raids. Prisoners could only be taken after a regular battle, and even then could not be retained forever. It was obligatory to set them free, either as a favour or after taking ransom. This state of things could last only as long as war conditions existed. When war was over, no prisoners could be taken.

The name applied to prisoners of war is mā malakat aimānu-kum, lit., what your right hands possess. What one’s right hand possesses means that which one has obtained by superior power, and prisoners of war were given this name because it was by superior power in war that they were reduced to subjection. The name ‘abd (slave) was also applied to them. because they had lost their freedom. The treatment accorded to prisoners of war or slaves in Islām is unparalleled. No other nation or society can show a similar treatment even of its own members when they are placed in the relative position of a master and a servant. The slave or the prisoner was, no doubt, required to do a certain amount of work, but the condition, in which it was ordained that he should be kept, freed him of all abject feelings. The golden rule of treating the slave like a brother was laid down by the Holy Prophet in clear words: “Ma‘rūr says, I met Abū Dharr in Rabdha and he wore a dress and his slave wore a similar dress. I questioned him about it. He said, I abused a man (i.e., his slave) and found fault with him on account of his mother (addressing him as son of a Negress). The Holy Prophet said to me, O Abū Dharr! Thou findest fault with him on account of his mother, surely thou art an ignorant man; your slaves are your brethren, Allāh has placed them under your hands; so whoever has his brother under his hand, let him give him to eat whereof he himself eats, and let him give him to wear what he himself wears, and impose not on them a work which they are not able to do, and if you give them such a work, then help them in the execution of it” (Bu. 2:22). The prisoners were distributed among the various Muslim families because no arrangements for their maintenance by the state existed at the time, but they were treated honourably. A prisoner of war states that he was kept in a family whose people gave him bread while they themselves had to live on dates (IJ-H. II, p. 287). Prisoners of war were therefore not only set free but, as long as they were kept prisoners, they were kept honourably.