likewise many people have never seen its signs and proofs. Instead, they may belittle it and marshal arguments to show it false—especially since, among those outwardly subdued by the sword, there are many hypocrites. Such people are to be engaged through knowledge and clarification, not by sword and spear.

This is confirmed by

The Seventh Consideration:

Combat is undertaken only against one who commits injustice, for whoever fights the Muslims can only be a wrongful aggressor; and whoever has had the proof established against him yet then opposes the Messenger after guidance has become clear to him and follows a way other than that of the believers is likewise nothing but unjust.

As for disputation, it too may be directed at an oppressor—either someone who maligns the religion out of sheer wrongdoing, or one upon whom the manifest proof has been set forth yet he refuses to accept it. But it may also be with a seeker of guidance who is pursuing the truth that has not yet reached him; or with someone to whom certain signs and evidences of Muhammad’s prophethood—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—have reached, yet those signs are confronted in his mind by doubts that contradict them, requiring answers to those objections; or with a person who wishes to learn the proofs of prophethood in a manner that will make them clear to him.

If, then, fighting—which serves only to repel an aggressor’s injustice—is itself sanctioned,