{ Fight in the cause of Allah those who fight you, and do not transgress; indeed Allah does not love those who transgress. And kill them wherever you get to them, and drive them away from where they drove you away; sedition is more severe than killing. But do not fight them at the Sacred Mosque until they fight you there, then if they fight you, kill them; such is the retribution of the Disbelievers. If they cease, indeed Allah is forgiving and merciful. And fight them until there is no more sedition and religion belongs to Allah; and if they cease, there is no hostility except against those who oppress } Al-baqara 190-193

The word of the Most High: { And fight them until there is no more sedition and religion belongs to Allah; and if they cease, there is no hostility except against those who oppress } ; there are two points concerning this. The first: { And fight them } is an order to fight all Idolaters everywhere, based on the view of those who take this to be abrogating. Those who take this to be non-abrogating say: The meaning is “Fight those about whom Allah has said: { If they fight you }” ; the first view is the clearest. This is an unrestrained command to fight, with no condition that the Disbelievers initiate it; evidence for this is the word of the Most High: { And religion belongs to Allah } . He (peace be upon him) said: I have been commanded to fight people until they say: “There is no god but Allah” [“La ilaha illa Allah”]. Both the verse and the hadith make it clear that the reason for fighting is disbelief, since He said: { Until there is no more sedition } , that is, disbelief. He set the goal to be the absence of disbelief, and this is clear. Ibn ‘Abbas, Qatada, Rabi’, Al-Suddi, and others said: “Sedition” [fitnah] here is idolatry [shirk] and the harm to the Believers that this entails. … The second point is the word of the Most High: { And if they cease } : that is, from disbelief, either by Islam as stated earlier in the verse, or by fulfilling the jizya according to the duty of the People of the Book based on what is given in the “Absolution” [surah Al-tawba].