Those among Ahmad’s followers and others who suppose that prohibiting marriage to a woman whose parents are both Magians, or one of whose parents is a Magian, is the only position in his school are unquestionably mistaken, for they have not understood the origin of the disagreement over this issue. Hence some of them contradict themselves: they allow those who embraced the religion of the People of the Book after its abrogation and alteration to remain in that religion upon payment of the jizya, yet categorically prohibit marriage to Arab Christian women and to women whose parents were not both of the People of the Book. A group of Ahmad’s followers took this approach, but it is contradictory.

Although al-Qādī Abū Ya‘lā and a group of his followers held this position, he retracted it in al-Jāmi‘ al-Kabīr, his last book. There he discussed whether it is permissible to marry the women of former idolaters who embraced the religion of the People of the Book—such as the Romans and certain Arab tribes, namely Tanūkh, Bahrā’, and some of Banū Taghlib—and to eat the animals they slaughter. He stated that Ahmad’s expressly reported position was that there was no objection to marrying Christian women of Banū Taghlib, and that the other reported position was extrapolated from the two views reported from him concerning the animals they slaughtered. He preferred the view that anyone who adopts their religion is subject to the same rulings as they are, whether the conversion occurred before or after the advent of our revealed law, and whether the person adopted the religion of those who had altered it or a religion that had not been altered. Marriage to their women and eating the animals they slaughter are therefore permissible.

If this applies to those among the Arabs and Romans whose parents were both polytheists, then it applies with even greater force to those with only one polytheist parent. This is Ahmad’s expressly stated position, for he explicitly stated that anyone who embraces their religion after its abrogation and alteration—as someone might embrace their religion in our own time—is permitted to remain in it upon payment of the jizya.

His followers stated that once we permit them to remain upon payment of the jizya, the animals they slaughter and marriage to their women become lawful. This is also the position of Abū Hanīfah, Mālik, and others.