So we say: As for the first issue, namely the questioner’s remark, “It is widely circulated among you that nothing prevented the People of the Two Scriptures from entering Islam except their pursuit of leadership and livelihood, nothing else,”—this is the talk of someone ignorant of what is known to the Muslims (and to the unbelievers) (1).

The Muslims have never maintained that the only thing that kept the People of the Scripture from embracing Islam was leadership and income, to the exclusion of every other factor. And if some of their common folk should voice such a claim, it does not bind the entire community.

Those who refrained (2) from entering Islam—whether from the People of the Two Scriptures or from others—were but a very small fraction compared with those who actually embraced it. Indeed, most nations accepted Islam willingly, eagerly, and by free choice, not through compulsion or coercion. For Allah sent Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, as a messenger to all the inhabitants of the earth, who then fell into five categories that filled the world: Jews, Christians, Magians, Sabeans (3), and polytheists. These groups had held sway over the world from East to West.

As for the Jews, the majority of them lived in Yemen, Khaybar, Medina, and the surrounding areas. On the fringes of greater Syria they existed in a state of humiliation alongside the Christians; a faction of them dwelled in the land of Persia, likewise humbled together with the Magians (4); another faction was to be found in the Maghreb (5). Their most fortified and eminent communities were in Medina and Khaybar, as though Allah, exalted be He, had scattered them throughout the earth.