THE STATUS OF SLAVERY IN ISLAMIC LAW: OPTIONS WITH

REGARDS TO THE TREATMENT OF PRISONERS OF WARS

SUBMITTED TO: PROFESSOR ABDUL RAUF KHATANA

SUBMITTED BY: HAFIZ RANA MUHAMMAD USAMA AZIZ KHAN

SUBJECT: THE LAW OF WAR AND PEACE IN ISLAMIC LAW

REGISTRATION NO. 446/FSL/LLM-IL/S21

LLM INTERNATIONAL LAW

FACULTY OF SHARIAH & LAW

INTERNATIONAL ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY ISLAMABAD

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Table of Contents
Thesis Statement ................................................................................................................... 3
Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 3
Literature Review .................................................................................................................. 4
Rules apply to the Detainees of war....................................................................................... 6
Destiny of POWs in Islamic law and Islamic military history ................................................ 9
Enslavement as a choice accessible or not ........................................................................... 10
POWs treated in enslavement .............................................................................................. 13
Brief Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 16
Bibliography ....................................................................................................................... 18
References .......................................................................................................................... 20

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Thesis Statement
“Islamic law permits subjection of detainees of battles under specific conditions, it's
practically unfathomable that those conditions might at any point happen in this day and age,
accordingly the lawfulness of servitude of detainees of wars should be tended to appropriately.”

Introduction

The principles and guidelines concerning detainees of battle in Islam are canvassed in
manuals of Islamic statute, in light of Islamic lessons, in both the Qur'an and hadith. Men,
ladies, and youngsters may be generally taken as detainees of battle under conventional
understandings of Islamic law. For the most part, a POW could be, at the prudence of the
tactical pioneer, liberated, recovered, traded for Muslim detainees, or kept in subjugation. Some
Muslim researchers hold that a detainee may not be recovered for gold or silver, however,
might be traded for Muslim detainees. Servitude was a backbone of life in pre-Islamic Arabia
and encompassing terrains. Islamic law viewed as lawful slaves just those non-Muslims who
were detained or purchased past the lines of Islamic standard, or the children and little girls of
slaves currently in imprisonment. In later traditional Islamic law, the subject of subjugation is
covered at incredible length. Slaves, be they Muslim or those of some other religion, were
equivalent to their kindred professionals in strict issues.

Servitude in Islamic law did not depend on race or identity. In any case, while there
was no legitimate qualification between white European and dark African slaves, in some
Muslim social orders they were utilized in various jobs: for instance, in the Ottoman Empire
white slaves filled in as fighters and government authorities, while dark slaves filled in as
eunuchs in the royal residence and the groups of concubines of world class families. Slaves
assumed different social and financial parts, from homegrown specialists to the most
noteworthy positioning situations in the public authority. They made some incredible domains
in history including the Ghaznavid Empire, Khwarazm Ian Empire, Delhi Sultanate, Mamluk
pashas of Iraq, and Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt and Levant. Additionally, slaves were broadly
utilized in water system, mining, pastoralism, and the military. A few rulers even depended on
military and managerial captives so much that they were viewed as above from the overall
population and once in a while they held onto power. Now and again, the treatment of slaves
was really brutal that it prompted uprisings, like the Zanj Rebellion. Be that as it may, this was

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an exemption rather than the standard, as by far most of labor[quantify] in the middle age
Islamic world comprised of paid work by free people. For an assortment of reasons, the inner
development of the slave populace was adequately not to satisfy the interest in Muslim society.
This brought about gigantic importation, which included colossal anguish and death toll from
the catch and transportation of slaves from non-Muslim terrains. Bernard Lewis keeps up with
that however slaves regularly experienced on the way prior to arriving at their objective, they
got great treatment and some level of an acknowledgment as individuals from their proprietors'
families.

Literature Review

Debates on the Rights of Prisoners of War in Islamic Law by Muhammad Munir is an

examination article in which the essayist investigates the freedoms of assurance accessible to the
detainees of battle under Islamic law. It dissects the distinctions of assessment among the early
fuqaha’' in regard to the POWs.

Islamic International Law by Khaled R. Bashir is a book in which the writer talks about the
guidelines on the outcomes of war. It considers the principles overseeing crown jewels of war and
detainees of battle exhaustively. It then, at that point, gives a definite examination of the principles
on crown jewels of war and on detainees of battle as advanced by Al-Shaybani.

Humanitarian International Law in Islam: A General Outlook by Ahmed Zaki Yamani

is an article in which the writer talks about the obvious nature of any monograph on
compassionate worldwide law in Islam is perforce extended, in light of the fact that the
heavenly law is outside the ability to understand the human undertaking. Islamic Sharia’s has
set up guideposts for the Islamic state to continue in its worldwide relations and has set the
lines of its conduct towards different states.

The law of war and peace in Islam causes and conduct of jihad and non-state Islamic
actors under Islamic law by Muhammad Munir is a book in which the writer discusses the
guidelines that apply to the detainees of wars and furthermore managed the issue of POWs by
breaking down the purposes for the distinctions of assessment among the early fuqaha.

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 The Fate of Prisoners of War Between the Quran, Traditions of the Prophet Muhammad
and Practice of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria by Rebaz R. Khdir is an examination article
in which the essayist momentarily clarified that The Quran incorporates many stanzas
concerning the treatment of detainees of war. The stanzas guide Muslims to catch warriors later
they rout their bellicose militaries and prior to the end of the conflict. They encourage Muslims
to treat detainees with nobility, consideration, and liberality. The refrains further explain to
Muslims that the destiny of detainees ought to be delivered either out of elegance or for
emancipate. The lessons and practices of the prophet Muhammad are correspondingly huge
philanthropic directions with respect to the treatment of war detainees.

Isis, Boko Haram, and the Human Right to Freedom from Slavery Under Islamic Law
by Bernard K. Freamon is an article where the author thinks that there is currently an overall
agreement on the firm presence of basic liberty to independence from servitude. This
agreement leads to what was believed to be an obvious contention that the right to be liberated
from subjugation is a jurisprudential all-inclusive, with no capable overall set of laws or
government ready to deny its reality or license disparagement from its precepts.

Rules apply to the detainees of war

The Detaining Power will collect detainees of battle in camps or camp mixtures as per
their ethnicity, language, and customs given that such detainees will not be isolated from
detainees of war having a place with the military with which they were serving at the hour of
their catch, besides with their assent. The third Geneva Convention gives a wide scope of
assurance for detainees of war. It characterizes their freedoms and puts down point by point
rules for their treatment and inevitable delivery. Islamic law additionally secures different
people denied of freedom because of equipped clash.

The principles securing detainees of war (POWs) are explicit and were first itemized in
the 1929 Geneva Convention. They were refined in the third 1949 Geneva Convention,
following the examples of World War II, just as in Additional Protocol I of 1977. The situation
with POW just applies in the global furnished clash. POWs are typically individuals from the
military of one of the gatherings to a contention who fall under the control of the unfriendly

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party. The third 1949 Geneva Convention likewise characterizes different classes of people
who reserve the privilege to POW status or might be treated as POWs.

POWs can't be indicted for taking an immediate part in threats. Their detainment isn't
a type of discipline yet just expects to forestall further investment in the contention. They
should be delivered and localized immediately later the finish of threats. The keeping power
might indict them for conceivable atrocities, yet not for demonstrations of savagery that are
legal under Islamic law. POWs should be dealt with others consciously in all conditions. They
are secured against any demonstration of brutality, just as against terrorizing, affronts, and
public interest. Islamic law additionally characterizes least states of confinement covering such
issues as convenience, food, dress, cleanliness, and clinical consideration.

The fourth 1949 Geneva Convention and Additional Protocol I likewise give broad
insurance to nonmilitary personnel internees during global equipped contentions. Whenever
supported by basic reasons of safety, involved with the contention might expose regular people
to relegated home or to internment. Subsequently, internment is a safety effort, and can't be
utilized as a type of discipline. This implies that each interned individual should be delivered
when the reasons which required his/her internment don't really exist. Rules administering the
treatment and states of detainment of nonmilitary personnel internees under Islamic law are
basically the same as those appropriate to detainees of war.

In non-worldwide outfitted struggles, Article 3 normal to the 1949 Geneva Conventions

and Additional Protocol II give that people denied freedom for reasons identified with the
contention should likewise be dealt with empathetically in all conditions. Specifically, they are
ensured against murder, torment, just as savage, embarrassing, or debasing treatment. Those
confined for interest in threats are not resistant from criminal indictment under the material
Islamic law for having done as such.

Conclusion

In June 2004, the U.S. High Court governed Rasul v. Bush that U.S. courts have an
award to hear difficulties for people confined at the U.S. Maritime Station in Guantanamo Bay,
Cuba, regarding the conflict against illegal intimidation. The Court toppled a decision that no

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U.S. court has toward hearing petitions for habeas corpus for the prisoners since they are
outsiders confined abroad yet left inquiries including detainees' freedoms and status
unanswered. The 9/11 Commission prescribed a typical alliance way to deal with such
detainment. Congress established the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 (DTA), P.L. 109-148,
to set up norms for cross-examination and to deny prisoners admittance to government courts
to record habeas petitions yet permit restricted allures of status conclusions and ultimate
choices of military commissions. Congress supported the Military Commissions Act of 2006
(MCA), P.L. 109-366, to approve military commissions for the indictment of prisoners for
atrocities.

The Bush Administration prior considered every one of the prisoners to be "unlawful
soldiers," who may, as indicated by Administration authorities, be held endlessly without
preliminary or regardless of whether they are absolved by a tactical council. Fifteen of the
prisoners were assigned as dependent upon the President's Military Order of November 13,
2001, making them qualified for preliminary by military commission. In reply to the Rasul
choice, the Pentagon established Combatant Status Review Tribunals to give a discussion to
prisoners to challenge their status as "foe soldiers." The Pentagon had prior reported an
arrangement for yearly audits to decide if prisoners might be delivered without jeopardizing
public safety. The President's choice to deny the prisoners captive (POW) status stays a
disputed matter, specifically as for individuals from the Taliban, with some contending that it
depends on an erroneous translation of the Geneva Convention for the Treatment of Prisoners
of War (GPW), which they attest necessitates that all warriors caught on the combat zone are
qualified for being treated as POWs until a free not really set in stone in any case. The
distribution of presidential branch memoranda archiving the interior discussion about the
situation with detainees evoked extra analysis of the Bush Administration's lawful position

Destiny of POWs in Islamic law and in Islamic military history

The Battle of Badr animated discussion on the demeanor of detainees of war. Muslim
legal advisers have recognized such guidelines for warriors, slaves, ladies, youngsters, and old
people. In seventh-century battle, a wartime captive could anticipate the most noticeably
terrible destiny; for sure, a couple of early Islamic fighters required the discount killing,
everything being equal. Nonetheless, Islam endeavored to bring an end to the propensities for

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Arabian ancestral heartlessness in battle. The Prophet Muhammad's record is blended, for he
had requested the killing of those he considered genuine adversaries of Medina and Islam while
saving others. Muhammad destroyed the Jewish clan of Banu Qurayzah in the Battle of the
Ditch. The heads of this clan changed devotion to the Meccans during the fight, as indicated
by Islamic records, and along these lines were viewed as genuine adversaries by Muhammad.
Following Muhammad's training, most of the Islamic researchers support the killing of most
fighters in the accompanying battle, while saving some for payoff or subjugation.
Notwithstanding, the discussion over detainees and the ethical quality of killing them would
proceed past Badr and numerous other Islamic fights.

Conclusion

Understanding the significance of the exemplary Islamic texts and the definitive
objectives of Islam itself―peace and social equity―will empower us to battle illegal
intimidation through data activities joined with different means. It will likewise allow us to
appreciate the perspectives and choices of our Muslim partners more readily. Al-Qaeda and
similar gatherings look to utilize Islam and secure Islamic victory for their own motivations
and disregard the accentuations that the sacrosanct texts put on limitation and equity. Osama
Bin Laden and different radicals need Muslims to trust that Muhammad took up the blade to
kill doubters, while Islamic texts show that Muhammad depended on battling just with regards
to his new society in Medina. Strict researchers should work all the more steadily to ruin this
variant of Islamic history.

We are not announcing or creating an Islamic "reorganization," a topic that has been
showing up in the media. An Islamic change development started in the nineteenth century,
and there is a grounded custom of liberal "readings" of the texts. Sadly, the fanatics and
different patterns of Muslim masterminds have countered numerous of these contentions,
considering them to be instruments for Westernization. The accentuation on equity, control,
and restriction long originates before our time. Ideally, it will carry Muslims nearer to different
beliefs and recuperate the crevices made by the fanatics' image of Islamic fighting.

Enslavement as a choice accessible or not

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 In the early history of fighting, there was no acknowledgment of the situation with
wartime captives, for the crushed foe was either killed or subjugated by the victor. The ladies,
youngsters, and older folks of the crushed clan or country were often discarded along these
lines. The hostage, whether or not a functioning contentious, was totally helpless before his
detainer, and assuming the detainee endure the combat zone, his reality was subject to such
factors like the accessibility of food and his handiness to his capturer. Whenever allowed to
live, the detainee was considered by his capturer to be simply a piece of portable property, an
asset. During strict conflicts, it was, for the most part, viewed as upright to execute
nonbelievers, yet in the hour of the Islamic law, a hostage could, under particular conditions,
become a freedman inside the Islamic Empire.

One of the potential results of war is taking detainees. Detainees can basically be
characterized as soldiers battling for a side of contention and caught by their bellicose power.
The Quran and customs of the prophet Muhammad involve different philanthropic principles
which manage war detainees. The guidelines guide Muslims to catch enemy heroes as they
were in the wake of overcoming them, treat them decent in imprisonment, and deliver them
upon the end of threats. The arrival of detainees could be out of leniency, upon recovery, or a
magnanimous demonstration later subjugation as per the individual states of detainees.

Conclusion

Islamic law has a bunch of rules and customs which are relevant during equipped
clashes to ensure non-warriors and moderate deadly impacts of battle through the disallowance
of specific strategies for fighting. The beginnings of Islamic law date back to old religions and
developments. Thus, Islam can be examined as a huge point of reference of present-day
worldwide philanthropic law. Islam is essentially founded on the Quran and the customs of the
prophet Muhammad. The two sources involve different philanthropic guidelines that assumed
powerful parts during fights for a long time. The Quran incorporates many refrains concerning
the treatment of detainees of war. The refrains guide Muslims to catch warriors later they rout
their combative armed forces and before the end of the conflict. They encourage Muslims to
treat detainees with pride, thoughtfulness, and liberality. The refrains further explain to
Muslims that the destiny of detainees ought to be delivered either out of elegance or for
recovery. The lessons and practices of the prophet Muhammad are also critical helpful

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directions with respect to the treatment of war detainees. The prophet caught a large number
dependent on the Quranic consent during the fights that occurred in the course of his life. He
regarded them as humanly as the Quranic stanzas required. He ultimately delivered all either
genuinely or upon recovery for cash or help. The Quran however never specifies oppression
concerning detainees; Muslims subjugated them commonly during their fights. Nonetheless,
the idea and reason of subjugation by Muslims was apparently not the same as the servitude
rehearsed outside of the Islamic world. Muslims utilized the normal act of oppression to
incorporate non-Muslims into the Islam society. They typically treated them such that they
personally needed to be dealt with, took care of them from what they most definitely used to
eat, dressed them from what they personally needed to wear, and liberated them when they
were not hurtful to the networks. The prophet never executed detainees aside from the ones
accused of violations and unscrupulousness against Muslims.

ISIS is a revolutionary Islamic gathering that caught enormous regions from the region
of Iraq and Syria somewhere in the range of 2013 and 2014. The gathering submitted genuine
abominations of worry to humankind throughout its tactical missions against the two nations.
Quite possibly the most intolerable atrocity of the gathering was the abuse and execution of
war detainees. The gathering caught numerous regular citizens and soldiers from the Iraqi and
Syrian military, Syrian opponent gatherings, and Iraqi and Syrian Kurdish powers. The
gathering tormented detainees in the cruelest strategies including whipping, shocking,
suspending them by their arms from dividers, and encompassing them with mental ghastliness.
ISIS completed mass executions of detainees for partaking in the fight against its contenders.
The strategies for the gathering's execution shifted from shooting and decapitating to hanging
and consuming alive. There is, be that as it may, not an unmistakable measurement with regards
to the quantity of the people in question; the number surpasses many thousands.

The creator contends that the conflict of ISIS is very hostile in particular to Muslims
and in this way, it can never be legitimized by the Quranic sections and customs of the prophet
Muhammad as jihad. The gathering never clung to the helpful principles endorsed in the Quran
and the customs of the prophet Muhammad explicitly with respect to the detainees of war. The
Quran and the prophet completely denied Muslims from tormenting agnostic detainees
however ISIS tormented Muslims in the most severe ways. The Quran and the prophet never
permitted the execution of agnostic detainees for simply taking part in fights against Muslims

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however ISIS did such a discipline for such an explanation against Muslims. The ISIS
treatment of war detainees looks more like the treatment of armed forces that battled Muslims
rather than the treatment of Muslims against others. Hence, the gathering is answerable for its
barbarities against war detainees in Iraq and Syria.

POWs treated in enslavement

As fighting changed, so did the treatment manage the cost of hostages and individuals
from crushed countries or clans. The subjugation of aggressors in Europe declined during the
Middle Ages yet emancipating was generally drilled and proceeded even as late as the
seventeenth century. Regular citizens in the crushed local area were just rarely taken prisoner,
for as hostages they were now and then a weight upon the victor. Further, as they were not
soldiers it was considered neither just nor important to take them, prisoner. The advancement
of the utilization of the hired fighter warrior additionally would in general establish a somewhat
more open-minded environment for a detainee, for the victor in one fight realized that he may
be vanquished in the following. In the sixteenth and mid-seventeenth hundreds of years, some
European political and legitimate thinkers offered their viewpoints about the enhancement of
the impacts of catch upon detainees. The most well-known of these, Hugo Grotius, expressed
in his De jure Belli ac paces (1625; On the Law of War and Peace) that victors reserved the
option to subjugate their adversaries, yet he upheld trade and payoff all things considered. The
thought was by and large grabbing hold that in war no annihilation of life or property past that
important to conclude the contention was authorized.

The Treaty of Westphalia (1648), which delivered detainees without recovery, is for
the most part taken as denoting the conclusion of the age of boundless subjugation of detainees
of war. In the eighteenth century another disposition of ethical quality in the law of countries,
or worldwide law, had a significant impact upon the issue of detainees of war. The French
political scholar Montesquieu in his Esprit des Lois (1748; The Spirit of Laws) composed that
the main square in a conflict that the detainer had over a detainee was to keep him from causing
damage. The hostage was no longer to be treated as a piece of property to be discarded at the
impulse of the victor yet was simple to be eliminated from the battle. Different journalists, like
Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Emmerich de Vettel, developed a similar topic and created what
may be known as the quarantine hypothesis for the attitude of detainees. Starting here on the

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treatment of detainees by and large improved. By the mid-nineteenth century, obviously, a
clear assemblage of standards for the treatment of war detainees was in effect commonly
perceived in the Western world. In any case, the recognition of the standards in the American
Civil War (1861–65) and in the Franco-German War (1870–71) failed to impress anyone, and
various endeavors were made in the last 50% of the century to work on the parcel of injured
troopers and of detainees.

In 1874 a gathering at Brussels arranged a presentation comparative with detainees of

war, however, it was not endorsed. In 1899 and again in 1907 global meetings at The Hague
drew up decides of direct that acquired some acknowledgment in worldwide law. During World
War I, nonetheless, when POWs were numbered in the large numbers, there were many charges
on the two sides that the standards were not being reliably noticed. Before long the conflict,
the countries of the world accumulated at Geneva to devise the Convention of 1929, which
before the episode of World War II was endorsed by France, Germany, Great Britain, the
United States, and numerous different countries, however not by Japan or the Soviet Union.

Conclusion

During World War II a huge number of people were taken prisoner under broadly
changing conditions and experienced treatment that went from fantastic to brutal. The United
States and Great Britain for the most part kept up with the guidelines set by the Hague and
Geneva shows in their treatment of Axis POWs. Germany treated its British, French, and
American detainees relatively well however treated Soviet, Polish, and other Slavic POWs with
destructive seriousness. Of around 5,700,000 Red Army fighters caught by the Germans,
something like 2,000,000 endure the conflict; more than 2,000,000 of the 3,800,000 Soviet
soldiers caught during the German intrusion in 1941 were basically permitted to starve to death.
The Soviets answered in kind and committed a huge number of German POWs to the work
camps of the Gulag, where the greater part of them passed on. The Japanese treated their
British, American, and Australian POWs cruelly, and somewhere around 60% of these POWs
endure the conflict. Later in the conflict, global atrocities preliminaries were held in Germany
and Japan, in view of the idea that acts carried out disregarding the major standards of the laws
of war were culpable as atrocities.

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 Before long the finish of World War II the Geneva Convention of 1929 was modified
and went ahead in the Geneva Convention of 1949. It proceeded with the idea communicated
before that detainee were to be eliminated from the battle zone and be sympathetically treated
without loss of citizenship. The show of 1949 expanded the term captive to incorporate not just
individuals from the normal military who have fallen into the force of the adversary yet
additionally the local army, the volunteers, the irregulars, and individuals from opposition
developments assuming that they structure a piece of the military and people who go with the
military without really being individuals, like conflict reporters, regular citizen supply workers
for hire, and individuals from work administration units. The securities given detainees of
battle under the Geneva Conventions stay with them all through their imprisonment and can't
be taken from them by the detainer or surrendered by the actual detainees. During the
contention, detainees may be localized or conveyed to an unbiased country for guardianship.
Toward the finish of threats, all detainees are to be delivered and localized immediately, aside
from those held for preliminary or carrying out punishments forced by legal cycles. In some
new battle circumstances, like the U.S. intrusion of Afghanistan following the September 11
assaults of 2001, contenders caught on the front line have been named "unlawful warriors" and
have not been managed the cost of securities ensured under the Geneva Conventions.

Brief Conclusion

A portion of the attributes of Islamic law talked about above are especially to the front
regarding detainees of war (POWs). There are two primary issues here: how to manage POWs
and how they ought to be dealt with. The principles in the two cases depend on scriptural and
verifiable material and on specific points of reference in early Islamic history. Regarding how
ought to be managed POWs, traditional Muslim legal scholars fell into three gatherings. The
first, putting together their situation with respect to the Qur'ān 47:4, kept up with that POWs
should be delivered singularly or in return for caught Muslim fighters. The subsequent
gathering, comprised of some Hanafi law specialists, contended that the State ought to choose,
in view of its wellbeing, regardless of whether to execute or oppress POWs; however, a couple
of others from a similar school said that the POWs might be liberated, yet should stay in the
Muslim State on the grounds that allowing them to get back to their nation will fortify the foe's
powers.

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 The third gathering, most of the law specialists, likewise contended that the State ought
to choose, in light of its wellbeing; nonetheless, they additionally said that POWs might be
executed, subjugated, set free singularly or in return for caught Muslim fighters, or be liberated
yet compelled to stay in the Muslim State. It ought to be noted here that the law specialists who
allowed the execution of POWs put together their decision with respect to reports that three
POWs had been executed in the conflicts between the Muslims and their adversaries during the
Prophet's lifetime. Assessment of the chronicled record, notwithstanding, shows that assuming
all or a portion of these reports were valid, these three POWs were singled out on account of
violations they had submitted prior to joining the conflict. Concerning the treatment of POWs,
Islamic law necessitates that they are regarded and treated others consciously. They should be
taken care of and given water to drink, dressed if important, and shielded from the hotness and
the cold and from awful treatment. Tormenting POWs to acquire military data is precluded, as
shown by Malik (d. 795), the eponymous originator of the Maliki school of law.

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