And they attacked your religion and slandered it and criticized it. So fight the leaders of disbelief; fight them. The leaders of disbelief have taken the place of their conscience, indicating that if they broke their oath in a state of polytheism, rebellion, and tyranny, and abandoned the customs of the noble and loyal Arabs, then they believed, established prayer, and gave zakat, and became brothers to the Muslims in religion, then they returned and apostatized from Islam and broke what they pledged regarding faith and loyalty to the covenants. They sat and attacked the religion of Allah and said that the religion of Muhammad is nothing. They are the leaders of disbelief and those who have authority and precedence in it; no disbeliever can surpass them. They said: If the idols attack the religion of Islam with an apparent attack, it is permissible to kill him, because the covenant is made with him not to attack. If he attacks, he has broken his covenant and has exited from the protection. Indeed, they have no oaths. The plural of oath is 'yamin'. It has been read as: they have no faith, meaning they have no Islam. Or they do not give protection after apostasy and breaking the covenant, and there is no way to it. If you say: How did He affirm for them the oaths in His saying: 'And if they break their oaths' and then deny it from them? I say: He meant their oaths that they showed, then He said: They have no true oaths, and their oaths are not oaths. With this, Abu Hanifa, may Allah have mercy on him, used as evidence that the oath of the disbeliever is not an oath. And according to Al-Shafi'i, may Allah have mercy on him, their oath is an oath. He said: Its meaning is that they do not fulfill it, as evidenced by His description of it as breaking. 'Perhaps they may cease' is related to His saying: 'So fight the leaders of disbelief,' meaning that your aim in fighting them, after what you have found from them of great sins, should be that the fighting may be a cause for their ceasing from what they are upon. This is from the utmost of His generosity and grace, and His returning to the wrongdoer with mercy whenever he returns. If you say: How is the word 'leaders'? I say: It has two hamzas, one after the other, meaning: between the articulation points of the hamza and the ya. The verification of the two hamzas is a well-known reading, even if it is not accepted by the Basri scholars. As for the explicit mention of the ya, it is not a reading. It is not permissible for it to be a reading. Whoever explicitly mentioned it is not a correct reader.