Nandini: thanks for bringing this to the platform and curious of your to know: So, first of all we shall understand what all the Quran contains and how this has been revealed. 1. It contains the incidents of that time and response. 2. The problems and the solutions 3. The Questions and the answer. Also., the most important thing is that, the Quran is not in the chronological order, which means what you read in chapter 1 may be half and the remainder may be chapter 13, so, connecting the dots is very important. so undertand that this verse is basically for a particular situation where the treaty was made between the polytheists, And here is the context Surah 9 was revealed in 9 AH (around 630–631 CE), late in the Prophet’s life, after the conquest of Mecca (8 AH). It is one of the last major chapters. The opening section deals with remaining pagan Arab tribes after years of conflict, broken treaties, and the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah (6 AH). Quraysh and some allies had violated that treaty (notably Banu Bakr attacking Banu Khuza’ah, who were allied with the Muslims). So, this involves 4 holy months of muslims: Dhul-Qa’dah, Dhul-Hijjah, Muharram, and Rajab, where muslims pray and do not fight and the treaty was to get safe passage from the polytheists (Groups and allies of Kuraish) to give the safe path dutring these period, but they broke the treaty and started torturing and killing the muslims, And then it was revealed that if they do not litsen even after giving them time, dialogues and options then kill them. You missed one more thing where it says if they repent, pray or oay taxes then leave them free, God will forgive and shiow mercy. this is the whole context means, it was a specific period of time. For eg: Krishna in Mahabharata, according to Bhagwad geeta, ordered the killings of Pandavas, Guru Dronacharya why? because all the options were given to them but still tgey chose war and thats when the bansuri player Krishna, also had sudarshan chakra and ordered for the killings so that peace can be restored for the sake of faith. You need to look at contect and connections. let me put some verse from the quran which teaches compassion and love for others faith. Below