then others are even more entitled to the same treatment (1).
It therefore amounts to a prohibition on concluding truces with the unbelievers on any basis other than the payment of jizya and humble subjection. In the early days, when Islam was still weak, the Prophet would make peace with unbelievers—both polytheists and People of the Book—without demanding jizya or such subservience, and the people of Khaybar, after its conquest, were allowed to remain in their land without being charged jizya. The verse of jizya abrogated that practice; hence he accepted jizya from the Magians even though they are not People of the Book. This is the position of most scholars: that it is permissible to make peace with any group of unbelievers on the basis of jizya and humble submission.
This accords (2) with the foundational principle upheld by the majority, namely that if
(1) Shaykh al-Islam states in Minhaj al-Sunnah, 8/515: “Concerning the fact that no jizya was taken from them—that is, from the Arabs—was this because there were no longer any among them capable of fighting … or because it is unlawful to impose jizya on them and they must be fought until they accept Islam? On the first view, jizya may be collected from all other unbelievers, as affirmed by most jurists. These jurists argue that when the Prophet commanded that the People of the Book be fought ‘until they pay the jizya with their own hands while humbled’ and forbade making a treaty with them without jizya—as had initially been allowed—this implicitly indicates that those below them, namely the pagans, are even more clearly not to be granted a truce without jizya; rather, they are to be fought until they pay the jizya with their own hands in a state of submission.”
(2) The printed edition erroneously reads: “Bab” (chapter).