Shaykh al-Islām—may Allah have mercy on him—said, refuting the claim:

“Every newborn is born in the state that Allah already knew he would ultimately attain.”

It is well known that this applies to all created beings. All animals are born according to Allah’s prior knowledge concerning them. On that interpretation, every created being would therefore be created upon the fiṭrah (innate disposition).

Moreover, if that were the intended meaning, his statement, “His parents then make him a Jew, a Christian or a Magian,” would have no meaning. The parents would merely have brought about the very innate disposition upon which he was born, so there would be no distinction between making him a Jew and making him a Christian.

He then said:

The comparison made by the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, with an animal born intact and subsequently mutilated shows that the child’s parents changed the state in which he was born.

He then said:

As for your claim that they were created devoid of recognition and denial, without their innate disposition inclining them towards either—that the heart is instead like a tablet upon which faith or disbelief may be inscribed, being no more receptive to one than to the other—this is a profoundly unsound view.