Ma malakat aymanukum

There were many common features between the institution of slavery in the Quran and that of pre-Islamic culture. However, the Quranic institution had some unique new features.[16] According to Brockopp, the idea of using alms for the manumission of slaves who had converted to Islam appears to be unique to the Quran.[17] Islam also prohibits the use of female slaves for prostitution which was common in pre-Islamic history.[18]

Brockopp states that the Qur'an was a progressive legislation on slavery in its time because it encouraged proper treatment.[16] Others state that Islam's record with slavery has been mixed, progressive in Arabian lands, but it increased slavery and worsened abuse as Muslim armies attacked people in Africa, Europe and Asia.[19][20] Murray notes that Quran sanctified the institution of slavery and abuses therein, but to its credit did not freeze the status of a slave and allowed a means to a slave's manumission in some cases when the slave converted to Islam.[20][21]

When an individual erred such as missing a day of fasting, they were to free a slave (Manumission). Sharia authorized the institution of slavery, and under Islamic law, Muslim men could have sexual relations with female captives and slaves.[22][23] Sharia, in Islam's history, provided religious foundation for enslaving non-Muslim women (and men), as well as encouraged slave's manumission. However, manumission required that the non-Muslim slave first convert to Islam.[21][24]

Non-Muslim slave women who bore children to their Muslim masters became legally free upon her master's death, and her children were presumed to be Muslims as their father, in Africa,[21] and elsewhere.[25]

Both the Quran and hadith make mention of the rights of slaves and how their masters must conduct themselves.

Narrated Al-Ma'rur: At Ar-Rabadha I met Abu Dhar who was wearing a cloak, and his slave, too, was wearing a similar one. I asked about the reason for it. He replied, "I abused a person by calling his mother with bad names." The Prophet said to me, 'O Abu Dhar! Did you abuse him by calling his mother with bad names You still have some characteristics of ignorance. Your slaves are your brothers and Allah has put them under your command. So whoever has a brother under his command should feed him of what he eats and dress him of what he wears. Do not ask them (slaves) to do things beyond their capacity (power) and if you do so, then help them.'[26]

Abu Huraira reported Muhammad as saying: "When the slave of anyone amongst you prepares food for him and he serves him after having sat close to (and undergoing the hardship of) heat and smoke, he should make him (the slave) sit along with him and make him eat (along with him), and if the food seems to run short, then he should spare some portion for him (from his own share) - (another narrator) Dawud said:" i. e. a morsel or two"[27]

After the Muslims repelled the siege of Medinah, they order the execution of the male members (between 600 and 900) of the Banu Qurayza tribe for committing treason under the constitution of Medina,[28] the women and children were taken as slaves.[29] Muhammad himself took Rayhana as his slave.[30] He presented three women from the conquered Banu Hawazin as slaves to his key supportive close marital relatives in early 630: Reeta, to Ali; Zeinab, to Uthman; and an unnamed third to Umar.[31]

Surah Al-Muminun (23:6) and Surah Al-Maarij (70:30) both, in identical wording, draw a distinction between spouses and "those whom one's right hands possess" (female slaves), saying " أَزْوَاجِهِمْ أَوْ مَا مَلَكَتْ أَيْمَانُهُمْ" (literally, "their spouses or what their right hands possess"), while clarifying that sexual intercourse with either is permissible. However both these surahs literal wording do not specifically use the term wife but instead the more general & both-gender including term spouse in the grammatically masculine plural (azwajihim),[32][33] thus Mohammad Asad in his commentary to both these Surahs rules out concubinage due to the fact that "since the term azwaj ("spouses"), too, denotes both the male and the female partners in marriage, there is no reason for attributing to the phrase aw ma malakat aymanuhum the meaning of "their female slaves"; and since, on the other hand, it is out of the question that female and male slaves could have been referred to here, it is obvious that this phrase does not relate to slaves at all, but has the same meaning as in 4:24 namely, "those whom they rightfully possess through wedlock" with the significant difference that in the present context this expression relates to both husbands and wives, who "rightfully possess" one another by virtue of marriage."[34] Following this approach, Mohammad Asads translation of the mentioned verses denotes a different picture, which is as follows: "with any but their spouses - that is, those whom they rightfully possess [through wedlock]".[35] According to Maududi purchase of female slaves for sex was lawful from the perspective of Islamic law, But this was the most common motive for the purchase of slaves throughout Islamic history.[36] Rabb Intisar claims that Islamic sources treat non-consensual sex with slaves as zina or rape. However, Kecia Ali does not find the idea of consent explicitly stated in the per-modern Muslim legal tradition between the 8th and 10th century [37]

According to the Quran, slaves could not be forced into being prostituted, without breaking the law of God.[38]

"But let them who find not [the means for] marriage abstain [from sexual relations] until Allah enriches them from His bounty ... And do not compel your slave girls to prostitution, if they desire chastity, to seek [thereby] the temporary interests of worldly life. And if someone should compel them, then indeed, Allah is [to them], after their compulsion, Forgiving and Merciful." (Surah An-Nur 24:33)[38]

However the word used for chastity in this verse is also used to describe married women in Surah 4 verse 24. Ibn Kathir in this tasfir of this verse applied prostitution only to Zina and cited a haddith about "one who gets married seeking chastity" [39]

One rationale given for recognition of concubinage in Islam is that "it satisfied the sexual desire of the female slaves and thereby prevented the spread of immorality in the Muslim community."[40] Most schools restrict concubinage to a relationship where the female slave is required to be monogamous to her master (though the master's monogamy to her is not required),[41] but according to Sikainga, "in reality, however,female slaves in some Muslim societies were prey for [male] members of their owners' household, their [owner's male] neighbors, and their [owner's male] guests."[40]

The history of slavery in Islamic states and of sexual relations with slaves, was the "responsibility of Muslims, and not of the Quran", according to Parwez, as quoted by Clarence-Smith.[42] Amir Ali blamed the history of Islamic slavery in racist terms, states Clarence-Smith, stating that slave servitude and sexual abuse of captive slaves may have been because of degeneration of the Arabs from their admixing over time with "lower races such as Ethiopians".[43]

Regarding rules for having sexual intercourse with a slave, a man may not have sexual intercourse with a female slave belonging to his wife, but one he owns.[12] Neither may he have relations with a female slave if she is co-owned without the permission of other owners. He may have sex with a female captive who was previously married prior to captivity, provided their Idda (waiting) period had come to an end.[44][45]

There have been historical exceptions where forced sex of slave girl by other than the owner have been treated as an offense in Muslim state.[46] The incident was,

Malik related to me from Nafi that a slave was in charge of the slaves in the khumus and he forced a slave-girl among those slaves against her will and had intercourse with her. Umar ibn al-Khattab had him flogged and banished him, and he did not flog the slave-girl because the slave had forced her.

— Sahih al-Bukhari, 1:85:81,[47]Al-Muwatta, 41 3.15

If the female slave has a child by her master, she then receives the title of "Ummul Walad" (lit. Mother of the child), which is an improvement in her status as she can no longer be sold and is legally freed upon the death of her master. The child, by default, is born free due to the father (i.e., the master) being a free man. Although there is no limit on the number of concubines a master may possess, the general marital laws are to be observed, such as not having sexual relations with the sister of a female slave.[12][48]

People are told that if they do not have the means to marry free-women, they can marry, with the permission of their masters, slave-women who are Muslims and are also kept chaste. In such marriages, they must pay their dowers so that this could bring them gradually equal in status to free-women.[49][50]