Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, who died in the 241st year of the Muslim calendar, 855 according to the Christian one, is probably one of the most famous Muslims in history. Thanks to him, many came to believe that the only right religion was the one practiced at the time of the Prophet Muḥammad. To keep their community together in this world and gain salvation in the next, Muslims needed to live as the Prophet and his Companions had lived: to eat what they ate, wear what they wore, buy and sell only as they had done. “Is there anything I’m doing wrong?” one of Ibn Ḥanbal’s wives asked him a few days after they were married. “No,” he answered, “except that those sandals you’re wearing didn’t exist at the time of the Prophet.
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