Islamic slavery permitted social mobility and produced entire slave-founded dynasties

Evidence

The Islamic ideal concerning slavery was without parallel in Christian law and dogma. Islamic jurists had codified both the liabilities and the rights of slaves; customs among the Sunni, Shia, and Maliki schools had limited the rights of masters and extended the legal, religious, and social capacities of the slave. The Koran encouraged manumission as an act of piety, in many instances the punishment for criminal acts was less harsh for the slave than the freeman, slaves might purchase their freedom and might assume second-rank offices in state administration and the religious hierarchy. Since Muslim slavery was characteristically associated with unlimited potential for social mobility and much less racialism, it is not surprising to find whole dynasties in Muslim history founded by slaves (e.g., the Egyptian Mamelukes) or the emergence to prominence of Africans as soldiers, poets, philosophers, writers, and statesmen. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 497

Categorization

• XREF: Contrast that the reader can carry forward: this is the baseline against which chattel slavery and the Black radical tradition’s formation must be measured. Connects to broader Atlantic-slavery histories.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 497