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 Post subject: Re: Why keep abrogated verses?
PostPosted: 14 May 2010, 07:07 
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Pragmatic wrote:
It has greatly bothered me that the interpretation of 2:106 as "abrogating the ruling but not the recitation" without comment took hold through scholarly books over the centuries without being questioned or elaborated.

I am not alone in this. In his book, Nada asserts on page 47 while he comments on 16:101 that the substitution is linked to a verse not to the ruling of a verse, and that the supposition of the word "ruling" in the interpretations was resorted to by those who claim abrogation in the Quran, unnecessarily, in order to interpret the verse in accordance with their views. He attributes this opinion to Professor Aly Hasaballah in his book "Origins of Islamic legislation," pages 226 on.

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 Post subject: Re: Definition of abrogation
PostPosted: 14 May 2010, 18:59 
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Linguistic wrote:
All of the pro-abrogation evidence quoting scholars is not traced back to the Prophet, peace be upon him, and therefore is not a valid juristic method (طرق الإثبات الشرعية). We've seen that there is really no consensus among the scholars in this matter, so even the disputed juristic method of majority opinion (إجماع) doesn't apply either.

Nada makes the point about lack of consensus on page 41 of his book. He says that the statement that the forefathers were unanimous about abrogation is asserted without evidence. He also cites the objection of Al-Asfahany as evidence of lack of unanimity. He goes on to address the 'bundling' issue, where he says that even the object of consensus is not clear, since abrogation of previous books (where there is consensus), abrogation of hadeeths (where there is semi-consensus) and abrogation of Quranic verses (the abrogation doctrine) are bundled together in statements about consensus.

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 Post subject: Re: Definition of abrogation
PostPosted: 17 May 2010, 16:02 
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Linguistic wrote:
You see, what I'm seeing now, after going through 25 scholarly books, old and new, is that the word naskh should really be defined as follows,
"Explicitly stating information about a ruling that were not explicitly stated before."

In his book الناسخ والمنسوخ بين الإثبات والنفي, pages 28-30, Al-Jabri discusses how Ibn Hazm Az-Zhaahiri apparently defined the word naskh in his book الإحكام في أصول الآحكام ٥٩/٤. He mentioned that it was the opinion of scholars he did not name who said: النسخ هو تأخير البيان نفسه (Naskh is delayed elaboration). That is exactly what I'm proposing here. Ibn Hazm suggests two reasons therefore of naskh,
  • That the first command was indeterminate, such as "Establish prayer and give alms". Neither command specified how, when, or how much. When the time was right to specify those details, God revealed them by mandating the five daily prayers and the Zakah.
  • That the first command was temporary or circumstantial.
I agree with the first reason but respectfully disagree with the second. If a command is temporary, it has to be so stated, or when the new command is given it has to explicitly say that the first command is no longer valid. Otherwise, people will be confused not knowing which command to follow. In that, temporary commands are functionally similar to contingent commands: when the contingency is there, so is the command and when it's not so is not the command. A good example, IMHO, is the hadeeth forbidding visiting the graves. Initially that was because Muslims were new and they had many pagan habits, such as wailing and wishing death on themselves, etc. The prohibition was designed to train their faith and correct their habits. When that was done, visiting the graves was allowed because they remind of the Hereafter. However, anybody who would wail or curse at a grave site should not visit the graves still.

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 Post subject: Re: Definition of abrogation
PostPosted: 23 May 2010, 20:05 
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Pragmatic wrote:
He quotes the Indian scholar Al-Tahanowy (ظفر أحمد العثماني التهانوي ), as saying:

"Abrogation for them according to their tongue was indicating what is intended not through the wording (of the abrogated) but through an outside entity (the abrogating), so abrogation for them is not confined to indicating a change, but encompasses all kinds of indications. The use of abrogation in this general sense has been abundant by the Imam of their scholars Abu-Jaafar Al-Tahawy. If you don't understand his intended meaning, you would object to what he says."

I do not recall hearing about Al-Tahanowy or Al-Tahawy before, and I am not sure why Al-Jabri has singled them out.

Emphasis mine, though I'd translate his words يعم جميع ألوان البيان as "encompasses all sorts of elaboration."

I see his point and agree with it. The word "naskh" indeed encompasses all sorts of elaborations, as I've been discussing in the last few posts.

BTW, At-Tahaanowi's book can be downloaded from this site. He discusses conflict between evidences and abrogation in Chapter 8, pages 288-304 and on pages 458-459 where the above quote is written. The quote adds the following important statement,
دعوى النسخ لاتقبل إلا ببيان التاريخ أو بدليل آخر سواه، ولادليل هناك. ومن جهل مراد المتكلم فلايلومن إلا نفسه

Translation: The claim of abrogation cannot be accepted except with proof of the dates, or by other proofs, and there are none. Whoever does not understand the intent of a speaker should blame none but himself.

I take from this statement that At-Tahaanowi asserts that no proof exists for abrogation and that the jump to the abrogation explanation is a cop-out of those who could not understand the intent of verses they claimed were abrogated.

Also, this is a bio of Imaam At-Tahaawi, referred to in the above quote. He was a prominent Hanafi scholar from Egypt, highly praised by Ibn Katheer, Ibn Al-Jawzi, Azh-Zhahabi and As-Suyooti.

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 Post subject: Re: Definition of abrogation
PostPosted: 28 May 2010, 03:16 
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Excellent information! Thanks.

Add Shah Waliullah to the group who point out the discrepancy between how the word naskh was used by the early Muslims versus the technical meaning attached to it by the pro-abrogation scholars later on. On a footnote on page 223 of his book, Ihab quotes Waliullah as saying "They used naskh in its known linguistic meaning which is removal of something, not in the special conventional meaning of the originalists, where the meaning of naskh for them was removal of some attributes in a verse through another verse." Waliullah goes on to list modes for such meaning, e.g., exception, and also mentions other modes such as removing pre-Islamic habits or lifting of rulings from previous books of revelation.

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 Post subject: Re: Definition of abrogation
PostPosted: 31 May 2010, 18:48 
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Linguistic wrote:
If God meant to convey only one meaning, He could have easily rephrased the verse and removed any ambiguity.

I don't recall at the moment where I read it, but it is established that Arabic, like other languages, has antagonyms and heteronyms. Antagonyms are words that have two contradictory meanings. A good example that is often quoted in Arabic literature is مولى /mæwlæ:/ which means master or slave. Antagonyms are a subset of heteronyms, words that carry multiple meanings, and linguists are in agreement that the word naskh is a heteronym.

Realizing this, the automatic translation of naskh as abrogation is an error. A heteronym cannot be limited to only one of its meanings without evidence, such as its context. If there is no decisive evidence, or if the context is general, as I believe it is in 2:106, the word should not be limited in meaning. Rather, all of its possible meanings should be considered. JMHO.

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 Post subject: Re: Definition of abrogation
PostPosted: 03 Jun 2010, 18:14 
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Origin of the word

Pragmatic wrote:
In the Quran, 2:106 uses the word in a particular way. It doesn't say that a verse abrogated a verse. It says that God abrogated a verse. There is no replacing or modifying entity implied by the verb naskh itself.

This will be a speculative post, as I have no evidence for what I am going to suggest other than being logically plausible. To be accurate, I am focusing on the above-quoted mode of use for the verb نسخ, by someone rather than by something.

I wondered why نسخ has two somewhat contradictory meanings, copy versus annul. I suggest that the origin is one meaning, which is the opposite of حفظ (to preserve or to guard). You can see how 'copy' fits this as well; if I give you a document to preserve, you shouldn't copy it to others. This would also add ammunition to refuting the abrogation doctrine because


Again, this is speculation, but it's pretty attractive speculation. :)

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 Post subject: Re: Definition of abrogation
PostPosted: 03 Jun 2010, 19:49 
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I'm converging on this definition of naskh,
النسخ مايطرأ على نص سابق بنص لاحق

Translation: Naskh is what happens to a previous text by way of a new text.

That definition covers all meanings of the Arabic word. It can mean to annul, erase and replace, but is not limited to them. It can also mean specification of what looked general, specifications of exemptions and options, explaining what was ambiguous, and detailing what was brief. All of which were in use by the Arabs at the Seventh Century.

The question then arises: Why would God, who knows ahead of time, that the old text is general and needs specificity, ambiguous and will need explanation, brief and will need detailing, etc., why would God reveal the old text at all? And why would He let it for some time before bringing the text that elaborates it, specifies it, or detail it?

I'll borrow an example from computer science to answer these questions. In a software program, the programmer may assign a default value to a variable then later on assigns it particular values for particular situations. IMHO, God reveals the old text first, even if it seems ambiguous, general or brief in order to establish a principle. After the principle sinks in the minds of the believers, God reveals the details He wishes to specify about the ruling given by said principle.

Take for example,

This verse establishes the principle of spending from what God has provided for us. It does not specify on whom nor how much. Then comes,

This verse established the principle of whom to spend on. It does not yet tell how much. Then comes,

Which specifies how much, but does so in principle too, namely, out of the excess money one has. Notice how God ends this verse by saying, "Thus does God make His verses clear to you, that you may reflect"? That's the role of naskh!

Then God, knowing how hard it is for people to part with their hard-earned money, entices them saying,

Which makes them realize that the money they spend is not gone but rather will be returned to them multiplied many times over. Then God presses the point by showing the flip side,

This hammers the point that proper spending and its motives are defined by God. He even explains why some spending is not acceptable to Him, such as in,


There are so many examples in the Quran like that. That is why the entirety of the Quran must be examined in full before any abrogation claim is made. One would then realize how all verses collaborate to convey different aspects of the same principle which God wants us to learn and live by. None of it is abrogated, annulled, removed or replaced.

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 Post subject: Re: Definition of abrogation
PostPosted: 03 Jun 2010, 21:45 
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Linguistic wrote:
I'm converging on this definition of naskh,
النسخ مايطرأ على نص سابق بنص لاحق

Translation: Naskh is what happens to a previous text by way of a new text.

That definition covers all meanings of the Arabic word. It can mean to annul, erase and replace, but is not limited to them. It can also mean specification of what looked general, specifications of exemptions and options, explaining what was ambiguous, and detailing what was brief. All of which were in use by the Arabs at the Seventh Century.

I agree that this is the definition used by the early Muslims in their religious statements. I see it as an adaptation of a word to mean something that they had in mind, rather than the legitimate linguistic meaning of the word. Certainly not the meaning that was there before 2:106 was revealed, which is the only thing that would have a bearing on the meaning of the word in 2:106.

I agree with the rest of the analysis in your post about the wisdom of modification of the ruling in one verse by another verse.

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 Post subject: Re: Definition of abrogation
PostPosted: 04 Jun 2010, 04:52 
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I decided to search for the string نسخ in pre-Islamic poems in order to shed some light on the meaning of the word at the time. So far, I have gone through more than 40 books of poems, and I could not find a single appearance of the string in any poem. Unfortunately, I can's just google نسخ and "الشعر الجاهلي" since the word نسخ appears in most documents as "copy" outside of the poems.

While searching, I ran into a large number of posts about the authenticity of pre-Islamic poems. A number of people, most notably Taha Hussein, have claimed that many of the assumed pre-Islamic poems were actually written after Islam. While this is a fringe subject that has no bearing on the subject at hand, it certainly takes away from the force of any example we find in the poems that uses the word نسخ. Therefore, I will not pursue this approach further.

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