– meaning: idolatry – and so that all religion is for Allah alone, as Ibn ʿAbbās and others have explained.
This, then, supports the stronger view: that fighting the unbelievers is not merely defensive. Its purpose is to ensure the advance of the call to Islam, to convey it to the people, and to remove those who stand in the way of its dissemination.
4 – Ibn Rajab said: It is known by necessity that the Prophet ﷺ would accept from anyone who wished to enter Islam nothing more than the two testimonies, granting him the protection of life thereby and counting him as a Muslim. He even rebuked Usāmah ibn Zayd for killing a man who had declared, “There is no god but Allah,” after the sword had been raised against him, and the Prophet’s censure was severe.
5 – Ibn Rajab also said: Some have imagined that the hadith means an unbeliever must be fought until he pronounces the two testimonies, establishes the prayer, and pays the zakah. This understanding is questionable, for the Prophet’s practice in his campaigns shows the contrary. In the authentic narration from Abū Hurayrah, the Prophet ﷺ summoned ʿAlī on the day of Khaybar, handed him the banner, and said: “Fight them until they bear witness that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah. If they do so, they have protected from you their blood and their wealth, except for what is rightfully due; their reckoning rests with Allah.” Thus, merely responding with the two testimonies suffices to safeguard life and property, except when a right is owed—and among those rights, as the Companions understood, are establishing the prayer and paying the zakah once one has entered Islam.
6 – Sharḥ al-Iqnaʿ states: The repentance of every unbeliever—whether a monotheist such as a Jew, or a non-monotheist such as a Christian, or an idol-worshipper—is his embracing Islam by testifying that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah. He becomes a Muslim even if he does not explicitly utter the words “I testify.”
7 – Ustādh Muḥammad Yāsīn said: Jihad is the lawful practical means for realising true beliefs among mankind, establishing justice among people, and eradicating the oppression of tyrants,