Roman cities could not maintain their populations without the production of food by slave labor state farms or smaller farms. In the American South slaves were totally the property of their owners, who could sell them and punish them, and who could force them to labor in plantation agriculture and other income-producing pursuits. They had few if any legal rights, not even the right to form families, although some more indulgent masters did allow slave marriages. Lenient or harsh treatment could be afforded to the slaves, but always at the discretion of their master. Both Romans and Americans used slavery as their dominant labor force and their principle plantation labor for which their masters garnered great profits.
With a general basis of knowledge established with regards to other slavery institutions, lets begin our inquiry into Islamic slavery through the seriat. The Quran is fairly open with the discussion of slaves or "those whom your right hand possess" . While the Quran speaks for an egalitarian notion of all beings coming from one male and one female , suggesting we are all from each other, this notion of equality seems to be ambiguously intended to include, but not openly imposed on slaves. With this in mind, in the parable in sura16: sect76 it suggests that a slave with no power and a slave owner given fair provisions by Allah, are said to be equal, but most know not of this. There is another parable that compares the freeing of a slave to the feeding of a hungry orphan or a poor man; this comparison depicts a sense of sorrow or sympathy for the condition of the slave. This is seems to support the egalitarian notion of Islam, but it can only be viewed in the context where the institution of slavery is recognized, somewhat of a dichotomy. In the Hadith, the mention of equality of all man is not as prevalent as the expressed guidelines for the treatment of slaves.
