And slay them wherever you come upon them and expel them from where they expelled you that is from Mecca and this was done after the Conquest of Mecca; sedition their idolatry is more grievous more serious than slaying them in the Sacred Enclosure or while in a state of pilgrimage inviolability the thing that you greatly feared. But fight them not by the Sacred Mosque that is in the Sacred Enclosure until they should fight you there; then if they fight you there slay them there a variant reading drops the alif in the three verbs sc. wa-lā taqtilūhum hattā yaqtulūkum fa-in qatalūkum so that the sense is ‘slaying’ in all three and not just ‘fighting’ — such killing and expulsion is the requital of disbelievers.