Did early Muslims consider Zoroastrians to be People of the Book? Much of the secondary literature on medieval Muslim-Zoroastrian relations presumes so, but the Qur’an does not describe Zoroastrians as People of the Book, and Zoroastrians did not transcribe the Avesta—their sacred text—until at least the eleventh century. Until then, Zoroastrians were literally People without a Book. As a result, early Muslims debated the propriety of accepting jizya from them. Remnants of that debate are evident in the early Islamic taxation literature, particularly Abu ‘Ubayd’s (d. 224/838) Kitāb al-Amwāl and Abu Yusuf’s (d. 182/798) Kitāb al-Kharāj, and the relevant sections of hadith collections like ‘Abd al-Razzaq’s (d. 211/827) al-Muṣannaf and Abu Dawud’s (d. 281/894) Sunan. What appears to be the earliest report suggests that the Prophet offered the Zoroastrians of Bahrayn a stark choice between conversion and death. Yet the most common report is that he accepted jizya from them. Significantly, the latter is always narrated by Bajala b. ‘Abda, a member of the Banu Tamim tribe of Bahrayn. The Banu Tamim were allies of the Sasanian Persians before the advent of Islam, and some of them had embraced Zoroastrianism. Thus, the tribe had a vested interest in promoting the notion that Muhammad had accepted jizya from Zoroastrians. They also countered reports to the contrary. In one hadith, a member of the Banu Tamim threatens the life of a Muslim who criticized the Prophet’s decision to tax Zoroastrians. Due to this intense lobbying, early Muslim tax officials universally accepted that Muhammad set the precedent for taxing Zoroastrians. Early Muslim jurists were uncomfortable with that precedent because they did not consider Zoroastrians to be People of the Book. Therefore, they prohibited Muslims from marrying Zoroastrians or consuming meat slaughtered by them. The jurists’ rulings later became enshrined in prophetic sayings. In an apparent bid to flout such restrictions, dissenting Muslims circulated an updated version of the Banu Tamim’s report, which expanded the scope of the Prophet’s precedent beyond taxation. In this updated report, Muhammad urges Muslims to “treat Zoroastrians like People of the Book” (sunnū bihim sunnat ahl al-kitāb). Little is known about these dissenters, but they used the new prophetic precedent to contest the additional legal disabilities that jurists had imposed on Zoroastrians. Thus, while the early Islamic taxation literature betrays considerable Muslim ambivalence about Zoroastrians, it affirms that in this period Zoroastrians were People without a Book.