Except for those who join a people between whom you have a covenant, or those who come to you with reluctance in their chests to fight you or to fight their own people. Had God willed He would have given them strength and they would have fought you. But if they retire from you, and did not fight you, and they offer you peace; then God does not make for you a way against them.
Translation endnotes
[4:89-91] Note the exception in 4:90. The apostates cannot be harmed unless they participate in a war against muslims (2:256). For the basic principles of war see 8:19; 60:8,9, and 9:29.