Implicit and explicit naskh Most cases of naskh are "implicit" (
dimni) — i.e. as noted above they depend on "the agreement of scholars" (
ijma) to determine if a verse was abrogated. However, a few revelations involve "explicit" (
sarih) naskh, specifically mentioning some earlier command to be abrogated and replaced with another — though none of them use any form of the word
naskh. • Quranic verses 2:143-50 commands Muhammad and the Muslims to turn their faces away from 'the direction of prayer that you faced before' (Jerusalem) to a new one, one that 'pleases your heart,' (by which is meant the
Kaaba in the
Al-Haram Mosque of Mecca).
Total and partial naskh Abrogation may be divided into two more types: total abrogation and partial abrogation: ;"Total abrogation" In the case of "total abrogation" (or
naskh kulli), all of the specific statement within the Quran or hadith that the ruling is based on (the
nass) is abrogated by another, and a new ruling (
hukm) is enacted to replace the entire old ruling. An example is found in two Qur'anic verses on '
the waiting period (`
iddah) of widows before remarriage'.
Al-Baqarah 240 has been interpreted to prescribe a waiting period of one year: • But another verse shortened the waiting period to four months and ten days: • ;"Partial abrogation" In the case of "partial abrogation" (
naskh juzi), one verse is only partially abrogated by another. The part not abrogated remains operative. An example of this is the Qur'anic verse on
slanderous accusations of adultery against women (known as
qadhf). The "ayah of qadhf" —
An-Nur 4 — establishes a general rule that anyone who accuses chaste women of adultery (
zina) must produce four witnesses for proof: • The "ayah of imprecation" (''li'an
) — an-Nur 6 — replaces the four witnesses requirement, but only for one kind of person — the husband of the alleged adulteress. It allowing him to pursue charges of zina'' against his wife provided he takes four different oaths to tell the truth and invoked the curse of God upon himself if he is telling a lie. This partially repeals Ayah Q.24:4. • ;
takhsees Takhsees ['specification', also spelled
takhsis] and
istithnā (exception) resemble "partial naskh" described above. Like partial naskh,
takhsees qualifies a general ruling [
aam], so that it only applies in certain cases. Examples include • the qualification of the Quranic injunction in Q.5:38 to amputate the hand of the thief, the
takhsees given by Muhammad requires that the thief must have stole something above a certain value. • the qualification on entering uninhabited houses. verse Q.24:27 states: 'Do not enter houses other than your houses,' but verse Q.24:29 gives an exception: 'There is no blame upon you for entering houses not inhabited in which there is convenience for you.' (At-Tabari) In this mode of abrogation, Quranic text (this naskh does not apply to the Sunnah) is deleted, but the rule is a still-functional. Proof of the verse's existence is preserved within tradition (i.e through a hadith report) as well as in the
Fiqh; and :3.
naskh al-hukm wa al-tilawah, (also known as
ibtal or suppression), that is abrogation of both the verse and the ruling. According to Ahmad Hassan, these last two types of abrogation of wording/scripture are "not supported by conclusive evidence". According to John Burton, one of the two types -- #2, abrogation of the wording but not the ruling—is acknowledged "only by a minority of scholars". Still another issue was how ayah could be forgotten ("cause to be forgotten") when a prophet like Muhammad was meant to be protected from flaws like forgetting. This was explained by modifying the definition of "cause to be forgotten" ('aw nasaha) to "defer" or "leave". '
2. naskh al-tilāwa dūna al-hukm''''' This form of naskh — abrogation of the wording (
al-tilāwa) of some part of the Quran but not the ruling (
al-hukm) based on that part — is acknowledged "only by a minority of scholars". In the first case, a punishment of stoning to death (lapidation) for adultery is found in the Islamic law of the founders of all four surviving schools of Sunni fiqh (
madhab) and by the majority of scholars of
fiqh, but the penalty prescribed for adultery in the ''mus'haf'' is
flogging (in Q.24:2). An explanation for this is that a "
stoning verse" (
āyat al-rajm) was abrogated but not the ruling. (Another is that hadith calling for the stoning punishment abrogate the flogging punishment in the Quran,
see below.) Muhammad's favorite wife
Ā'isha, claims that there was a stoning verse in Quran that was lost, as do other hadith. (John Burton quotes a commentary/gloss on Aisha's
hadith describing how she might explain the abrogation of text.) However, evidence for the existence of this verse has been
criticized as weak, the hadith unreliable, and followers of
Maliki and
Hanafi fiqh believe evidence for stoning being the proper Islamic punishment comes not from an alleged Quranic verse but from reports of Muhammad calling for execution of adulterers by stoning found in collections of sound (
sahih) hadith Sahih al-Bukhari 6829, Book 86, Hadith 56, Hadith 816 states: `
Umar said, "I am afraid that after a long time has passed, people may say, "We do not find the Verses of the Rajam (stoning to death) in the Holy Book," and consequently they may go astray by leaving an obligation that Allah has revealed. Lo! I confirm that the penalty of Rajam be inflicted on him who commits illegal sexual intercourse, ... Roslan Abdul-Rahim argues "the cases of
rajm [stoning], and
rada [kinship from breastfeeding] do not support this form of abrogation: The trouble with this understanding however is, Q.2:106, the report of Ubayy questioning the Prophet, and the exchange between 'Abd Allah ibn Zubayr with 'Uthman ibn 'Affan, all suggest that naskh is not synonymous with forgetfulness, disappearance of revelations or the exclusion of revelatory texts from the Qur'an. This form of
naskh also poses the question of why a verse important enough to be the basis of immutable
hukm (ruling) dealing with life and death would disappear from the written Quran (''mus'haf''), In support of this form of naskh was Al-Shafi'i, who disagreed with
Maliki and
Hanafi and maintained that the Sunnah cannot abrogate the Quran and the Quran cannot abrogate the Sunnah. (This left
naskh al-tilāwa dūna al-hukm as the way to explain the punishment of stoning.) While Shāfi'ī never postulated the existence of a "stoning verse", he did acknowledge the probability of "abrogation of wording but not ruling", as well as acknowledging Aisha's claim that there was a stoning verse in Quran, which had been lost. '
3. naskh al-hukm wa-'l-tilāwa''''' Examples of abrogation of both ruling and wording — where a ruling is voided and its text omitted from the ''mus'haf'' so that the only evidence that it ever existed is in
hadith — include the alleged "Satanic Verses" "Qur'ān-forgetting is clearly adumbrated in the Qur'ān", according to Burton, and couple of verses of the Quran talk of God taking away a revelation or causing it to be forgotten: • • A number of
hadith also attest to the phenomenon of forgetting revelation — some describing the forgetting as "a natural failure" of Muhammad's or companions memory, and others as a "miraculous intervention" by God. One claims that entire
suras which the Muslims had previously recited, would be discovered one morning to have been completely erased from memory. The question of whether not just some but
all abrogated verses (
mansukh) were deleted from the
mushaf, (meaning that contrary to scholarly consensus, there is no "classic" mode of naskh, no #1.
naskh al-hukm dūna al-tilāwa, because nothing included in the
mushaf has been abrogated, no
mansukh is found there) has been raised by Roslan Abdul-Rahim. According to Roslan Abdul-Rahim,
Abrogation of Quran and Sunnah by one another Yet another way of classifying naskh is by what
kind of revelation is abrogated and what kind is abrogating. Some scholars (a minority) believe that different types of revelation cannot abrogate each other — a part of the Sunnah can never abrogate a verse of the Quran and vice versa. Distinguishing between which of the two kinds of revelations are involved in abrogating and in being abrogated creates four variations of
naskh in this classification: • a ruling from a verse of the Quran is abrogated by another conflicting ruling from another verse in the Quran (almost all the examples of naskh mentioned above are this form); • a ruling in the Sunnah is abrogated by another conflicting ruling from the hadith ...has been abrogated by a hadith included in
Sunan Abu Dawood collection. •
Abu Dawud, Sunan Abi Dawud 2870. "... no bequest must be made to an heir." An example of variety
#4, (abrogation of part of the Sunnah by a Qur'anic verse) is found above as an example of Explicit Naskh above — namely what the
qiblah (direction facing during
salah prayer) should be. This direction was originally
Jerusalem/Quds according to hadith included in the collection
Sahih al-Bukhari (41) • ... when the Prophet first came to Madinah ... he prayed facing towards Bayt al-Maqdis for sixteen or seventeen months." (John Burton notes that there is no reference in the Quran to praying in the direction of Jerusalem.)
Arguments on abrogation between sources While abrogation by the same type of revelation — i.e. varieties
#1 and
#2 — are accepted by all scholars (i.e. all who support the orthodox theory of abrogation), abrogation between types of revelation —
#3 and
#4 — are not. The
Maliki,
Shafi'i and
Hanbali schools of Sunni Islam maintained that a Sunnah practice from a Hadith can never abrogate a Quranic verse, (according to Yusuf Suiçmez). In contrast, the
Hanafi fiqh of Sunni Islam, from the days of
Abu Hanifa, along with his disciples such as
Abu Yusuf, believe that Sunnah can abrogate a Quranic verse. • • (Q.10:15 specifically refers to the Quran and both verses uses the word
ayah, which is the term used to refer to Quranic verses — although as mentioned earlier
ayah is also used to refer to other "signs" of God.) For Al-Shāfi'ī "I merely follow what is being revealed to me" in meant to that "the sunnah cannot abrogate the Book" but only "follow what it laid down in" it, (according to Yusuf Suiçmez). Al-Shafi'i adduces Q.2:106 as "categorically" allowing abrogation of the Quran only by the Quran, according to Ahmad Hasan, and argues that the Quran cannot abrogate the Sunnah because if this were allowed a "host of rules framed by the Prophet would be cancelled". (Stoning of adulterers would be replaced by flogging, etc.) i.e. having spoken a revelation contradicting what he said or did to his
companions, God's messenger would correct what he spoke or did. "Shāfi'ī set his face decidedly against any acceptance of the idea then current that in all such cases the Qur'ān had abrogated the Sunnah, or the Sunnah the Qur'ān," Burton writes. Shafi'i insisted that "... any verbal discrepancies between the Qur'ān and the reported sayings or reports of the practices of Muhammed — the Sunnah of the Prophet" were illusions that "could always be removed on the basis of a satisfactory understanding of the mechanism of revelation and the function of the prophet-figure". Shafi'i's stance was a reaction to larger developments within Islamic jurisprudence, particularly the reformulation of the
fiqh away from early foreign or regional influences and toward more eminently Islamic bases such as the Quran. This assertion of Qur'anic primacy was accompanied by calls for an abandonment of the Sunnah. Shāfi'ī's insistence upon the impossibility of contradiction between Sunnah and Qur'an can thus be seen as one component in this larger effort of rescuing the Sunnah: According to Burton, another argument against this "crossover" of types of revelation in abrogation revolved around concern that unbelievers would use it to argue against the validity of Islam. If the Sunnah "naskhed" the Quran, unbelievers would be able to say that "Muhammad was saying or doing the opposite of what he alleged was being revealed to him by God"; while if the Quran abrogated the Sunnah they could claim that "God was belying the man who claimed to be His Prophet". ;Replies One reply to these arguments against crossover of kinds of revelation in abrogation was that the Sunnah — like the Quran — "had also been revealed to Muhammad", and if the Sunnah abrogated the Quran or vice versa, it was "merely" a matter of "one element of revelation" replacing "another". to justify their opinion that abrogation of the Qur'an by the life actions of Muhammad (Sunnah) was based solely on his Divine inspiration, that when he acted or said anything, any abrogation implicit through his action, of the earlier Qur'anic ruling was from Allah alone. The only explanation for this was that this point of Islamic law was based on abrogation of the Quran by the Sunnah.
Abrogation of Jewish and Christian texts One type of abrogation over which there is little dispute among Muslims is "external naskh", A wide variety of Islamic scholars —
Syed Ahmad Khan, David S. Power gives a higher peak number of abrogated verses of over 550 at around the 10th century CE. and that the Naskh verse came within a specific occasion, that being the changing of the Qibla, concluding that the theory grew out of desire of the Ulama to establish
Fiqh rulings which they otherwise would not have been able to pass. As mentioned above, one reason for the difference in tallies of abrogated verses comes from a confusion over the difference between "naskh" (abrogation) and "takhsees" (clarification). (An example being verse Q.8:1 which says the "spoils are for Allah and His Messenger", whereas Q.8:41 says "one-fifth is for Allah and His Messenger". While many scholars declared that verse Q.8:41 cancels (
naskh) Q.8:1, it might be more accurate to say, Q.8:41
explains (
takhsees) how much of the spoils of Q.8:1 "are for Allah and His Messenger".)
Yasir Qadhi declares that calling "takhsees" verses "naskh" inflated the number of naskh verses. == Scholarly questions and alternatives ==