Illuminating Sayings
• Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah, may Allah have mercy on him, said: “Disbelievers are fought only when they take up arms, as the majority of scholars affirm and as the Book and the Sunnah indicate—this is expounded elsewhere.” Al-Nubuwwāt, p. 140.
• Ibn al-Qayyim, may Allah have mercy on him, said: “Retributive killing has been legislated in response to armed hostility, not for the mere fact of disbelief. For that reason women, children, the chronically ill, the blind, and monks who do not fight are not to be killed; rather, we fight only those who fight us.” Aḥkām Ahl al-Dhimmā, 1/110.
• He also said: “He never coerced anyone into the religion; he fought only those who fought him. Whoever made peace with him or entered into a truce, he neither fought nor compelled to embrace his faith, in obedience to the command of his Lord … Whoever studies the Prophet’s life will realize that he never forced anyone into his religion. He fought only those who fought him, and as for anyone who maintained his treaty, the Prophet did not fight him so long as he upheld it.” Hidāyat al-Ḥayārā, 1/12.