Description

In this booklet, including the second part of chapter four of her thesis about Slavery in Mauritania, the author Milena Rampoldi introduces the phenomenon she calls "Muslim Urban Anti-Abolitionism". In this context, she exposes three Arabic Anti-Abolitionists who can be categorised according to three levels: a)the man Salih al-Fawzan, who wants to completely revitalise slavery as an institution and dismisses all Muslims who do not believe in this institution as infidels and is completely stubborn about his point of view; I would describe him with the following adjectives: narrow-minded, monolithic, atomistic in the hermeneutical field, and unworldly;b)the man Abu Ishaq al-Huwaini, who focuses his attention on the sex slavery of other believers and praises the theft of slaves from other believers as a business that stimulates the economy, and then explains how Islam reforms slavery and recommends its abolition, constantly contradicting himself; I would describe him with the following adjectives: confused, anti-American, anachronistic, hermeneutically closed and stubborn; c)The absolute climax of contempt for women is then demonstrated by the theses of the Kuwaiti woman Salwa al-Mutairi, who wants to revive the sex slavery of women in order to prevent Kuwaiti passionate men from sinning and committing zina. I would describe al-Mutairi with the following adjectives: naïve, ignorant, anti-empathic, misogynist, materialistic, exhibitionist, childish. Instead of explaining anti-abolitionism with the idea of evil, Milena Rampoldi uses the paradigm of stupidity of the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer saying: "Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of good than evil. Evil can be protested against, it can be exposed, it can be prevented by force, if necessary, evil always carries the seed of self-destruction in that it leaves at least a feeling of unease in people. However, we are defenceless when it comes to stupidity."