A Georgetown University professor who teaches about Islamic civilization delivered a lecture on slavery to a gathering at the International Institute for Islamic Thought – an organization with suspected ties to the Muslim Brotherhood – and told the attendees that modern society tends to needlessly agonize over the morality of owning people as property. Why?
Because “there is no such thing as slavery,” professor Jonathan Brown said, the Investigative Project reported.
Brown, a 39-year-old convert to Islam, read from his paper, “Slavery and Islam” about the “Problems of Slavery” during his lecture. Following, he fielded several questions from the audience, offering up such food for thought as his view that slavery cannot be defined as an outright evil because there are so many different kinds – slavery based on religion versus gender, for example. And what really counts, in the end, is whether those who were enslaved were treated well or poorly – not that they were enslaved.
“I don’t think you can talk about slavery in Islam until you realize that there is no such thing as slavery,” he said, the Investigative Project found. “As a category, as a conceptual category that exists throughout state and time, trans-historically, there’s no such thing as slavery.”
His lecture was baffling and at times, difficult to follow.
