RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIESMa~qala ibn Hubayra for one or two thousand dirhams. In the other
account, the Christians who were taken captive with al-Khirrit were
to be punished as an example to other protected non-Muslims to pay
the poll tax and not to kill Muslims. But some five hundred men,
women, and children of the Banii Najiya were ransomed by MaN ala
for one million dirhams.^44 It must be recognized that insofar as the
Islamic law of apostasy was based on this incident in the later legal
tradition, the people who were involved had been taken in armed
revolt against the state, which equated apostasy with treason. This
situation did not correspond exactly to late Sasanian practice but did
provide the occasion for introducing the principle of death for unre-
penting apostasy in Iraq.
However, Islamic legal tradition in Iraq developed along the lines
of Sasanian practice. Abii Yiisuf relates a story about how Mu'adh
found a Jew with Abii Miisa al-Ash'ari at Basra who had converted
to Islam and then apostatized. For two months they had attempted,
without success, to get him to change his mind. Upon hearing that,
Mu'adh exclaimed that he would not rest until the apostate had been
beheaded "according to the decision of God and that of his messen-
ger."45 This is certainly a reflection of Sasanian practice, but as Abii
Yusuf derived the law of apostasy from the incident of 'An and the
Banii Najiya, both Arabs and non-Arabs were to be treated as Arab
idolaters and were to be given the choice of reconversion or death.
Their women and children were to be enslaved and they were to be
given no option of paying the poll tax.^46 The opinion of Abii l:Ianifa
that a female apostate should not be executed but should be imprisoned
indefinitely until she returns to Islam seems to be based on the actual
experience of Shirin and Golinduch, as is Abii Yiisuf's opinion that a
female apostate is liable to be executed unless she returns to Islam.^47
Likewise the Magian principle of disinheriting an apostate was ac-
cepted by Abii l:Ianifa for Magian converts to Islam. According to
Abii l:Ianifa, a Magian boy who converted to Islam before attaining
puberty could not inherit from a Magian father nor could his parents
inherit from him.48
... Abii Yiisuf, Khara;, p. 280; Khadduri, Islamic Law of Nations, p. 196; Tabari,
Ta'rikh, I, 3434-35, 3438-39.
45 Abii Yiisuf, Kharaj, p. 278.
46 Ibid., p. 10l.
47 Khadduri, Islamic Law of Nations, pp. 205-9.
48 Ibid., pp. 226-27