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94chapter twocombined form of obedience only during MuÈammad’s (ß) lifetime.It designates the obedience of his followers to what he had decided,based on the principle of ‘tying and loosening’. While creating thefoundations of a new state amidst the political and cultural turmoilof his time, MuÈammad (ß) continuously exercised ijtih§d, sometimesloosening up to a maximum of permissibility, sometimes tying it upto an absolute minimum. He was by no means infallible in his ijtih§ds,while his decisions reflected the conditions of his time. His ijtih§dswere historical, relative, and contingent. 24 The decisions he took fellinto the categories of situational permissions and prohibitions andhad, since they were not explicit rules (aÈk§m) of the Book, only regionaland temporary significance. As historically contingent rules whichreflected the breadth and width of the limits that MuÈammad (ß)himself had set, they do not fall within the sphere of Allah’s limits.Unlike the limits of Allah, MuÈammad’s limits and the rules he‘placed in between’, for example, the prohibition of music, dance,singing, the visual arts, and such, enjoy neither absolute validity noreternal authority. If MuÈammad’s decisions were necessary at thetime he took them, they had all the flavour of the ancient society inwhich he lived.His prohibitions of music, dancing, singing, painting, sculpturing,for example, can be explained—only, of course, if one wants toexplain and justify them—by the prevailing idolatry of Arabiansociety. They were however never inserted into the text of the Bookand hence cannot be regarded as permanent injunctions. The concretemeasures that MuÈammad (ß) took against the idolatry of histime, originating in human (not divine) legislation, cannot be equatedwith the universal and eternal limits that Allah has set and whichare binding for us today. What we hear, instead, is the admonitionto keep away from the ‘filth of the idols’ ( al-rajas min al-auth§n), notfrom the idols as such. 25 The ÈadÊths, reflecting the cultural milieu of24In verse 59 of Sårat Al-Nis§" we hear that believers are asked not only to obeyGod and His Messenger but also ‘those charged with authority among you’. Thisrequires a detailed analysis that is given in chapter 6.25MS adds in a footnote: ‘That is, when MuÈammad forbade the worship oftombs he legislated against the worship, not the tombs as such. The same applies tothe worship of stars, trees, rocks, and statues! It is not the dancing, singing, andsculpturing that people should not do—rather, what instigated MuÈammad’s legislationwas the un-Islamic intention behind these things. It would imply mindless iconoclasmif the legislation was meant to rule out these things as such.’