in enemy territory, as did Umm Kulthūm, concerning whom Allah revealed the verse on testing emigrant women:

“O you who believe, when believing women come to you as emigrants…”

Another example is preferring the taking of life to disbelief, as Allah Most High says:

“Persecution is worse than killing.”

Thus, those who cause people to be turned away from faith are killed, because the harm of disbelief is greater than the harm of taking a life. Likewise, amputating the thief’s hand, stoning the adulterer, and flogging the drinker of intoxicants take precedence over allowing the harm of theft, adultery, and drinking intoxicants. The same applies to all prescribed punishments. Although these are in themselves evils involving harm, Allah prescribed them only to avert something more harmful: the crimes for which they are imposed. That greater evil cannot be averted except through this lesser evil.

The same applies to “the subject of jihad.” Although killing women, children, and others who do not fight is forbidden, whenever fighting that may also affect them becomes necessary—such as using catapults or launching night attacks—it is permissible. This is established in the Sunnah concerning the siege of al-Tā’if and the use of catapults against its people, and concerning polytheist communities subjected to night attacks. Here, too, the evil of turning people away from faith is averted through the killing of people whom it is impermissible to target deliberately.

The same applies to “the question of human shields” discussed by the jurists. Jihad serves to ward off the trial of disbelief, while entailing harm less grave than that. The jurists have therefore agreed that whenever harm cannot be averted from Muslims except through action that leads to the deaths of those being used as shields, such action is permissible. If, however, no harm is feared, but