better salutation, or at least return the same; for God taketh an
account of all things. God! there is no God but he; he will surely
gather you together on the day of resurrection; there is no doubt of it:
and who is more true than God in what he saith? Why are ye divided
concerning the ungodly into two parties; since God hath overturned them
for what they have committed? Will ye direct him whom God hath led
astray; since for him whom God shall lead astray, thou shalt find no
true path? They desire that ye should become infidels, as they are
infidels, and that ye should be equally wicked with themselves.
Therefore take not friends from among them, until they fly their country
for the religion of God; and if they turn back from the faith, take
them, and kill them wherever ye find them; and take no friend from among
them, nor any helper, except those who go unto a people who are in
alliance with you, for those who come unto you, their hearts forbidding
them either to fight against you, or to fight against their own people.
And if God pleased he would have permitted them to have prevailed
against you, and they would have fought against you. But if they depart
from you, and fight not against you and offer you peace, God doth not
allow you to take or kill them. Ye shall find others who are desirous to
enter into a confidence with you, and at the same time to preserve a
confidence with their own people: so often as they return to sedition,
they shall be subverted therein; and if they depart not from you, and
offer you peace, and restrain their hands from warring against you, take
them and kill them wheresoever ye find them; over these have we granted
you a manifest power. It is not lawful for a believer to kill a
believer, unless it happen by mistake; and whoso killeth a believer by
mistake, the penalty shall be the freeing of a believer from slavery,
and a fine to be paid to the family of the deceased,[74] unless they
remit it as alms: and if the slain person be of a people at enmity with
you, and be a true believer, the penalty shall be the freeing of a
believer; but if he be of a people in confederacy with you, a fine to be
paid to his family, and the freeing of a believer. And he who findeth
not wherewith to do this, shall fast two months consecutively, as a
penance enjoined from God; and God is knowing and wise. But whoso
killeth a believer designedly, his reward shall be hell; he shall remain
therein forever; and God sh