to boys and girls, respectively; and al-summā (1) denotes a woman whose children frequently die. Ibn ʿAbbās said: A woman would vow that, if two of her children survived, she would make one of them a Jew, because the Jews possessed knowledge and scripture, whereas the Arabs were polytheists and idolaters. When Allah sent Muhammad, a number of the Ansār’s children had embraced Judaism. Their fathers sought to compel them to embrace Islam, so Allah Most High revealed:

“There is no compulsion in religion. The right course has become clear from the wrong”—to the end of the verse.

Thus, it is established that these people embraced Judaism while their fathers were still alive. Clearly, they themselves entered Judaism before Islam and after the mission of the Messiah—that is, after its abrogation and alteration. Nevertheless, Allah, Mighty and Majestic, forbade compelling these people, who had embraced Judaism after its abrogation and alteration, to embrace Islam, and allowed them to remain in their religion upon payment of the jizya. This explicitly establishes the permissibility of granting a covenant of protection to someone who personally embraces the religion of the People of the Book after its abrogation and alteration. It is therefore clear that this position, rather than the other, is correct.

Once it is established that such a person may be granted a covenant of protection, it follows that what matters is his own religious affiliation, not his ancestry, and that the animals he slaughters and his food are lawful by the agreement of the Muslims. Those who prohibit this do so only on the grounds that people of this category are not among the People of the Book and therefore are not included. Once the explicit text of the Sunnah establishes that they are among the People of the Book, they are included within the scope of the scriptural address without dispute.

Second: A number of the Jews living in Medina and its surroundings were Arabs who had embraced Judaism. Nevertheless, concerning the permissibility of eating their food, marrying their women, and allowing them to remain under a covenant of protection, the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, made no distinction between those whose parents had embraced Judaism after the mission of Jesus, peace be upon him, and those who had embraced it before that; nor did he distinguish those whose ancestry was uncertain. Rather, he ruled