al-Shāfiʿī, for his part, held that the very fact of disbelief renders a person’s blood licit, save that women and children were spared because they are deemed the property of the Muslims).

• He also said in al-Fatāwā (28/660): “The majority maintain that no one is to be put to death except those who in some way assisted the enemy in combat; otherwise he is treated like women and children. Others, however, contend that sheer disbelief is what makes killing permissible, and that women and children were exempted only because they are property.”
  And the instances of this in that book are exceedingly numerous.