The meaning of the saying of Allah the Exalted: “There is no compulsion in religion,” and reconciling it with the command to fight in the path of Allah

Question:
The Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success, asks: What is the meaning of the saying of Allah the Exalted: and how do we reconcile it with the command to fight in the path of Allah?

Answer:
Fighting in the path of Allah is not for the purpose of compelling people to accept the religion; rather, it is for the purpose of removing disbelief from the earth. As for forcing someone to enter Islam, we do not have that power, for hearts are in the hand of . So we do not fight people in order to compel them to Islam, but we fight them to restrain their hands from the Muslims, to stop them from blocking the path of Allah, to stop them from spreading disbelief, to remove the rule of disbelief from the people, and to place the people under the rule of Islam, which is the rule of Allah the Exalted and Glorified. As for guiding hearts, we do not have that power . So there is no contradiction between fighting in the path of Allah and . Fighting in the path of Allah is not for compulsion, but rather to restrain the evil of the disbelievers from the Muslims, and to clear the way for the Islamic call to proceed on the earth, so that whoever Allah wills to guide enters the religion of Allah. Removing the authority of the disbelievers, removing the authority of the disbelievers from the people, this is the intended meaning of fighting in the path of Allah.
As for us guiding someone and putting Islam in his heart when he does not want it, this is not in our hands; this is the meaning of the verse. It was also said that the verse was before fighting in the path of Allah became obligatory, and then it was abrogated by the obligation of fighting in the path of Allah. This is another opinion: that this verse was in the beginning , and then when fighting in the path of Allah came, it abrogated it. This is the second opinion. The third opinion is that “There is no compulsion in religion” is specific to the Jews and the Christians; that if they pay the tax on protected non-Muslims, they are left alone and it is accepted from them; they are left on their religion and the tax on protected non-Muslims is accepted from them. This is the third opinion. Yes.