and contradicts what is firmly established among scholars and people of discernment.

The reality is that Shaykh al-Islam does not deny initiating combat against the unbelievers or pursuing them; he simply did not address the matter explicitly in the portion of the treatise that has been quoted. Otherwise, the question of beginning hostilities—when the Muslims are strong—against those who resist the dissemination and establishment of Islam, or else demand that they pay the jizyah in humble submission, is a point the Qur’an and Sunnah have decisively settled, and it has always been the practice of the Ummah.

For this reason Shaykh al-Islam, after discussing elsewhere some of the matters touched on here, said:

(1) “When the verse on jizyah was revealed, there was no alternative but fighting or Islam; and if they did not embrace Islam, the fighting continued until they paid the jizyah, so these people became either combatants…"