“…then besiege them, and lie in wait for them at every vantage-point. But if they repent, establish the prayer, and give the zakāh, then let them go their way.” (al-Tawbah 9:5)

This is what the jurists call “the Verse of the Sword.” In it Allah commands fighting the polytheists and the People of the Book until they pay the jizyah with their own hands while humbled.

For that very reason He says in Sūrat al-Fatḥ:

“You will be summoned to fight a people possessed of great might; you will fight them unless they submit.” (al-Fatḥ 48:16)

Those referred to are the Byzantines and the Persians, whose military strength exceeded that of the Arabs. They must therefore be faced with either combat or Islam. Once war is engaged, they are fought until they hand over the jizyah in person, in a state of submission. This differs from the period before the jizyah verse was revealed, for at that earlier time the Muslims would sometimes fight and sometimes conclude treaties without jizyah—just as the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, made agreements with Jews and polytheists in which no jizyah was taken. During the year of al-Hudaybiyah they were invited to fight those who wished to fight or to conclude a treaty; after that they were invited to fight those who fought them or to accept Islam. The wording is not “or until they accept Islam,” for that would mean combat remained obligatory until they became Muslims. Rather, once they pay the jizyah with their own hands while humbled, the fighting that has been enjoined is deemed to have been carried out.

After the revelation of the jizyah verse, the scholars disagreed as to whether it may be taken from