The word "slave" is of European origin. It came into existence when the Franks used to supply the Spanish slave market with the "barbarians," and those captives happened to be mostly the people of Turkish origin from the region known as Slovakia (now a part of Czechoslovakia). These people are called "Slav" and so all captives came to be known as "slaves".

There is no doubt that the Christian world got this evil from their pagan and Jewish ancestors, but they took the �Slave trade� to its peak. Various historians have testified to this fact.

�It found slavery a recognized institution of the empire; it adopted the system without any endeavor to mitigate its baneful character, or promise its gradual abolition, or to improve the status of slaves. Under the civil law, slaves were mere chattels. They remained so under the Christian domination. Slavery had flourished among the Romans from the earliest times. The slaves whether of native or foreign birth, whether acquired by war or purchase, were regarded simply as chattels. Their masters possessed the power of life and death over them. Christianity had failed utterly in abolishing slavery or alleviating its evil.� � Justice Ameer Ali http://al-islam.org/slavery/#r6 - http://al-islam.org/slavery/#r6 -

:�The Church did not condemn slavery. Orthodox and heretic, Roman and barbarian alike assumed the institution to he natural and in-destructible. Pagan laws condemned to slavery any free woman who married a slave; the laws of Constantine [a Christian emperor] ordered the woman to be executed, and the slave to be burned alive. The Emperor Gratian decreed that a slave who accused his master of any offence except high treason to the state should be burned alive at once, without inquiring into the justice of the charge.� � Dr. Will Durant.

http://al-islam.org/slavery/#r7 - http://al-islam.org/slavery/#r7 -

The only redress prescribed by Christianity is seen in the letter of St. Paul to a certain Philemon sending back to him his slave, Onessimus, with a recommendation to treat him well. Nothing more. It is interesting to note that the word "slave" of original Hebrew has been changed to "servant" in the Authorised Version of the Bible, and to "bond servant" in the Revised Standard Version, because, in words of The Concise Bible Commentary, "this word [i.e., slave] is avoided because of its association. http://al-islam.org/slavery/#r8 - http://al-islam.org/slavery/#r8 - One wonders whether a translator has a right to change the original just because of "associations"?

The following quotation graphically shows the attitude of Islam and Christianity on the subject of slavery and race: