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political islam 381limits of Allah’s law we are faced with an area full of ambiguities.It is as the Prophet (ß) said: ‘The lawful is clear and the unlawful isclear, and in between are ambiguities." 43F. The prohibition ‘to say things about God without knowledge’ isbased on the Book’s injunction 7:33. 44 Widely known examples ofthings said without knowledge are the content of the fatw§s by ourhonourable scholars who have invented an increasing number ofabsolute taboos (close to a hundred by now), including the (absolute)ban on smoking, adopting children, surrogate motherhoods,listening to music, and singing in public. Even clearer examplesare their fatw§s which, by applying all sorts of legal tricks—applyingthe strategy of fraudem legis agere—allowed dubious monetary institutesto run their business under the name of ‘Islamic Banking’,which, to our mind, is just a different way of legalising seriousfinancial fraud. The Book tells us that the prohibition ‘to say thingsabout God without knowledge’ was first revealed as a (normal)prohibition but was later, because of its seriousness, upgraded toan absolute taboo:But say not—for any false thing that your tongues may put forth—‘This is lawful, and this is forbidden’, so as to ascribe false things toGod. For those who ascribe false things to God will never prosper.( Al-NaÈl 16:116)‘What Is Right’ ( al-ma#råf)The Arabic term for the phrase ‘what is right’, al-ma#råf, is derivedfrom the verb #-r-f, whose diverse forms are used seventy-two timesin the Book. Its first occurrence is in 2:89, 45 and its last in 83:24. 46 Themost important cognates are ma#råf, #urf, ta#§ruf, ma#rifa, and #ir§fa,each of which will be briefly defined:43Abå Bakr al-BayhaqÊ, Sunan al-BayhaqÊ al-kubr§ (Mecca: D§r al-B§z, 1994),vol. 5, 265 (ÈadÊth no. 10180).44‘…and saying things about God of which you have no knowledge’ ( Al-A#r§f7:33).45‘…when there comes to them that which they (should) have recognised [m§#arafå], they refuse to believe in it but the curse of God is on those without faith’( Al-Baqara 2:89).46‘You will recognise [ta#rif ] in their faces the beaming brightness of bliss’( Al-MuãaffifÊn 83:24).