the rest, they are subject to the same ruling as those bound by a peace treaty: war is to be waged against them all. He then said: “We issued a fatwa to the ruler on this basis when the Christians burned the Muslims’ property and homes in Syria and sought to burn their principal congregational mosque. They burned its minaret, and it narrowly escaped being burned down completely, thanks to Allah’s protection. Those Christians who knew of this colluded in it, condoned it, and approved of it, without informing the ruler. The ruler sought a fatwa concerning them from the jurists present before him. We ruled that the covenant of anyone who committed this act, assisted in it in any way, or approved and condoned it had been nullified, and that the prescribed penalty for him was necessarily death. The ruler has no discretion in his case as he does in the case of a captive; rather, death has become his prescribed penalty” (3/ 162). He made a similar statement in “Ahkām ahl al-dhimma” (3/ 1234).

If we consult the historical works to establish when the incident mentioned by the author occurred, we find that it took place in 740 AH. See al-Dhahabī’s “Dhayl al-‘Ibar” (p. 213). Ibn Kathīr gave a detailed account of it in “al-Bidāya wa-l-nihāya” (18/ 414).

The author states in the introduction that he composed the book—that is, began composing it—while travelling, without indicating his destination. This may have been one of his journeys for Hajj or another purpose after 740 AH. He performed Hajj many times, as his student, the hadith master Ibn Rajab, mentions in his biography. Does this incident, then, indicate that the book was composed after 740 AH? That is possible, but it is also possible that the author added this passage later. The structure of the book—as will be discussed below—suggests that he completed it at different periods after his travels had ended and books and sources had become available to him.