So they held counsel. One of them said to the rest, “You know full well that he is a prophet, and that no people have ever entered a mutual imprecation with a prophet without punishment descending upon them.”

They therefore asked to be excused from the mubāhala, made peace with him, and agreed to pay the jizya (tribute) with their own hands, humbled, for they feared the supplication he might make against them and were certain that he was a prophet. Thus they came under his authority just as the ahl al-dhimma (protected non-Muslim subjects) in Muslim lands live under the rule of Allah and His Messenger. They paid him the jizya in person, humbled, and they were the first Christians ever to do so.

The Prophet then appointed ʿAmr ibn Ḥazm al-Anṣārī over them and over those among them who embraced Islam. He sent with him a famous written decree outlining the ordinances of the religion. Hence they remained under the covenant of the Muslims, governed by Allah, His Messenger, and the Messenger’s deputy, ʿAmr ibn Ḥazm al-Anṣārī—may Allah be pleased with him. Their story is well-known and widely attested, recorded by the scholars of prophetic biography.