Slavery, Abolition, and Islam: Debating Freedom in the Islamic Tradition

Does the Qur'an promote the abolition of slavery? If so, why had the slave trade been allowed to operate across the Muslim world for over a millennium? And why had Muslim scholars not attempted to eradicate slavery previously? These were the questions that Islamic abolitionist scholars explored as they sought to challenge the slave trade throughout the nineteenth century. The abolition of slavery remains a relatively new concept in human history and scholars from all religious traditions ha...