Is Mohammedanism responsible for slavery in Africa? Many deny it altogether, and assert that it is no more just to charge the religion of the Arabs with the cruelty of the Arab slave-traders than it would be to blame Christianity for the introduction of drunkenness and moral corruption into tribes which before the coming of the Christian Europeans were sober and virtuous. Others go so far as to assert that the very institution of slavery is in no way wrapped up with Islamism, and that the day will come when the Mohammedan nations will suppress it throughout their borders as Christian nations have done. It is not a question of religion, they say, but of advancing civilisation and wider experience. The time has not yet come for Egypt and the Arab settlements to substitute free labour for slavery, any more than it had come to Christian Italy in the early centuries after the Christian era. The Koran does not forbid slavery any more than the Bible, but it inculcates gentleness and kindness to the slave. The laws and customs handed down by the Prophet tend to raise gradually the position of slaves, and to lead ultimately to their liberation from bondage.