Islam while continuing to cling to their affiliation with it.

These apostate disbelievers, those who enter Islam without committing themselves to its laws, and those who renounce its laws but not its outward form—all must be fought, by the consensus of the Muslims, until they commit themselves to the laws of Islam, until there is no more fitnah and all religion is devoted to Allah, and until Allah’s word—His Book, with its commands, prohibitions, and accounts—is supreme.

This is if they remain in their own territory. How much more so if they seize Muslim lands—Iraq, Khurāsān, al-Jazīra, and Rūm? And how much more so if they advance against you and assault you unjustly and aggressively?

“Will you not fight a people who broke their oaths and intended to expel the Messenger, and who attacked you first? Do you fear them? Allah is more worthy of your fear, if you are believers.”

“Fight them: Allah will punish them at your hands, disgrace them, grant you victory over them, and heal the hearts of a believing people.”

“And He will remove the rage from their hearts. Allah turns in mercy to whomever He wills. Allah is All-Knowing, All-Wise.”

Know—may Allah set you right—that it is authentically established through numerous routes that the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said:

“A group of my community will continue to uphold the truth victoriously, unharmed by those who abandon them or oppose them, until the Hour comes.”

It is also established that they are in Syria.

In this turmoil, people have divided into three factions: the victorious faction, consisting of those who wage jihad against these people who spread corruption; and the opposing faction, consisting of these