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political islam 343circulating a ÈadÊth that calls the believers to follow (all!) of Mu Èammad’s(ß) companions: ‘My companions are like the stars. Whichever[of them] you follow, you obtain guidance." 7It is obvious to everyone that such accounts of apostasy are inclear breach of the rules of the Book. Later exegetes such as al-R§zÊand al-ZamakhsharÊ were victims of a scholarly ethos that, a) regardedthe Companions as infallible and b) took their accounts as sacrosanct,resulting in doctrines that mutated ‘historical Islam’ into ‘Islamichistory’, a form of revisionism through which purely historical narrativesturn into sanctified heritage, and heritage into legislation. Bythe time al-R§zÊ and al-ZamakhsharÊ wrote their commentaries, theycould not but accept at face value the texts of the tradition whichhad acquired an authority that they did not dare to challenge. Atthe root of this problem lay the earlier fuqah§"s’ search for a passagein the Book with the help of which their masters and employers, thatis, the despotic rulers of the Umayyad and Abbasid dynasties, couldlegitimise the liquidation of their political opponents as a preventivemeasure for the protection of religion. When the fuqah§" realised thatthey could find nothing in the Book that served this purpose, theymoved on to the prophetical Sunna searching for a suitable ÈadÊth.Yet again, they could not find a rule that demands the killing of anapostate. Finally, they searched the sÊra biographies of the Prophet(ß) and made a strike. They referred to reports that claim thatMuÈammad (ß) had ordered the killing of the clan of the BanåMudlaj (because of the apostasy of al-Aswad al-#AnasÊ), the killing ofthe clan of the Banå \anÊfah (because of the apostasy of Musaylimaal-Kadhdh§b), and the killing of the clan of the Banå Asad (becauseof the apostasy of •ulaiÈah b. Khuwaylid). Furthermore, theyclaimed to have found a ÈadÊth that quotes the Prophet (ß) saying that‘he who changes his religion, kill him’, and finally they managed toportray Abå Bakr and #Umar as acting only in the tradition of theProphet’s (ß) harsh words on apostasy when they persecuted andpunished clans and tribes which had apostacized.However, their claims can easily be contradicted in several ways, forexample:7Quoted from Ibn #Abd al-Barr Abå #Umar al-NumayrÊ, J§mi# bay§n al-#ilmwa-fa·lih (Dammam: D§r Ibn al-JawzÊ, 1994), vol. 2, 898 (ÈadÊth no. 1684).