He goes on to say: “In their case only one of two outcomes applies—armed combat or Islam. The Almighty did not say, ‘You will fight them or they will surrender until they surrender,’ nor did He say, ‘Fight them until they surrender.’ Instead, He portrayed them as either fighting or surrendering; and once fighting does take place, they are to be fought in the manner Allah has commanded until they pay the jizyah with their own hands while humbled.”

He also says in the same passage (8/516): “About His words, ‘When the sacred months have passed, then kill the polytheists wherever you find them, capture them, besiege them, and lie in wait for them at every ambush’ ⦗Quran 9:5⦘—and then, ‘But if they repent…’—He did not say, ‘Fight them until they repent.’”

He likewise states in al-Safdiyyah (2/321): “During the year of al-Hudaybiyyah they were commanded to fight those who fought them or concluded a treaty; afterwards they were commanded to fight those who fight or accept Islam. He did not say, ‘or accept Islam,’ for had he done so the meaning would have been ‘until they accept Islam,’ and fighting them would be required only up to that point.”

Fifth example: Shaykh al-Islām says in the abridged epistle: