1.The Runaway Contrast:
Sahih Muslim 69 condemns a runaway slave to spiritual damnation (kufr), while Paul’s Letter to Philemon commands the master to receive the runaway as an equal brother in Christ.
2. Coercive Marriage:
Safiyyah’s "marriage" was so deeply traumatizing that guards spent the wedding night protecting Muhammad from his captive bride (Bukhari 4211).
3. Theological Tools for Abolition:
Trinitarian equality drove global abolition, whereas Islam permanently codified chattel bondage.
Muhammad (peace be upon him) treated his slaves with unmatched kindness and even married some to free them, showing Allah's mercy. The Qur'an urges, ‘Righteousness is… to free the slave' (Surah Al-Balad, 90:13), and he lived it—he freed Zayd ibn Haritha, made him family (Sahih Bukhari), and married Safiyyah (may Allah be pleased with her) after freeing her (Sunan Ibn Majah). He said, ‘Your slaves are your brothers' (Sahih Bukhari), sharing food and clothes with them.
Jesus (peace be upon him) taught compassion—‘We gave him the Injeel, in which was guidance and light' (Surah Al-Ma'idah, 5:46)—and the Qur'an says, ‘The Messiah, son of Mary, was no more than a messenger' (Surah Al-Ma'idah, 5:75). The Prophet's care—‘We have not sent you except as a mercy to the worlds' (Surah Al-Anbiya, 21:107)—echoed Jesus' way, lifting slaves to honor so they could worship Allah alone.
This claim attempts to equate Islamic slavery with Christian compassion, but a rigorous polemical analysis reveals a deep moral and theological divide. While the apologist highlights interpersonal "kindness," they deliberately overlook the systemic nature of human ownership that was permanently codified in Islamic law, contrasting sharply with the transformative freedom found in the Gospel message and New Testament writings.
The claim that Muhammad "freed" slaves through marriage or adoption ignores the broader reality of war captives and concubinage within Islamic jurisprudence (Fiqh). While the Qur'an encourages freeing slaves as an act of charity, it simultaneously codified the perpetual legal right to own them.
The Qur'an explicitly permits sexual access to captives through the legal status of battlefield spoils:
"And [also prohibited to you are] all married women except those whom your right hands possess. [This is] the decree of Allah upon you..." (Surah 4:24).
The Dawah script mentions Safiyyah bint Huyayy, claiming her marriage showed mercy. However, this union occurred under extreme duress, which would be categorized as a severe violation of human dignity in any objective ethical framework.
Dr. Robert Spencer in The Truth About Muhammad (2006) argues that this "marriage" occurred under extreme duress, which would be categorised as a violation of human dignity in any other ethical framework.
The text of Sahih al-Bukhari explicitly details the structural violence and trauma surrounding her acquisition:
"The Prophet then thrashed them (the enemy) and killed their warriors, and then he took their children and women as captives. Safiyyah was among the captives..."
— Sahih al-Bukhari (371)
Muhammad slaughtered her father, her husband (Kinana), and her tribe at Khaybar, selected her from the spoils of war, and utilized her manumission as her mandatory dowry. The psychological reality of this battlefield transaction is preserved by the chroniclers. On the way back to Medina, Muhammad's companion Abu Ayyub al-Ansari spent the entire wedding night guarding Muhammad's tent with a drawn sword because he assumed Safiyyah would attempt to assassinate the prophet in his sleep due to her immense grief and trauma.
This is in stark contrast with Jesus: Jesus never owned, traded, or codified the rules for "possessing" another human being. He stated, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me... to proclaim liberty to the captives" (Luke 4:18).
The script quotes the Hadith calling slaves "brothers." However, this "brotherhood" remained within a hierarchy of ownership that Jesus explicitly dissolved.
Jesus says in John 15:15, "No longer do I call you servants ... but I have called you friends". In Christ, the slave-master relationship is not merely "improved" by kindness; it is abolished.
While Muhammad "adopted" Zayd, he later abolished legal adoption to marry Zayd’s ex-wife, Zaynab (Surah 33:37).
Christianity offers eternal adoption into the family of God (Romans 8:15). In Islam, even a freed slave like Zayd was ultimately stripped of his "sonship" to facilitate his (Muhammad's) marriage to Zaynab after her divorce from Zayd.
The script cites Surah 21:107 to describe Muhammad as a "mercy." However, the Christian polemic focuses on the actual execution of that mercy. In Islam, mercy is granted through submission to a geopolitical law that preserves the legal category of chattel slavery. In Christ, mercy is executed through the voluntary self-humiliation of the King.
The Apostle Paul details this cosmic shift in his letter to the Philippians:
Philippians 2:7: "but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men"
Muhammad was an earthly master who occasionally emancipated property. Jesus was the cosmic Master who became a servant to buy back both the master and the slave. As noted by historians, while slavery existed globally, it was the specific Trinitarian theology of absolute spiritual equality before the Cross that provided the unique moral tools to eventually abolish slavery globally—tools that remained entirely dormant in the Islamic world until Western diplomatic pressure forced its prohibition in the 19th and 20th centuries.
The Letter to Philemon stands as an architectural breakdown of human ownership. While Islamic tradition regulated runaway slaves as a criminal category, Paul introduces a theological logic that makes human ownership impossible among believers.
Islamic law enforces strict spiritual condemnation against slaves who escape their owners, as recorded in the canonical Hadith collections:
"If any slave runs away from his masters, he has committed an act of disbelief (kufr) until he returns to them."
— Sahih Muslim (69)
Under Sharia, a runaway slave is stripped of spiritual validity and forced back into captivity under penalty of damnation. Conversely, when the runaway slave Onesimus encountered Paul and converted to Christianity, Paul sent him back to his master, Philemon, not with chains, but with a total re-categorization of his humanity.
Paul instructs the master on how to receive his returned servant:
Philemon 1:15-16, Paul writes that Onesimus is returning, "no longer as a slave, but better than a slave, as a dear brother... both as a fellow man and as a brother in the Lord."
You cannot legally own or exploit someone whom you acknowledge as an equal brother in the Lord. By elevating the slave to a "beloved brother," Paul created a spiritual friction that inevitably forced the legal gears of the slave system to a halt in the West. While the Islamic text demands the slave return under penalty of kufr, Paul models Christ by offering to personally absorb any financial costs or damages caused by the runaway slave.
The "mercy" of Muhammad was a conditional release within a system that remained intact and Islam did nothing to stop. The "mercy" of the Gospel is a total redemption that destroys the master-slave system and has done much more to prevent slave-trade.
Islamic Argument: "The Prophet was kind to his slaves". It is just a better version of bondage!
Christian Response: "Jesus made His slaves His brothers and died to pay their debts. He didn't just regulate the chains; He transformed the slave into an heir of the Kingdom."
The relationship between Allah and humanity is defined by submission (Islam). The relationship between the Biblical God and humanity is defined by adoption (Huiothesia = "to be placed as a son").