Who held power, and who did not

This lesson asks you to analyse power relations and privilege in social settings, both historical and contemporary. The museum offers one historical setting only, a society in which people were held as slaves, through one man's story and the jurists' rules; your class will add other settings, including contemporary ones. The record describes a legal institution as the jurists set it out; the museum does not endorse it. Abolition, the transatlantic slave trade and slavery today are for your class. ¹

For each person in the scene, list what they could do and what they could not. Then compare the story with the rules: where do the rules limit the one who holds power, and where do they confirm the difference between persons?

Read one man's standing closely. The Encyclopaedia of Islam article, as the museum's record reports it, says that although Bilal was a freedman of Abu Bakr, he seems to have been in constant attendance on the Prophet ﷺ, and that he seems to have attained high prestige in his lifetime ². It gives, citing al-Tabari, an episode in Syria: when Umar sent a representative to look into the source of certain donations made by Khalid ibn al-Walid (may God be pleased with him), Bilal supported the hesitant commander Abu Ubayda and the caliph's representative by himself removing Khalid's turban and demanding an answer, and returned it with full respect and honour once a satisfactory explanation was given ².

Set beside it the rules as the record of the jurists' rules gives them. Freedom is the original state ^{3 4}. The owner may command the slave in what is not sinful, but the work must be within his strength; he must provide food, clothing and care, and may not torment him ⁵. The owner may also sell, pledge or give the slave ⁶. In crimes, a free man is not retaliated against for killing a slave, and the hadd for a slave is half of a free man's ⁷.

The article on Bilal is short, and the record warns that parts of its scanned text are garbled and that what could not be read has been left out. Where the article can be read, it reports differing accounts: Abu Bakr, in the sources' accounts, either bought Bilal or exchanged an able-bodied slave of his own for him; the date of his death is given variously as 17, 18, 20 or 21 AH; and some sources say that he refused to act as muezzin at all after the Prophet's death ². The rules come from one reference work, and the record gives them as the jurists' rules; it gives no case in which a rule was kept or broken. The records read here hold no historian's judgement of how far the rules were followed, so that weighing is for your class.

The record gives rules that limit the owner, such as work within the slave's strength and food, clothing and care ⁵, and a rule that treats a free man and a slave differently in retaliation: a free man is not retaliated against for killing a slave ⁷. It also gives one freedman whom the article says seems to have attained high prestige ². Take a position: in analysing power in this society, should the rules the jurists wrote weigh more than the standing the article reports for one man, and what is the strongest objection to your position?

• Bilal ibn Rabah: the article's account of his standing, the sources' differing accounts and the tie of brotherhood recorded for his pension.
• Riq (bondage): the jurists' rules as the record gives them, including how bondage ends.

Read Bilal ibn Rabah and Riq (bondage). Draw a table with one row for each person in Bilal's story and a column for what the rules say about a person in that position.