Islam: A Guide for Jews and Christians - Electric Scotland

160 t CHAPTER SEVEN
wine is prohibited (Quran 2:219)—though it is served in Paradise
(47:15)—and this is new; likewise forbidden are certain foods,
most notably pork (5:3), and this is not. Judaism had gone there
before, though the Muslim food menu is far less restrictive than
the Jewish one. In addition, the Muslim had the example of the
Prophet, which was, as already noted, not entirely unambiguous
when it came to the licit things of the world.
The Tradition
Muhammad’s example and, equally important, his instruction,
was carried forward to succeeding generations of Muslims in a
great body of anecdotes that professed to record his sayings and
deeds. These Prophetic reports flowed steadily and powerfully into
the still nascent Islamic tradition and, together with the Quran,
gave it shape and definition. Out of this mix of Scripture and report,
and the Muslims’ interpretation of both, emerged the sharia,
Islamic religious law.
There is more than one problematic element in the combination
of Scripture, reports about the Prophet, and what the Muslims call
ijtihad, or “personal effort.” Something has already been said
about the Muslims’ probing the meaning of Scripture; here it is a
matter of its complement, tradition. All three communities of
Scripturalists recognize a continued or continuing form of revelation,
whether in the form of texts or voices, to guide the community
along the “right way ” to its ordained goal. God’s voice is not
stilled, as it turns out, but merely turns into other channels. Generically,
this other channel of divine guidance was understood as
something handed down from an older and indubitable source,
and so it is fair to describe it as “tradition.” In English that word is
used in the singular to describe a whole range of concepts, from a
cast-in-stone practice, to authoritative counsels or exemplary
guidelines, to mere customary action, with a semantic inclination
toward the latter end of the scale. “Tradition” is being used here,
however, in a rather precise, and perhaps unfamiliar, way. For all
three Peoples of the Book, “tradition” is understood as a nonscrip-