Section

All of this applies when they can be apprehended. If, however, the ruler or his deputies lawfully seek them in order to enforce the prescribed penalty (1), but they resist, then, by scholarly consensus, the Muslims must fight them until they have all been apprehended. Whenever they will not submit except through fighting that may result in all of them being killed, they are to be fought even if it leads to that result (2), whether or not they have previously killed anyone. In the course of the fighting, they may be killed by whatever means possible, whether by striking the neck or elsewhere.

Those who fight alongside them to protect and assist them are also to be fought. This is combat, whereas the other is enforcement of a prescribed penalty. Fighting such people is among the most imperative (3) forms of fighting groups that refuse to abide by the laws of Islam. They have banded together to violate lives and property and to destroy crops and progeny. Their aim is not to uphold (4) any religion or establish any rule.

They resemble brigands who take refuge in a fortress, cave, mountain summit, valley floor, or the like and waylay those who pass by. When the ruler’s troops come seeking to bring them back into the Muslim community and into obedience so that the prescribed penalties may be enforced, they fight and repel them. Examples include Bedouins who waylay pilgrims (5) or block other routes; mountain folk who entrench themselves on mountain summits or in caves to waylay travelers; and confederates who have entered into alliances to block the road between Syria and Iraq, calling this al-nahīda—for they