Muslim 4390 is the canonical statement of the classical Islamic doctrine of jihad's three options. When Muslim forces encounter non-Muslims, they must offer in sequence:

1. Conversion to Islam — accept the shahada, become a Muslim, fighting ceases. 2. Jizya — non-Muslim People of the Book may pay the jizya tax and live under dhimmi status. (Note: this option is not available to polytheists in classical Sunni reading; for them, conversion is the only alternative to fighting.) 3. Combat — if the previous two are refused, fighting commences.

The hadith is sahih in Muslim and parallels appear in Abu Dawud 2612, Tirmidhi 1408, Ibn Majah, and Ahmad. The three-option framework is preserved consistently across narrators. Majid Khadduri, War and Peace in the Law of Islam (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1955), the foundational Western academic analysis of Islamic international law, identifies this framework as the structural basis of jihad doctrine: the Muslim community exists in permanent tension with the non-Muslim world, and the three options represent the classical resolution of that tension.

The hadith is the operational complement to the more declarative Muslim 33 ('I have been commanded to fight people until they convert'). Muslim 33 establishes the goal; Muslim 4390 establishes the procedure. Together they form the classical jihad framework.

The theological and ethical analysis:

1. The sequence is structured for conquest. The three options are presented as a sequence the conquering force offers to the targeted population. The first option (conversion) is preferred. The second (jizya) is acceptable for People of the Book. The third (combat) follows refusal of the first two. This is the structure of an offensive military doctrine, not a defensive one.

2. The role of polytheists. For polytheists (mushrikun), classical fiqh in most schools held that only conversion was acceptable — jizya was not offered. This is a more severe framework: convert or die. Hanafis sometimes extended jizya to non-Arab polytheists, but the principal Sunni schools restricted jizya to Ahl al-Kitab (People of the Book — primarily Jews and Christians, with later jurisprudential extension to Zoroastrians). Robert Spencer, The History of Jihad: From Muhammad to ISIS (Bombardier Books, 2018), documents this distinction in practice: Hindus, Jains, and Buddhists — not recognised as People of the Book — faced conversion or the sword with no jizya option, as Muslim armies applied the framework across the Indian subcontinent. Rudolph Peters, Jihad in Classical and Modern Islam: A Reader (Markus Wiener, 1996), provides the classical juristic texts from the Maliki, Shafi'i, and Hanbali schools confirming that the jizya option was not available to polytheists.

3. The implementation of dhimmi status. The 'jizya' option, while less harsh than the sword, established second-class legal status. Dhimmis paid the special tax in humiliation (per Q 9:29), wore distinguishing clothing, faced restrictions on building, riding, weapons, court testimony, and religious display. The 'option' was conditional toleration, not religious equality. The classical exegetes were explicit about the intent: Ibn Kathir, in his Tafsīr al-Qur'ān al-'Aẓīm, glosses the Quranic phrase "while they feel themselves subdued" (Q 9:29) as meaning the dhimmis must be "disgraced, humiliated and belittled," adding that Muslims are not permitted to honour the people of the dhimma or elevate them above believers — a gloss that makes clear jizya was not conceived as a neutral fiscal arrangement but as a ritual expression of religious inferiority. Bat Ye'or, The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians Under Islam (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1985), provides the fullest historical documentation of these restrictions in practice across centuries of Caliphate rule, describing jizya payment as explicitly ritualized humiliation — including physical postures of abasement — and cataloguing the legal disabilities (no weapons, inferior housing, restricted construction of churches, no testimony against Muslims) that operated consistently across Umayyad, Abbasid, and Ottoman administration. Milka Levy-Rubin, Non-Muslims in the Early Islamic Empire: From Surrender to Coexistence (Cambridge University Press, 2011), traces the emergence of the Pact of 'Umar from the earliest surrender agreements, showing that the restrictions codified in that document developed organically from the first-generation conquest terms and were formalised under the early Abbasids — confirming that the dhimmi system was not a later aberration but continuous with the Prophetic-era framework of Muslim 4390. Mark Durie, The Third Choice: Islam, Dhimmitude and Freedom (Deror Books, 2010), provides a focused analysis of the three-option doctrine and its contemporary implications, arguing that the "third choice" — dhimma/surrender — constitutes not humanitarian tolerance but structured subjugation.

4. Historical application. The Rashidun, Umayyad, Abbasid, and Ottoman Caliphates conquered territory under this framework. Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians in conquered lands faced the three-option choice. The choice produced gradual conversion of large populations (often under economic and social pressure of dhimmi status), enduring minorities under permanent restrictions, and occasional violent persecutions when the dhimma compromised.

5. Modern application. ISIS, in Syria and Iraq (2014-2017), explicitly applied the three-option framework to Christian and Yazidi populations. Christians were given the choice to convert, pay jizya, or face death — many fled, some converted, some were killed. ISIS's application was a direct reading of Muslim 4390.

6. The 'invite them' language. Muhammad's instruction is that the conquering force first 'invites' the targeted population. This 'invitation' (daʿwa) language is the basis for understanding Islamic missionary efforts as connected to military conquest in classical practice. The invitation is not optional outreach; it is the precondition for the threat that follows.

7. Comparison with modern just-war theory. Modern just-war doctrine requires that warfare have just cause (response to aggression), legitimate authority, proportional means, and reasonable prospects of success. None of these requires that the targets accept the religion of the attackers as the alternative to combat. The three-option framework violates the fundamental modern principle that religious belief should not be coerced by military force.