• they may not inherit property, even if they are freed upon their owner's death^.
• their evidence is generally rejected in a court of law
• they cannot hold property and must hand over to their owner any they may acquire
• except as their master's agent they may not carry on trade or business
• slaves may lawfully killed in vengeance (talio) if their master or their master's kinfolk kill the slave of another person
• except in the Hanafi madhhab, slaves may be killed for killing other slaves but no free person may be killed for killing a slave. If they are killed by a free man, the killer is only liable to at the time of the death not to pay their owner their sale value and not full blood-money compensation. Thus, their owners may kill them with impunity.
• they are not permitted marriage without their owner's consent. A master cannot be compelled to give his/her consent to his/her slave's marriage. By the view of some madh'hab (but not others), a master may compel his/her slave(s) to marriage and determine the identity of their marriage partner(s)
• the mahr that is given for marriage to a female slave is taken by her owner, whereas all other women possess it absolutely for themselves

The property of slaves is owned by the master unless the master has granted the terms of a mukataba, which allowed the slave to earn money to purchase his or her freedom and similarly to pay bride wealth.

Slavery as an institution which, as elsewhere in the ancient world, Islam took for granted both at the time of the Qur'an's revelation and subsequently. However, Islam mitigated slavery by recommending kindness and the freeing of slaves as acts of great merit, and declaring that their mistreatment would cause damnation. Islam permits sexual relations between a male master and his female slave outside of marriage referred to in the Qur'an as ma malakat aymanukum or "what your right hands possess", although he may not co-habit with a female slave belonging to his wife. Neither can he have relations with a female slave if she is co-owned. If the female slave has a child by her master, she then receives the title of "Umm Walad" (lit. Mother of a child), which is an improvement in her status as she can no longer be sold and is legally freed upon the death of her master. The child, by default, is born free due to the father (i.e. the master) being a free man. Although there is no limit on the number of concubines a master may possess, the general marital laws are to be observed, such as not having intimate relations with the sister of a female slave. Ghamidi asserts that sexual relations with concubines were only permitted because slavery couldn't be eradicated immediately being an essential component of social and economic infra-structure.

The Qur’an gave slaves the right of Mukatabat i.e. to make contract with their masters according to which they would be required to pay a certain sum of money in a specific time period, or would carry out a specific service for their masters; once they would successfully fulfill either of these two options, they would stand liberated. The exegetical literature identified slaves as mukatab when buying their own freedom. As stated in Qur'an:

This right of mukatabat was granted to slave-men and slave-women. Prior to this, various other directives were given at various stages to gradually reach this stage. These steps are summarized below:

1. In the very beginning of its revelation, the Qur'an regarded emancipation of slaves as a great virtue.
2. People were urged that until they free their slaves they should treat them with kindness.
3. In cases of unintentional murder, Zihar (see footnote for definition), and other similar offences, liberating a slave was regarded as their atonement and charity.
4. It was directed to marry off slave-men and slave-women who were capable of marriage so that they could become equivalent in status, both morally and socially, to other members of society.
5. If some person were to marry a slave-woman of someone, great care was exercised since this could result in a clash between ownership and conjugal rights. However, such people were told that if they did not have the means to marry free-women, they could marry, with the permission of their masters, slave-women who were Muslims and were also kept chaste. In such marriages, they must pay their dowers so that this could bring them gradually equal in status to free-women.
6. In the heads of Zakah (Legal almsgiving, Islamic religious tax), a specific head (for freeing necks [emancipation of slaves]) was instituted so that the campaign of slave emancipation could receive impetus from the public treasury.
7. Fornication (sexual intercourse between a man and a woman who are not married to each other) was regarded as an offence. Since prostitution centers around this offence, brothels that were operated by owners using their slave-women were shut down automatically, and if someone tried to go on secretly running this business, he was given exemplary punishment.
8. People were told that they were all slaves/servants of Allah and so instead of using the words ????? (slave-man) and ????? (slave-woman), the words used should be ????? (boy/man) and ?????? (girl/woman) so that the psyche about them should change and a change is brought about in these age-old concepts.
9. A major source of slaves within the institution of slavery at the advent of Islam were the prisoners of war. The Qur'an rooted this out by legislating that prisoners of war should be freed at all costs, either by accepting ransom or as a favour by not taking any ransom money. No other option was available to the Muslims.

The last nation to formally enact the abolition of slavery practice and slave trafficking, was the Islamic Republic of Mauritania in 1981 although it still exists there de facto.

In recent years, according to one scholar, there has been a "reopening" of the issue of slavery by some conservative Salafi Islamic scholars after it's "closing" earlier in the 20th century when Muslim countries banned slavery and "most Muslim scholars" found the practice "inconsistent with Qur'anic morality."

In 2003 a high-level Saudi jurist, Shaykh Saleh al-Fawzan, issued a fatwa claiming “Slavery is a part of Islam. Slavery is part of jihad, and jihad will remain as long there is Islam.” He attacked Muslim scholars who said otherwise maintaining, “They are ignorant, not scholars ... They are merely writers. Whoever says such things is an infidel.” At the time of the fatwa, Al-Fawzan was a member of the Senior Council of Clerics, Saudi Arabia’s highest religious body, a member of the Council of Religious Edicts and Research, the Imam of Prince Mitaeb Mosque in Riyadh, and a professor at Imam Mohamed Bin Saud Islamic University, the main Wahhabi center of learning in the country.

While slavery is illegal in Saudi Arabia despite Shaykh Saleh al-Fawzan's fatwa, the proclamation carries wieght among many Salafi Muslims. According to reformist jurist and author Khaled Abou El Fadl, it "is particularly disturbing and dangerous because it effectively legitimates the trafficking in and sexual exploitation of so-called domestic workers in the Gulf region and especially Saudi Arabia."

According to the U.S. State Department:

Saudi Arabia is a destination for men and women from South and East Asia and East Africa trafficked for the purpose of labor exploitation, and for children from Yemen, Afghanistan, and Africa trafficking for forced begging. Hundreds of thousands of low-skilled workers from India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia, and Kenya migrate voluntarily to Saudi Arabia; some fall into conditions of involuntary servitude, suffering from physical and sexual abuse, non-payment or delayed payment of wages, the withholding of travel documents, restrictions on their freedom of movement and non-consensual contract alterations. The Government of Saudi Arabia does not comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking and is not making significant efforts to do so.

Speaking of Sudan under modern Islamic rule and the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, the author Ronald Segal describes that:

"The resurgence of fundamentalist Islam has a lot to do with slavery in both countries. Both describe themselves as Islamic states and pursue policies of Arab-Islamic religious law, but they are essentially exercises in the maintenance of control ... Also, it is partly a reaction to the power differentials in the world at large. Islam was a civilization that for hundreds of years was arguably the central civilization of the world and certainly dwarfed the cultures and powers of a West that is now unquestionably supreme. So there is a sense of humiliation. In such a situation you get a backlash ... a re-Islamization. There's nothing in the Koran that says someone can come along and free your slave."

 

Sudan

Main article: Slavery in Sudan

Slavery in the Sudan predates Islam, but continued under Islamic rulers. Though it never completely died out in Sudan. According to CBS news, slaves have been sold for $50 apiece.  According to CNN, Christian groups in the United States have expressed concern about slavery and religious oppression against Christians by Muslims in Sudan, putting pressure on the Bush administration to take action.  CNN has also quoted the U.S. State Department's allegations: "The [Sudanese] government's support of slavery and its continued military action which has resulted in numerous deaths are due in part to the victims' religious beliefs."

"Not only has the government denied the existence of slavery and failed to respond to cases brought to its attention, it has hampered the activities of organisations which are working on the issue, including by refusing to grant them official recognition".

An estimated 90,000 black Mauritanians remaining essentially enslaved to Arab/Berber owners.