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the sunna of the prophet 107or needed further elaboration or additional explanations. 40 Webelieve that if Allah had thought it necessary to add explanations Hewould have given them within the Book. This was, of course, not necessaryas we hear in the following two verses:“Shall I seek for judge other than God? When He it is who has sentunto you the book, explained in detail [mufaßßal an ].”… ( Al-An#§m6:114)And if the apostle were to invent any sayings in our name, We shouldcertainly seize him by his right hand, and We should certainly thencut off the artery of his heart. ( Al-\§qa 69:44–46).From the second verse, taken from Sårat Al-\§qa, we realise thatfabricating lies about Allah includes words of defamation and slanderas well as words of praise and glorification. But even if these fabricationscontain praise and glorification they still remain spurious wordsput into the mouth of Allah. Even if positive and well-intended, theyare still fabrications for which Allah’s punishment is, as we hear in69:46, very severe. God forbid that the Prophet might have donesuch a thing!10. Personal statements:These are the aȧdÊth al-Èay§t al-ins§nÊ which cover the sayings aboutMuÈammad’s personal life, his eating and sleeping habits, his favouritepastimes, his way of dressing, speaking, travelling, walking, running,hunting, and so on. They also include his kindness,good-naturedness, tolerance, courage, and his feelings about justiceand injustice, truth and falsehood, hardship and welfare, and soforth. We hear and thoroughly absorb all these biographical details40A ÈadÊth qudsÊ is, according to the #ulåm al-qur"§n scholars, defined as a saying ofGod that was spoken through the medium of the Prophet. It is also called waÈy ghayrmatlå, nonrecited revelation, in order to distinguish it from waÈy matlå, recited revelation,which is the Qur"an. While the Qur"an is the actual word of Allah (verbatim), aÈadÊth qudsÊ contains God’s message expressed in the words of the Prophet. TheQur"an enjoys, at least theoretically, superior status due to several theological andÈadÊth-specific considerations, for example, due to the fact that the Qur"an was narratedthrough taw§tur (multilateral) chains of transmission, while the aȧdÊth qudsiyyawere narrated only by a khabar w§Èid (solitary) chain of transmission (see Mann§#KhalÊl al-Qaãã§n, Mab§Èith fÊ #ulåm al-qur"§n (Riyadh: Maktabat al-Ma#§rif li’l-Nashrwa’l-TawzÊ#, 2000), 22). The fact that the Islamic tradition acknowledges the existenceof divine revelation outside the covers of the Qur"an is unacceptable to MS asit opens up the possibility of divine inspirations that are expressed in human words—a possibility too close to the claims of sanctity of Islamic fiqh that MS wants to combat.