while they treat certain classes in their own lands worse than slaves?

So where is the equality preached by Islam beside what America does to its Black citizens, who are barred from schools, denied employment, and placed on a level with animals?!

And where is Islam’s gentleness and generosity compared with the conduct of the West toward prisoners of war, left to languish in remote wildernesses and light-less prisons?

And where is the merciful Islamic polity—which made people of every class, faith, and race a single community in rights and duties—when set against the crimes France committed against the free people of Algeria, in their own country and among their own families?! These accusations are baseless.

After all this, has the time not come for reformers and lovers of peace to lift the veil from their eyes, to reconsider the teachings of Islam with reflection and fairness, and to discover therein humanity’s happiness for both its present and its future?

O Allah, support Your religion and grant success to its righteous callers.

Hadith 1

ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUmar (may Allah be pleased with him) reported that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said:

“Whoever frees his share in a slave and has enough wealth to cover the slave’s full price, the slave shall be appraised at a fair market value; he must pay his partners their respective shares and the slave becomes completely free. If he does not have sufficient means, then only the portion he has freed is emancipated.”

Unfamiliar Terms

• shirka lahu: a share or portion.
• ʿadl: a just, accurate valuation—neither inflated nor reduced.

Overall Meaning

The wise and merciful Lawgiver ardently desires the liberation of those in bondage. He urged it, encouraged it, made it the loftiest of expiations and the greatest form of charity, and granted it legal force that can override an owner’s will in certain cases—one of which is described in this hadith. If a person owns even a small share of a male or female slave and then frees that share, his portion is emancipated immediately.

If the emancipator is solvent, able to pay the value of his partner’s share, the entire slave—his share and his partner’s—becomes free. The partner’s portion is appraised at its fair worth, and the emancipator pays that amount to the partner.

If he is not solvent and cannot cover his partner’s share, no harm is done to the partner: only his own portion is freed, while the partner’s share remains in bondage.

Points Derived from the Hadith

1- It is permissible for two or more people to share ownership of a male or female slave.