“They ask you about fighting in the sacred month” (al-Baqarah 2:217).
A later instruction to fight hostile polytheists is sometimes brought forward as though it completely cancels the discussion of the sacred months. The two passages, however, must be analyzed with regard to aggression, oppression, necessity, and the specific situation described.
Permission in a severe exception is not automatically universal cancellation of the sanctity attached to the month. The interpretive distinction is between an exception that preserves the surrounding rule and technical abolition of that rule.