became disbelievers, introducing disbelief as an innovation, as Allah Most High says:

“Indeed, those who disbelieve in Allah and His messengers and wish to make a distinction between Allah and His messengers, saying, ‘We believe in some and disbelieve in others,’ and wish to take a course in between—

“Those are truly the disbelievers, and We have prepared for the disbelievers a humiliating punishment.”

He—may Allah Most High have mercy on him—was asked about slave women from the People of the Book:

What evidence is there in the Quran, the Sunnah, scholarly consensus, and legal reasoning for the permissibility of intercourse with them by right of ownership, and for the prohibition of intercourse with Zoroastrian slave women? Please give us a ruling; may you be rewarded.

He answered:

Praise be to Allah, Lord of all worlds. The permissibility of intercourse with “slave women from the People of the Book” by right of ownership is more firmly established than its permissibility through marriage, according to the general body of scholars, including the four imams and others. None of the early generations is reported to have forbidden this, whereas some are reported to have prohibited marriage to women from the People of the Book. Nevertheless, Ibn al-Mundhir said: “It has not been authentically established that any of the early scholars forbade marriage to them.” Rather, prohibition is the position of the Shia.

There is, however, disagreement over whether marrying them is disliked when there is no need to do so. Such disapproval is well known in the schools of Mālik, al-Shāfiʿī, and Ahmad. Likewise, there is disagreement over whether intercourse with such slave women is disliked. Al-Hasan is reported to have disliked it. Disapproval in this matter is based