Why god allowed slavery?

Answer 1

We ourselves know and God knows better than us that even religion cannot change culture of people that they have been following for centuries. Arabia was mostly barren desert except few patches of land where they could grow some barley or dates on palm trees. God kept them unguided by any Prophet after Ismael son of Abraham for 2000 years. Source of their living was robbing caravans, attacking families living alone in desert or traveling through desert. They also attacked villages of their opponents in the late hours of night and took possession of what ever they could find. They often tied up women and children and sold in cities as slaves. It was customary to enslave those who lost the fight in wars. Men, women and children became property of winners. They had right to keep them for personal use or sell them.

Early wars that Muslims had to fight were for their defense. Unbelievers of Mecca persecuted new Muslims in Mecca severely. So many Muslims migrated to Africa and Madina by the permission of God. This enraged Meccans further and they went to Madina to kill Prophet and his companions three times with two to three times more fighters than Muslims had.

Later when God commanded Prophet Mohammad to get the Arab territories liberated from the occupation of Romans on Mediterranean coast and from Persians in east to strengthen Islamic nation and to liberate people from the tyrant rulers and to establish peace, justice and to ease the life of people in general.

There were no paid soldiers to fight wars. God encouraged Muslims to fight for protecting themselves and their religion Islam with the incentive that if they die in war they will be Martyrs and get straight into heaven and if they win they also deserve great status in this life and heaven in next life after their natural death.
Prophet didn't have any wealth to pay to fighters. Only incentive to fight for Muslims was heaven or the spoils of war to call it material incentive.

God let them continue the Arab custom of distributing the spoils of war between the winning fighters. In all wars they captured men, women and children in addition to arms, horses and camels. God encouraged Muslims through Quranic messages to be kind to their slaves, teach them Islam and if they convert as Muslims marry them with Muslim men and women. Many Ayahs in Quran instruct Muslims that a male or female slave with faith in Islam is better than a free unbeliever men or women even if you like them more. In many many situations when a man committed sin and asked Prophet what to do to get the sins forgiven, Prophet often commanded to free your slave and they did.
Before the wars started when prophet was in Mecca and the Meccan unbelievers started persecuting the poor Muslims and slaves, Abu Bakr Prophet's closest companion bought many slaves paying full prices to their owners to free them from the persecution. Often when a slave accepted Islam, Prophet encouraged companions to contribute and pay the master to buy freedom of the Muslim slave and save him from persecution. With these incentives slowly slavery was abolished by itself without God making a law against slavery.
If God and His Prophet had abolished the slavery right away in the beginning of wars, may be many of the new Muslims of Madina who didn't have yet very strong faith may have refused to fight wars with out any material incentive.
After American civil war new Law against slavery abolished slavery. It never worked. So God chose to give them incentives of heaven for freeing the slaves or liberating them after marrying them. That method not only abolished the slavery but slaves did get equal status in society very soon.

Here are some of the Ayahs in Quran encouraging freedom of slaves:

It recommends freeing slaves, especially “believing” slaves (Q. 2.177). Manumission of a slave is required as expiation for certain misdeeds (Q. 4.92; 58.3) and another verse states that masters should allow slaves to purchase their own freedom (Q. 24.33).
The Quran also suggests certain means of integrating slaves, some of who were enslaved after being captured in war, into the Muslim community. It allows slaves to marry (either other slaves or free persons; Q. 24.32; 2.221; 4.25) and prohibits owners from prostituting unwilling female slaves (Q. 24.33). Despite this protection against one form of sexual exploitation, female slaves do not have the right to grant or deny sexual access to them. Instead, the Qur’an permits men to have sexual access to “what their right hands possess,” meaning female captives or slaves (Q. 23.5-6; 70.29-30). This was widely accepted and practiced among early Muslims; the Prophet Muhammad, for example, kept a slave-concubine (Mariya the Copt) who was given to him as a gift by the Roman governor of Alexandria.

For more proofs in Quran please read an article on the following web site
http://www.answering-islam.org/Silas/slavery.htm

God allowed female slaves in the household of Muslims who had high moral standards and were also extremely devoted Muslims and obedient servants of God. This was only done to slowly elevate the status of slaves and secondly to turn them as good Muslims and thirdly to provide care for them because when their family members were already killed, they had no one to care for them and were bound to fell in the wrong hands in Arabia.

Answer 2

God is not to blame for allowing slavery, or wars, or genocide, or famines, or pollution of the environment. God allowed humankind to have free will and the knowledge of good and evil to create civilizations and societies and economic and political systems to allow mankind to have a fairly meaningful existence on this planet. It is mankind's greed and failure to create a balance between the good and evil inside us that has allowed and brought all these evils unto humankind.
"Then the Lord God said, "Look, the human beings have become like us, knowing both good and evil. What if they reach out, take the fruit from the tree of Life and eat it? Then they will live forever!". Genesis 3:22
It might be argued that God will allow the evils that come with free will and knowledge of good and evil but He will not allow us to to live forever!

Answer 3

The Bible does not specifically condemn the practice of slavery. It gives instructions on how slaves should be treated (Deuteronomy 15:12-15; Ephesians 6:9; Colossians 4:1), but does not outlaw the practice altogether. Many see this as the Bible condoning all forms of slavery. What many people fail to understand is that slavery in Biblical times was very different from the slavery that was practiced in the past few centuries in many parts of the world. The slavery in the Bible was not based exclusively on race. People were not enslaved because of their nationality or the color of their skin. In Bible times, slavery was more of a social status. People sold themselves as slaves when they could not pay their debts or provide for their family. In New Testament times, sometimes doctors, lawyers, and even politicians were slaves of someone else. Some people actually chose to be slaves so as to have all their needs provided for by their master.

The slavery of the past few centuries was often based exclusively on skin color. Black people were considered slaves because of their nationality – many slave owners truly believed black people to be “inferior human beings” to white people. The Bible most definitely does condemn race-based slavery.

Answer 4

To amplify upon TYBEE's answer: Slavery in New testomony circumstances became nearer to bonded labour in medieval Europe than it quite is to slavery as that became practised in nineteenth century North united statesa.. The slaves gained wages, besides the actuality that possibly no longer very lots, they have been guaranteed to their masters for a mounted quantity of time, after wich they could bypass loose, and now and back they could get carry of sufficient to purchase themselves out of slavery earlier their era of bondage had expired. It nevertheless wasn't a gadget which may be tolerated interior the slicing-side, of direction, even with the undeniable fact that it additionally wasn't the slavery of extra moderen North American historic previous.

Answer 5

You are ignoring the fact that the Bible was written by men -- not God. If there is a God, then I suspect that one of two conditions hold. Condition one -- he doesn't casre about men -- but looks a tus the way we look at Meerkats on TV. Condition two -- He does care about us and does not approve of slavery -- but does not interfere with our lives.

It wasn't God who allowed slavery -- but men.