Slavery and religion

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Historically, slavery has been regulated, supported, or opposed on religious grounds.

In Judaism, Hebrew slaves were given a range of treatments and protections. They were to be treated as an extended family with certain protections, and they could be freed. They were property but could also own material goods.

Early Christian authors (except for Assyrian Christians who did not believe in slavery)^{[citation needed]} maintained the spiritual equality of slaves and free persons while accepting slavery as an institution. Early modern papal decrees allowed the enslavement of the unbelievers, though popes denounced slavery from the fifteenth century onward.^[1] This denouncement of slavery did not discourage (for example) the diocese of the Anglican church from having an indirect involvement with the religious conversion of black slaves in Barbados, in which one of the main principles was the divine right of the master over the slave. In the eighteenth century, the abolition movement took shape among Christians across the globe, but various denominations did not prohibit slavery among their members into the nineteenth century. Enslaved non-believers were sometimes converted to Christianity, but elements of their traditional beliefs merged with their Christian beliefs.

Early Islamic texts encourage kindness towards slaves and manumission (legally freeing individual slaves), while recognizing slavery as an institution and permitting enslavement of non-Muslims imprisoned or bought beyond the borders of Islamic rule. Children born to slaves were also considered legally as slaves.