this is a better explanation of the social improvements...
"John Esposito sees Muhammad as a reformer who condemned practices of the pagan Arabs such as female infanticide, exploitation of the poor, usury, murder,[citation needed] false contracts, fornication, adultery, and theft.[12] He states that Muhammad's "insistence that each person was personally accountable not to tribal customary law but to an overriding divine law shook the very foundations of Arabian society... Muhammad proclaimed a sweeping program of religious and social reform that affected religious belief and practices, business contracts and practices, male-female and family relations".[13] Esposito holds that the Qur'an's reforms consist of "regulations or moral guidance that limit or redefine rather than prohibit or replace existing practices." He cites slavery and women's status as two examples.
According to some scholars, Muhammad's condemnation of infanticide was the key aspect of his attempts to raise the status of women.[6] Regarding the prevalence of this practice, we know it was "common enough among the pre-Islamic Arabs to be assigned a specific term, waʾd"[14] A much cited verse the Qur'an that addresses this practice is: "When the sun shall be darkened, when the stars shall be thrown down, when the mountains shall be set moving, when the pregnant camels shall be neglected, when the savage beasts shall be mustered, when the seas shall be set boiling, when the souls shall be coupled, when the buried infant shall be asked for what sin she was slain, when the scrolls shall be unrolled..."[Quran 81:1][6]"
SLAVERY:
"The Qur'an makes numerous references to slavery ([Quran 2:178], [Quran 16:75], [Quran 30:28]), regulating but thereby also implicitly accepting this already existing institution. Lewis states that Islam brought two major changes to ancient slavery which were to have far-reaching consequences. "One of these was the presumption of freedom; the other, the ban on the enslavement of free persons except in strictly defined circumstances," Lewis continues. The position of the Arabian slave was "enormously improved": the Arabian slave "was now no longer merely a chattel but was also a human being with a certain religious and hence a social status and with certain quasi-legal rights."[17]
Lewis states that in Muslim lands slaves had a certain legal status and had obligations as well as rights to the slave owner, an improvement over slavery in the ancient world.[17][18] Due to these reforms the practice of slavery in the Islamic empire represented a "vast improvement on that inherited from antiquity, from Rome, and from Byzantium."[17]
Although there are many common features between the institution of slavery in the Qur'an and that of neighboring cultures, however the Qur'anic institution had some unique new features.[19] According to Jonathan Brockopp, professor of History and Religious Studies, the idea of using alms for the manumission of slaves appears to be unique to the Qur'an (assuming the traditional interpretation of verses [Quran 2:177] and [Quran 9:60]). Similarly, the practice of freeing slaves in atonement for certain sins appears to be introduced by the Qur'an.[19] Brockopp adds that: "Other cultures limit a master's right to harm a slave but few exhort masters to treat their slaves kindly, and the placement of slaves in the same category as other weak members of society who deserve protection is unknown outside the Qur'an. The unique contribution of the Qur'an, then, is to be found in its emphasis on the place of slaves in society and society's responsibility toward the slave, perhaps the most progressive legislation on slavery in its time."[19]"
Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_soc … nder_Islam
