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8.the theory of limits 217of hatred, greed, dishonesty, gluttony, and such must never bemodified or changed. In the third branch, that is, the legal sphere,the legislative verses of command (do!) and prohibition (do not!)permit the exercise of ijtih§d. However, traditional fiqh jurisprudence,obsessed with an almost pathological quest for ritual accuracy,has ignored the ethical sphere, blocked ijtih§d in newlegislation, and instead dealt with the smallest and most insignificantdetails of ritual behaviour. Our theory of limits puts the prioritiesright and allows ijtih§d for all legal verses, whether explicit naßßtexts or not, and retrieves the ethical underpinning of Islamic lawthat it once undoubtedly had.Finally, we believe that the theory of limits functions without theneed to resort to abrogations. In our view, the abrogation of legalverses within one and the same messengerhood never took place.If verses were abrogated then this was only between subsequentmessengerhoods, for example, between Moses and MuÈammad,as explained earlier. This implies that a new messengerhood couldeither amend or completely annul an earlier messengerhood or, ifno legal provision was given, introduce an entirely new rule. Traditionalfiqh has, on the contrary, been based on the acceptance ofabrogation within messengerhoods, assuming wrongly that the followingtwo verses support their false views:None of our revelations do We abrogate or cause to be forgotten, butWe substitute something better or similar… ( Al-Baqara 2:106)When We substitute one revelation for another…; and God knows bestwhat He reveals (in stages)… ( Al-NaÈl 16:101)We believe that both verses refer only to the abrogation of divinemessages (as a whole), not individual sentences of the divine text.This is based on our belief that Allah would not issue contradictivelegislation within one and the same messengerhood, whatever thehistorical situation. We believe in a succession of messages that arenaturally replaced by a new revelation. Thus we see ourselves todayin a wholly new postprophetic age in which, although formed andshaped by previous messengerhoods, we have matured to such adegree that we can be left alone to sort out legal problems withoutfurther divine messages. As we have shown, Allah has urged usunambiguously not to wait for new revelations but to rely on reasonin using what we have already been given.