Abrogation (Naskh) in the Quran

Abrogation — the replacement of an earlier divine ruling by a later one — is one of the most important and sometimes most controversial topics in Quranic sciences. Usmani's treatment of naskh (abrogation) is thorough and judicious, explaining the concept's theological basis, its established instances, and the scholarly debates that surround its extent and implications.

The theological basis for naskh is clear: Allah is the sovereign legislator who may change rulings according to His wisdom, taking into account the gradual spiritual development of the Muslim community and the changing circumstances of the early Islamic state. The Quran itself refers to this process: 'Whatever We abrogate of a verse or cause it to be forgotten, We bring forth [one] better than it or similar to it' (2:106). Abrogation is not a sign of divine inconsistency but of divine wisdom in guiding a community from one stage of development to another.

Usmani identifies the classical categories of naskh. The most straightforward is when both the recitation and the ruling of a verse are abrogated — a relatively rare category about which the scholars have debated specific examples. More common and practically significant is the abrogation of a ruling while the recitation is preserved: the verse continues to be recited as part of the Quran, but its specific legal command has been superseded by a later revelation. The verse permitting the consumption of wine in certain circumstances, for example, was progressively restricted and ultimately prohibited across multiple revelatory stages.

Among the classic examples of abrogation, the change in qiblah (direction of prayer) from Jerusalem to Makkah is well-documented in both Quran and hadith. The graduated approach to the prohibition of wine — first noting its harm outweighs its benefit, then prohibiting prayer while intoxicated, then prohibiting it entirely — illustrates how abrogation worked as an instrument of gradual moral reform suited to the community's capacity for change. The early permission for temporary marriage (mut'ah) is generally understood in the classical tradition to have been abrogated by later hadiths.

Usmani is careful to engage with the scholarly debate about the extent of naskh. Medieval scholars like Ibn al-Jawzi and later scholars like al-Suyuti significantly reduced the number of abrogated verses from the high numbers claimed by some early scholars, by demonstrating that many apparent contradictions could be resolved through reconciliation rather than abrogation. The general scholarly trend over time has been toward recognizing fewer rather than more cases of abrogation, requiring greater precision in the criteria for claiming that one verse supersedes another.

The practical significance of naskh for Islamic law is considerable. A jurist must know which ruling is in force — the earlier or the later — in order to derive correct legal conclusions. The hadith sciences are also involved, since some sunnah rulings are established by hadith while others are abrogated by later hadiths, and the principles of naskh apply in the Sunnah as well as in the Quran.