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the sunna of the prophet 111ijtih§d. Our ijtih§d should be based on reason and modern scientificthinking in full compliance with the Book and objective reality.5. The tradition and customs of the companions of the Prophet haveno binding authority. They only have value as historical information.In Islamic fiqh, the consensus of the fuqah§" should be replacedby the consensus of living people who issue laws through contemporaryinstitutions such as legislative assemblies and parliaments.We believe that living people are far more competent to solve currentsocial and economic problems than MuÈammad’s (ß) companionsand their successors who lived 1,400 years ago. However, ifby chance, their decisions happen to be suitable for some of ourcurrent problems we would, of course, not be foolish enough toreject them. But they should not to be applied in principle, and inany case only after a search for more contemporary solutions hasfailed.6. Ijtih§d, qualified and within well-defined boundaries, is not onlylegitimate but also necessary. We reject all claims that an ijtih§d ofso-called naßß verses 42 is forbidden and that ijtih§d is only allowed ifa verse does not contain an explicit ruling, that is, a non-naßß verse.But what is the purpose of an ijtih§d outside the realm of suchexplicit naßß rulings? Outside the realm of naßß, that is, outside thelegal verses that possess legislative significance, the law-giver maylegislate whatever he wants (because it would have no legal relevance).We aim to introduce a new Islamic philosophy and a newIslamic jurisprudence. We want to secure an historical continuitywith previous generations of Muslims by maintaining the shah§daof ‘there is no god but God, MuÈammad is the messenger of God’,by maintaining the fundamental ethical principles and by maintainingthe fixed forms of ritual obligations as they were taught bythe Prophet (ß). All other areas of religious and social conduct donot need to be maintained, since our ‘becoming’ requires an adaptationof the message to the needs of our own time which are differentfrom the needs of our forefathers in seventh-century Arabia.The sole criterion of exercising a legitimate ijtih§d is, hence, not theexistence or nonexistence of a naßß text, but the degree of congruence42The fiqh rule of naßß regulations implies that no ijtih§d is allowed in a matter ofexplicit qur"anic injunctions (e.g. the Èudåd punishments). MS wants, in contrast, toexercise ijtih§d on exactly these naßß injunctions. An interpretation outside the realmof naßß verses he calls al-ta"wÊl, not ijtih§d.