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106chapter two7. Statements about the unseen world:These are the aȧdÊth al-akhb§r bi’l-ghayb, MuÈammad’s (ß) speculationsabout the unseen world. Because of the fact that he, as aprophet, had no special knowledge about the unseen world, it wouldbe improper for us to take his words as truth. Like every humanbeing, he could only believe in the existence of the unseen worldand, like every human being, could only confirm things of the unseenworld if they became empirically perceptible, for example, by scientificresearch. If such things had not been sufficiently researched,he—like everyone else—had to rely on what the Book says about it.Moreover, since the things of the unseen world are part of the ontologicalreality of the cosmos they were above and beyond the sphereof al-Êm§n and hence, strictly speaking, not in MuÈammad’s area ofexpertise (see chapter 1).8. Statements about legal injunctions:These are the aȧdÊth al-aÈk§m which comprise every legal injunctionand every piece of legislation that MuÈammad (ß) issued. They arein strict compliance with the verses of the Book and between the limitsthat Allah has set. They are, as we have pointed out, only informativefor us, since, as orders of his time, they show us how MuÈammad(ß) applied the divine injunctions to the contingent social and politicalproblems that he faced in ancient Arabia. His statements have nonnormativevalue for us because they merely reflect his activities as amujtahid who responded to the needs of his time and who appliedrulings that the objective conditions of his society made necessary.Due to their historical contingency our ijtih§ds may considerably deviatefrom his ijtih§ds—even if this does not diminish our love for theProphet MuÈammad (ß)!Sacred statements9. :This category refers traditionally to the aȧdÊth al-qudsiyya about theunseen world which, as the name indicates, were thought to beinspired by divine revelation. However, we cannot accept them assacred or divine for the same reasons as given for the aȧdÊth al-akhb§rbi’l-ghayb: MuÈammad (ß), as Prophet, simply could not have spokensuch words, as his knowledge of the unseen world amounted basicallyto nothing. Moreover, we reject the existence of such sacred statementsbecause they imply that the Book was in some way ambiguous