the hadith of ʿĀʾishah and others.

Furthermore, killing a child belonging to an enemy population is impermissible, by scholarly consensus.

Moreover, although people disagree about the children of unbelievers—whether they enter Paradise or the Fire, or whether judgment concerning them should be withheld—no one, to our knowledge, has distinguished between children capable of reasoning and those who are not. Rather, the explicit position reported from Ahmad and other leading scholars of the Sunnah—and their well-known position—is to withhold judgment concerning them.

A group held that they are in the Fire, a position adopted by Judge Abū Yaʿlā and others. They stated that Ahmad had explicitly affirmed this, but this is a mistaken attribution to Ahmad. What is explicitly reported from him is that he answered concerning them with the Prophet’s answer, peace and blessings be upon him:

“Allah knows best what they would have done.”

This is recorded in the two Sahīh collections, narrated by Abū Hurayrah, and also in the Sahīh, narrated by Ibn ʿAbbās.

However, these words also appear in a report which relates:

“Khadījah asked him about her children by another man. He replied, ‘They are in the Fire.’ She asked, ‘Without having done anything?’ He replied, ‘Allah knows best what they would have done.’”

They therefore assumed that Ahmad had given a ruling based on the hadith of