The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (2299 page)

 
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(Gk., ‘dwelling’). A small monastic community, especially associated with Mount
Athos
.

 
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Skilful means
,
skill in means
(skill in adapting teaching to the aptitude of those who are taught):

see
UP
YA-KAU
ALYA
.

 
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see
SHE
ITAH
.

 
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Judaism
The institution of masters owning their servants is accepted in the Hebrew scriptures. A Hebrew could become a slave to redeem his debts (Leviticus 25. 35) or to make restitution for theft (Exodus 22. 2). According to Leviticus 25. 44–5, it was permissible to take slaves of ‘the nations that are round about you’. The extent of the practice of slavery among the Jews in the
Talmudic
period is debatable.
Maimonides
summed up the
rabbinic
laws of slavery by saying, ‘It is permissible to work the slave hard; but while this is the law, the ways of ethics and prudence are that the master should be just and merciful.’
Christianity
Slavery in the New Testament period is not questioned as an institution. A slave can fulfil his duty as a Christian by serving his master as Christ (Ephesians 6. 5–8), though the owner must realize that the slave is his brother in Christ and must treat him accordingly. Perhaps, even, he should set him free (Philemon 14–21). The more important point is that the age is being inaugurated when all divisions of this kind will be abolished, when there will be ‘neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male and female’ (Galatians 3. 28), because all are one in Christ. Nevertheless, inequalities continued to be regarded as a consequence of the
Fall
(e.g., by
Augustine
), even though slavery gradually gave way in Europe to serfdom. The biblical warrant for slavery was appealed to in the development of the slave-trade (which, after fierce struggle, was formally ended at the Congress of Vienna, 1814–15) and in the perpetuation of slavery in America. Slavery ended in America after the Civil War through the Emancipation Proclamation (1863) and the Thirteenth Amendment (1865).
Islam
Slavery is taken for granted in the
Qur’
n
and in
ad
th
—where the subject of slavery is mainly a concern with manumission and its consequences. Legally, slaves could only be obtained as a consequence of war, or as the children of existing slaves. Slaves were able to rise to positions of considerable responsibility, even seizing power in the case of the Mamlukes (the word means ‘owned one’, and refers to a dynasty derived from Turkish and Circassian slave soldiers, which held power in Egypt, 1250–1517 (AH 648–922)). Since Qur’
n and
ad
th cannot be abrogated, it is not possible for slavery to be abolished, at least as a theoretical possibility, in Islam.
Hinduism
Slavery appears to have existed in early India (Dev Raj,
L'Esclavage dans l'Inde ancienne
, 1957), but it did not continue as an institution extensively. Instead, forms of obligatory service developed through
dharma
and the
caste
system.