Whoever reflects upon the Prophet’s ﷺ life will see that he never compelled anyone to accept his religion; he fought only those who fought him. As for anyone who concluded a truce with him, he never fought him so long as the treaty remained in force and was not broken. Rather, Allah the Exalted commanded him to honor their pacts (1) as long as they upheld them, as He says: “So long as they remain true to you, be true to them” (al-Tawbah 9:7).

When the Prophet ﷺ arrived in Medina he made a treaty with the Jews and left them upon their faith. When they later took up arms against him, violated the pact, and initiated hostilities, he fought them—granting amnesty to some, expelling others, and putting others to death (2).

In the same way, after he concluded a ten-year armistice with Quraysh, he did not begin any fighting until they began it and broke the treaty; only then did he march against them in their own territory (3). Before that, it was they who used to raid him, as they did at Uḥud, the Trench, and even at Badr—they were the ones who came out to fight him, and had they withdrawn, he would not have fought them.

The upshot is that the Prophet ﷺ never forced anyone at all to enter his religion. People embraced it by free choice and willingness; most of the world’s population entered his call once guidance became clear to them and they knew with certainty that he was truly the Messenger of Allah.

Consider the people of Yemen: most of them had followed Judaism. The Prophet ﷺ said to Muʿādh when he sent him to Yemen, “You are going to a people who are from the People of the Scripture, so let the first thing you call them to be