The third course is that they offer a payment in exchange for being granted a request and a truce. It is permissible for the commander to accept it from them and conclude a truce with them in return. This is of two kinds.
The first is that they offer it for the present occasion only and do not make it a continuing tribute. This payment is booty, because it was acquired through the deployment of horses and riders; it is therefore distributed among the combatants. It also grants them safe conduct to withdraw from fighting in this campaign, but it does not preclude fighting them in the future.
The second is that they offer it every year, in which case it becomes a continuing tribute and security is established thereby. What is taken from them in the first year is booty, to be distributed among the combatants, while what is taken in subsequent years is fayʾ—property acquired without fighting—to be distributed among those entitled to receive it. It is not permissible to resume the jihad against them so long as they continue to make this payment, because the truce has established safe conduct for their lives and property. If they withhold the payment, the truce lapses, their safe conduct ends, and fighting them becomes obligatory; they then become like the other belligerent enemies.
If the belligerent enemies bring a gift as their initial offer, no covenant is established for them by that gift, and it is permissible to fight them afterward, because a covenant is a metonym for a contract.
The fourth course is that they ask for safe conduct and a truce. This is permissible when victory over them is unattainable and payment can be obtained from them. The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) concluded a ten-year truce with Quraysh at Hudaybiyyah. Abu Bakr mentioned this in Kitāb al-Khilāf (The Book of Juristic Disagreement). If he concludes a truce with them for longer than ten years, the excess period of the truce is invalid.
If they violate the covenant, they become belligerents and may be fought without prior notice. Quraysh violated the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah, so the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) marched against them in the year of the Conquest and conquered Mecca by force. If they violate the covenant, it is not permissible to kill the hostages of theirs who are in our custody.
Abu Bakr cited this in al-Khilāf, in the final sections of the chapters on al-Siyar (the laws of warfare), saying: “Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥusayn informed me: I found in my brother’s book: al-Mubārak ibn Sulaymān related to me that Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal was asked about a group of polytheists with whom we had a written treaty: they would neither raid us nor we raid them; they would not kill any of our merchants, nor would we kill any of theirs; and they gave us hostages in return. Then they violated the agreement and killed people. What is your view concerning the hostages? He replied: ‘They bear no liability.’” The apparent implication of this is that they may not be killed.