Maududi wrote a number of essays on the "Sunnah"—the customs and practices of Muhammad—and sought a middle way between the belief of conservative Islamists that the sunnah of the prophet should be obeyed in every aspect, and the traditions that tells us that Muhammad made mistakes, and was not always obeyed by his followers (Zayd divorced his wife against the wishes of Muhammad). Mawdudi argued that mistakes by Muhammad corrected by God mentioned in the Quran should be thought of not as an indication of Muhammad's human frailty but of how God monitored his behavior and corrected even his smallest errors. Mawdudi concluded that in theory ("naẓarī") the Prophet's prophetic and personal capacities are separate and distinct, but in practice ("ʿamalī") it is "neither practical nor permissible" for mortals to decide for themselves which is which, and so Muslims should not disregard any aspect of the sunnah.