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political islam 377means that the Prophet (ß) must have issued on average nine ÈadÊthsper hour which is, of course, absurd. Because of this very shaky basisfor the authenticity of most ÈadÊths and the likelihood that a considerablenumber were fabricated during the Umayyad and #Abb§sidperiods, we believe it is, a) dishonest to assert the authenticity of theÈadÊths, and b) illegitimate to construct a body of texts, called sunna,on the basis of such dubious evidence (fabricated ÈadÊths) and thenoblige Muslim-Believers to use it as a binding source of law. Weknow that legal rulings can only be found in MuÈammad’s (ß) message,not his sunna, and that if the sunna was to be binding it wouldmean a good deal of hardship (socially, psychologically, and financially)for most people today, which contradicts the Book’s imperativethat ‘God intends every facility for you; He does not want to put youto difficulties…’ ( Al-Baqara 2:185). And yet, we also know that afterMuÈammad’s (ß) death, the community of believers increased moreand more, with the Empire becoming diverse and heterogeneous inits composition. Diversity led to tensions and people began to disagreeabout the correct way of eating, drinking, dressing, and sleepingby quoting the example of the Prophet (ß) to substantiate theirown positions and refute others. Every little dispute was transformedinto a battle over the right methodology, creating separate schoolsfor every single issue or particular opinion. 39 This situation not onlyresulted in several schisms within the community, best illustrated bythe Battle of the Camel and the Battle at ‘iffÊn in 36 A.H., it alsoled to further confusion over the term kab§"ir, which now came to bedefined according to the positions of the schools, sectarian conflicts,and dynastic rivalries that more and more obscured the originalconcept of the Book.Let us therefore return once more to the original source, the Book.We said earlier that prohibitions express the negative aspect of divinelegislation, and that ‘major sins’ are formulated as prohibitions, someof them in the form of absolute taboos. The difference between (thegeneric form of ) prohibition and absolute taboos (which is one spe-39Because of his very realistic view on humans, MuÈammad (ß) had alreadyanticipated that his new message would not overnight change people’s behaviour:‘When they attain knowledge, people are like treasure-troves; those who, amongthem, were better [in that] in the J§hiliyya period are also better [in that] in Islam.’MuÈammad Abå #Abdall§h al-Bukh§rÊ, al-J§mi# al-ßaÈÊÈ (Beirut: D§r Ibn KathÊr,1987), vol. 3, 1238, 1288 (ÈadÊth nos. 3203, 3303); Muslim Abå’l-\usaynal-NÊs§bårÊ, ‘aÈÊÈ (Beirut: D§r al-JÊl, n.d.), vol. 7, 181 (ÈadÊth no. 2526).