Mujāhid Abū al-Aswad reports: “ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz wrote that no church bell is to be rung outside the church.”

Maʿmar likewise relates that ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz wrote:

“Prevent those under your authority: let no Christian wear a qabāʾ, a garment of silk brocade, or Yemeni striped cloth (ʿaṣab). Issue the strictest instructions in this regard, and set them down in writing so that no one remains unaware of the prohibition. I have been informed that many Christians in your province have resumed wearing turbans, abandoned the belts at their waists, grown long forelocks and shoulder-length hair, and ceased cropping it short. By my life, if such things are happening in your territory, it is due to your weakness and incapacity. Therefore, look into every matter I have forbidden and commanded; oversee it continually, enforce it firmly, allow no concessions, and depart from it in nothing.”

I have omitted the rest of what they ordered the People of the Scripture to do, for the purpose here is merely to show the principle of distinction.

Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad ibn Hārūn al-Mutawakkil took the same measures with the ahl al-dhimmah during his caliphate, and in that matter he consulted Imām Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal and others.