Concerning the harm permissible towards the enemy: clearly harm can be towards property, or life, or to liberty [riqab, necks], by this I mean enslavement or taking possession. Harm as enslavement is permissible by way of universal consensus for all types of Idolaters [Mushrikun], by this I mean their males, their females, their elderly, their youth, insignificant or distinguished, except for monks. … Most of the scholars agree that the leader [imam] has the choice of several dispositions regarding captives, among them to show favor to them, to take them as slaves, to kill them, to take a ransom from them, or to levy tax [jizya] from them. … Harm towards life is to kill, and there is no disagreement among the Muslims that it is permissible in war to kill the Idolaters, males who have come of age and who fight. Regarding killing after taking captive, however, there is the disagreement we have mentioned. Similarly, there is no disagreement among them that it is not permissible to kill their youth or kill their women, as long as the women and youth are not fighting; if a woman fights, her blood becomes permissible. … They disagree regarding those who live in hermitages isolated from people, the blind, the chronically ill, the elderly who do not fight, the insane, peasants, and laborers. Malik said: Neither the blind nor the insane nor the hermits are to be killed, and they are left with whatever of their possessions suffice for them to live by. Similarly, the most advanced in years are not to be killed in his view, and this is what Abu Hanifa and his companions said. Al-Thawri and Al-Awza’i said that only the elderly are not to be killed. Al-Awza’i said that peasants are not to be killed. But Al-Shafi’i said, according to what is most correctly related from him, that all of these classes of people are to be killed. The reason for their disagreement is the disparity of certain reports in their matters of concern against the generality of the Book and the generality of what He (SAW) indisputably said: I have been ordered to fight people until they say “There is no god but Allah” [“La ilaha illa Allah”] and the rest of the hadith. This is also seen in the word of the Most High: { But when the sacred months have passed, kill the idolaters wherever you find them } [Al-tawba 5], which implies the killing of all idolaters, monks or otherwise, as does His (SAW) word: I have been ordered to fight people until they say “There is no god but Allah”.