Linguistic wrote:
Here it is. I did quote a part of it in
another post under the "
definition of abrogation" topic.
Thank you. The last part of the cut-and-paste addresses the opinions about Sunna abrogating Quran, and there is
a thread that addresses this subject. The first part covers the 5 conditions the scholars came up with to decide whether a ruling was abrogated by another ruling. You summarized these conditions in the post you refer to, and I include my own articulation of these conditions below.
The scholars focussed on abrogating a
ruling rather than a
verse, implicitly excluding non-ruling verses from the possibility of being abrogated, but also widening the scope of discussion to rulings that are not included in verses and opening the possibility of abrogating a ruling (or part of a verse) without abrogating the whole verse, a possibility that I have reservations about per
my post. Here is my articulation of the 5 conditions.
(1) The rulings in the abrogated and abrogating verses have to be contradictory in such a way that one cannot apply them together. If one can, then neither abrogates the other, and this can manifest itself in two ways.
First, one of the rulings is addressing what the other ruling addressed, but in a more general setting or a more specific setting. A specific setting does not require abrogating the general setting. Rather, it clarifies that the ruling in a specific instance is not covered by the general setting.
Second, one of the rulings applies to a case that the other ruling does not apply to.
(2) The abrogated ruling must have occurred chronologically before the abrogating ruling. This can be established in two ways, either by inference from the text (as in
"Now God has eased it on you and knew that there is weakness in you" ), or by knowledge of the historical timeline that establishes that the first ruling came about earlier than the second ruling. Even if two rulings cannot be reconciled, there has to be a proof of which one came first, otherwise a claim of abrogation of either of them would be void.
(3) The abrogated ruling must be explicit in a text. If the ruling is established just by custom or consensus, then an explicit ruling that overrules it would not be abrogating it
per se, but rather establishing a ruling in the first place.
(4) The confidence in the abrogating ruling must be as well established as the abrogated ruling. An explicit ruling cannot be abrogated just by a consensus opinion or an analytic conclusion.
(5) The authenticity of the abrogating ruling must be at least as strong as the authenticity of the abrogated ruling. If it is weaker, it cannot abrogate something stronger.