Ihaab Hasan Abduh opens his book استحالة وجود النسخ بالقرآن, pages 5-6, with a number of logical questions to those who advocated the abrogation doctrine:
- Did God reveal His Book so that people would follow something else?
- Does it square with God's wisdom that His Book would contain hundreds of abrogated rulings, without Him stating which ones those are and leaving the believers to the conflicting opinions of mortals about it?
- Doesn't preserving the Book also require preserving its rulings?
He then draws the attention of the pro-abrogation folk that leaving a teaching or ruling of the Quran in favor of anything else makes them subject to these verses,
Indeed, these verses refer to Muslims, no doubt. "Deserting the Quran" surely includes annulling some of its rulings because of a misunderstanding, opinion, interpretation or a narration attributed to a human being. Authentic hadeeth, Ihaab maintains, cannot possibly contradict the Quran. Neither can it abrogate it.
I certainly concur. If, for the sake of argument, a hadeeth is rated authentic and its clear meaning is contradictory to the Quran, then I say the Quran abrogated it instead of the other way around.