• Slavery was a common condition in most agricultural societies in the ancient world, including all of those around the Mediterranean. Both Justinian’s Code and the Qur’an, the sacred book of Islam (see “Muhammad’s Rise as a Religious Leader” in Chapter 9), contain many provisions regarding slaves. Among these are statements about manumission, the freeing of slaves by their owners.
Justinian’s Code
“Freedmen are those who have been manumitted from legal servitude. Manumission is the “giving of liberty.” For while any one is in slavery, he is under “the hand” and power of another, but by manumission he is freed from this power. This institution [i.e., slavery] took its rise from the law of nations; for by the law of nature all men were born free; and manumission was not heard of, as slavery was unknown. But when slavery came in by the law of nations, the boon [blessing] of manumission followed. And whereas we all were denominated by the one natural name of “men,” the law of nations introduced a division into three kinds of men, namely, freemen, and in opposition to them, slaves; and thirdly, freedmen who had ceased to be slaves.
Manumission is effected in various ways; either in the face of the Church, according to the imperial constitutions, or by vindicta [a legal procedure in which a free person touched a slave with a rod and asked a judge for his or her freedom], or in the presence of friends, or by letter, or by testament, or by any other expression of a man’s last will. And a slave may also gain his freedom in many other ways, introduced by the constitutions of former emperors, and by our own. [Institutes, Book 1, Chapter 5] . . .
We grant permission to the master, during his lifetime, to make use of his female slaves, as well as of their offspring, in any way that he may desire, and to dispose of them by his last will in accordance with his wishes; that is to say, bequeath them as slaves to others, or leave them by name to his heirs to remain in servitude. But if he should pass them over in silence, then, after his death, they shall obtain their freedom, which will date from the death of their master. [Codex, Book 7: Title 15, no. 3]”
Qur’an
“Righteousness is not that you turn your faces toward the east or the west, but [true] righteousness is [in] one who believes in Allah, the Last Day, the angels, the Book, and the prophets and gives wealth, in spite of love for it, to relatives, orphans, the needy, the traveler, those who ask [for help], and for freeing slaves; [and who] establishes prayer and gives zakah [alms for the poor]; [those who] fulfill their promise when they promise; and [those who] are patient in poverty and hardship and during battle. Those are the ones who have been true, and it is those who are the righteous. [Sura 2:177]
But let them who find not [the means for] marriage abstain [from sexual relations] until Allah enriches them from His bounty. And those who seek a contract [for eventual emancipation] from among whom your right hands possess [that is, those slaves who desire to purchase their freedom from their owners for a price agreed upon by both] — then make a contract with them if you know there is within them goodness and give them from the wealth of Allah which He has given you. [Sura 24:33]”
Sources: The Institutes of Justinian, trans. Thomas Collett Sandars (London: Longman, 1962), p. 17; The Civil Law, trans. S. P. Scott, vol. 14 (Cincinnati: Central Trust Company, 1932), p. 139; The Qur’an, Saheeh International English Translation (Jeddah, Saudi Arabia: Abul-
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