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364chapter sixreligious sects. This early split in MuÈammad’s (ß) community hadinitially nothing to do with either the pillars of al-isl§m or al-Êm§n,but it eventually led to a scholarly revisionism by which the pillarsof al-Êm§n were given preference over the pillars of al-isl§m.Having learned the lesson from the political schism of Islam’s earlyhistory, we propose to establish a new basis on which we canstrengthen the human, universal character of al-isl§m which overridesall narrow interests of party politics. The truth of al-isl§m does notlie in being capitalist or socialist or in promoting the manifestos ofa Labour Party or a Conservative Party, before anything else, al-isl§mpromotes humanity. It does not favour one social class over anotherand it does not put the views of medieval fuqah§", #ulam§", and theCompanions over anyone else. It does not accept the exclusivistnotion of an Arab morality, nor does it believe in the existence of anon-Arab morality. There is only one morality, which is the moralityof humanity. What appears as Arab or non-Arab are rather customsand traditions that can be overcome, albeit with difficulty and onlyover a long period of time.Let us finally come to the frequently discussed clash between traditionand modernity that modernist discourse proposes. For us, it isa clash of two different epistemologies; one based on modern methodsof historicism, historic al-critical research, and dialectical, philosophicalthinking, and one that is based on medieval terminologieswhich have come to us as empty signifiers that have lost their meaning.The semantic content of these terms that once fitted nicely intothe politic al-historical context in which they were created has becomeentirely anachronistic in our different, modern context. Unlike modernepistemologies that have their origin in the study of reality, thesetraditional epistemologies avoid reality by remaining in a past thatdisappeared a long time ago. This is the terminology of fiqh, kal§m,tafsÊr, and ÈadÊth.“Prescribe What Is Right and Proscribe What Is Wrong”In this section we propose to correct the fuqah§"s’ interpretation ofthe Book’s injunction ‘to prescribe what is right and to proscribe whatis wrong’ ( al-amr bi’l-ma#råf wa’l-nahy #an al-munkar). In the hands ofour honourable jurists, this divine injunction has been turned into aslogan for the justification of dictatorial rule and autocratic