1121 – On the authority of Sakhr ibn al-ʿAyla ﵁, the Prophet ﷺ said: “When a people embrace Islam, their lives and their property become inviolable.” It was recorded by Abū Dāwūd, and its transmitters are trustworthy (1).

Hadith grading
This ḥadith is authentic. Abū Dāwūd is its principal collector, its narrators are reliable, and a narration with the same purport appears in the two Ṣaḥīḥs in which the Prophet ﷺ states: “I have been commanded to fight people until they affirm, ‘There is no god but Allah.’ Once they make that declaration, they safeguard from me their blood and their wealth.” Ibn ʿAdī said: its chain of transmission is sound.

Vocabulary
• aḥrazū: they secured, i.e., their blood became protected—their killing or enslavement is forbidden—once they accepted Islam.

Points derived from the ḥadith
1 – The same meaning is conveyed by the ḥadith in the two Ṣaḥīḥs related by Abū Hurayrah ﵁, in which the Prophet ﷺ said: “I have been commanded to fight people until they say, ‘There is no god but Allah.’ Whoever declares, ‘There is no god but Allah,’ has protected from me his wealth and his life, except when justice demands otherwise; his reckoning rests with Allah.”

2 – The present ḥadith and its corroborating reports indicate that once a disbeliever enters Islam, his blood and property become sacrosanct, for he is now counted among the Muslims.

3 – Conversely, the implicit sense of the ḥadith, supported by other texts, shows that whoever refuses Islam must be fought until he submits, in obedience to Allah’s command: “Fight them until there is no persecution” (al-Baqarah 2:193).