131 - 'Abd al-Malik informed me, saying: I said, 'O Abu 'Abd Allah, the case of this Kafir (disbeliever), meaning Babak, is not like others; he captured Muslim women and they had relations with them, so what do you say regarding their children?' He said: 'The child follows the status of his mother.' I said: 'How so?' He said: 'That is the ruling of Islam. Is it not the case that if she is free, they are free, and if she is a slave, they are slaves? They follow their mother.' I asked: 'Regardless of whether they are adults or children?' He said: 'Yes,' [repeating it] more than once. He then said: 'The matter is whether he has reached adulthood and then went out to fight us while residing in the Abode of Disbelief (Dar al-Shirk). What is his ruling? In that case, it is the ruling of apostasy, or a ruling—he intends the ruling of his mother.' Abu 'Abd Allah began to repeat this point, and he did not know what the ruling would be in this specific instance if [the child] reached adulthood among them and then came out to fight us. I had said to Abu 'Abd Allah at the beginning of the inquiry: 'If we capture a woman and evidence is established that she was a Muslim, or she claims Islam, and she has a child with her, is he not a follower of his mother?' He said: 'Yes.' 'Abd al-Malik said: 'I intended by this that her testimony alone is sufficient regarding her claim of Islam.' 'Abd al-Malik said: 'I only debated him regarding Babak when he captured the Muslim women and they leaped upon them.' Abu Bakr al-Khallal said: 'Al-Maymuni's statement here that Abu 'Abd Allah did not know what the ruling was in this instance—as for Abu 'Abd Allah, a group has narrated from him the ruling on apostates, and the ruling on their women and their offspring if they were born in the Abode of Disbelief and then fought after that, in a manner similar to what al-Maymuni asked regarding the women of those whom Babak captured. Abu 'Abd Allah has already answered that, and he recorded it in Kitab al-Siyar (The Book of Campaigns). Its explanation would be lengthy here, and al-Maymuni only imagined that Abu 'Abd Allah did not know the ruling on the child if he fought us. And with Allah is success.'