Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah (1), may Allah have mercy on him, said: “The basic rule is that human blood is inviolable and may be shed only with just cause. Killing a person solely for his unbelief is not something on which the revealed laws have unanimously agreed, nor is it in the same category within any single law as execution in retaliation, for the latter is a matter about which neither the divine laws nor sound intellects differ.”