for indeed the children of the Anṣār embraced Judaism only after the scripture had been abrogated and altered, and it is likely that some of them entered it even after the Prophet’s mission. It is related that “a number of the Anṣār’s sons joined the Banū al-Naḍīr on that occasion, and some of them were Arabs.” Yet, despite all of this, the Prophet ﷺ treated every one of them as People of the Book: he did not forbid the meat they slaughtered, nor did he deem it lawful to kill any of them in distinction from those whose forefathers had entered the faith before abrogation and alteration had occurred.

Those who argue that “whoever joins the People of the Book after abrogation and alteration is not granted the covenant of protection and one may not eat the animals they slaughter” have built their position on two weak premises:

The first is the claim that a person’s religion is determined by the religion of his forefathers. We have already shown that this contradicts the Qur’an, the Sunnah, and the consensus of the majority of scholars—Mālik, Abū Ḥanīfah, Aḥmad, and others (1). Nevertheless, a group of Aḥmad’s followers have voiced this view,