Whenever you encounter the ones who disbelieve [during war], seize them by their necks until once you have subdued them, then tie them up as prisoners, either in order to release them later on or also to ask for ransom, until war lays down her burdens . Thus shall you do-; yet if God so wished, He might defend Himself from them-in order that some of you may be tested by means of one another. The ones who have been killed in God’s way will never find their actions have been in vain;