The Use of the Term “Youth” (fatā) Instead of “Servant” (ʿabd)

Regarding the “youth” (fatā) (Moses’s young companion), there are two possibilities:

1. He was one of the divine saints and successors after Moses. According to traditions, he was Moses’s successor and his name was Yūshaʿ ibn Nūn.(14) Therefore, he was referred to by the term “youth” (fatā) because he accompanied Moses in both travel and residence, or because he was always devoted to serving him.

2. He was Moses’s servant and a righteous believer who always accompanied him in both travel and residence.(15) This possibility is based on the fact that one of the meanings of the word “youth” (fatā) in Arabic is servant (ʿabd).(16) Evidence for this meaning of “youth” (fatā) as servant (ʿabd), in addition to verses of the Qur’an such as “And she sought to seduce him”(17) and “believing slave-girls whom your right hands possess”(18), can be found in this prophetic tradition: “None of you should say ‘my male slave’ (ʿabdī) and ‘my female slave’ (amatī), but should say ‘my youth’ (fatāy) and ‘my young woman’ (fatātī)”.(19) Indeed, with the advent of the Prophet, the institution of slavery was dismantled, and among his first cultural initiatives was instructing slave owners to say “my youth” (fatāy) and “my young woman” (fatātī) instead of “my male slave” (ʿabdī) and “my female slave” (amatī), thus giving them dignity. Through this cultural reform, he gradually eliminated slavery and prepared the ground for freedom, and in Islamic jurisprudential texts, the book of manumission (ʿitq) was established, not the book of slavery (riqq).