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the sunna of the prophet 79not as advanced as ours, by which we recognise the unstoppable,relentless progress of ‘becoming’ and ‘progressing’ in our scientificknowledge.We now understand much better why the Book is the only andultimate source of prophethood and messengerhood (not the sunna!).It is the only text that possesses the quality of ‘being’ in-and-for-itself,and therefore the only text that is sacred. No other text by a humanbeing, whether prophet or messenger, can ever claim to possess thesame level of sacredness as the Book.A Critique of the Traditional Understanding of the SunnaIn this section we refute the traditional understanding of the sunnawhich has caused serious damage to Arabic civilisation. Because‘becoming’ has been forced to stay locked in the period of the firstthree centuries of Islamic history, the traditional fixation on the sunnaof the Prophet (ß) has made Arab-Muslim societies—philosophicallyspeaking—flat, two dimensional. In contrast to other more threedimensionalcivilisations, Arab-Muslim societies have remained backwardand still display symptoms of cultural decay and intellectualstagnation. A traditional understanding of the sunna forces today’sjurists to make their legal decisions strictly analogous to those issuedbetween the seventh and the ninth centuries.The traditional view has it that the sunna relates to us the words,acts, good deeds, statements, and decisions of MuÈammad, God’sMessenger (ß). It requires us to emulate the example of the Prophet(ß) as rigidly as possible in our daily conduct. The following verse 21of Al-AÈz§b and two ÈadÊths 8 have often been cited to convince anddiscipline us:You have indeed in the Apostle of God a beautiful pattern (of conduct)for any one whose hope is in God and the Final Day, and who engagesmuch in the praise of God. ( Al-AÈz§b 33:21)The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace,said, “I have left two things to you. As long as you hold to them you8If this term refers to a specific saying of MuÈammad it is written with a smallinitial letter (i.e., ÈadÊth). If, however, it refers to the entire textual corpus of propheticsayings and the scholarly (Muslim) study of it, it is written with a capital, \adÊth.