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the sunna of the prophet 99greater and smaller sins (53:32: ‘only small faults’), but in terms ofthose acts that violate absolute taboos, ‘capital crimes’ ( al-muÈarram§t),no qualitative distinction is made between great and small. A small‘capital crime’ is a contradiction in terms and does not exist.Al-muÈarram§t are ‘capital crimes’ that are to be equated with ‘majorsins’. They are absolutely forbidden and must be avoided.Let us examine the two acts that Allah prohibited in these verses:spying on each other and slander. We deduce from this that spyingon your neighbour and your friends and identifying their weak pointsfor public slander is unacceptable. These things do, indeed, lead toserious friction in society and an acute deterioration in social relationships.That is the reason why He ordered us to abstain fromthem and why He categorized spying and slander as unjustifiablesins. However, if one has to spy on the enemy of a country by collectingintelligence from abroad, this constitutes, in contrast, a necessaryand useful activity or is, as we call it, a justifiable sin that is notincluded in Allah’s sanction.The same applies to slander. If we gather information about someone’sshortcomings and imperfect character traits in order to defamethis person, it is, even if true, an abdominal act or an unjustified sinthat Allah has prohibited. But if a person enquires about someone’slife and character because of an intention to marry into the familyor a desire to start a business with someone, speaking openly aboutmoral or social deficiencies might be necessary in order to preventgreat harm. In this case, calumny is a justifiable sin since it has atleast some merit. We learn from Allah’s differing treatment of sinsthat prohibition can be either absolute or conditional, depending onthe intention or purpose behind the sinful act.The same applies to the problem of drinking alcohol. Some juristshave said that alcohol inevitably implies a state of intoxication, eventhough the drinking of alcohol does not necessarily always lead todrunkenness. These jurists have completely forbidden alcohol underthe pretext that an absolute taboo helps to prevent further harm. Intheir eyes, the conditioned prohibition (nahy) of alcohol in the Bookjustifies their absolute prohibition (taÈrÊm) of it. Our position, however,is that a conditioned prohibition does not justify an absolutetaboo since a taboo implies, as we have explained earlier, a differentquality of scope, validity, and authority. No one can possibly denythe fact that alcohol can be potentially beneficial, for example if itis used as an anaesthetic in surgical operations. In these circumstances