reported from any of the early generations of the Muslim community or its leading scholars. Rather, what is reported from them is that they regarded this as an innovation introduced by heretics. As al-Hasan ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Jarawī said: “I heard al-Shāfiʿī say: ‘I left behind in Baghdad something introduced by heretics, which they call taghbīr, by which they turn people away from the Quran.’”

Taghbīr is beating with a rod; ghabbara means “to raise dust.” The rod is one of the instruments used to accompany melodic singing.

With his consummate knowledge and faith, al-Shāfiʿī knew that this diverts hearts from the Quran and provides them with a substitute for it, as has indeed happened. Such an aim is pursued only by a hypocritical heretic—one of the hypocrites among the polytheists, the Sabians, or the People of the Book—for they were the ones who originally advocated this. As Ibn al-Rāwandī said: “The jurists differed concerning