this argument.
In contrast, the reformist method “does not assume that all Quranic laws are necessarily universal; rather, it attempts to distinguish between immutable rulings and those that may change.” Specifically, it sees Islamic slavery as a halfway station to emancipation: “the Quranic spirit can be seen to support freedom and emancipation and, therefore, Islam seeks to abolish slavery.”
“Clearly, both claims cannot be correct. Either the Qur’an supports slavery or opposes it.” Which is it, according to Bashir? Unsurprisingly, given that first paragraph, he sides with the reformers; quite surprisingly, however, he relies on the non-Muslim literary critic Stanley Fish—of all people—to reach this theological conclusion.
Daniel Pipes
Founder, Middle East Forum
