Abrogation

Dr. Jassim Taqui

DG Al-Bab Institute for Strategic Studies

          An important aspect that touches the article of faith and Linguistic is the concept of the so-called abrogation( الناسخ و المنسوخ)  in the holy Quran.   Unfortunately, many commentators of the holy book resorted to abrogation whenever confronted with a verse that appears to contradict another. They looked confused because of a lack of understanding of the inner meanings of the verses of the Quran.

          Quran itself pointed to this aspect in Al-Imran-7. In this verse, it is pointed out there are two types of verses in the Quran; kernel (core or basic verses) which do not accept the interpretation, and allegorical verses that have different shades of meanings. The same verse warns the Muslims that those who are not firmly in faith use the allegorical ver

ses to create polytheism (animism) in the society while those whose faith is firm in God accept all verses since they are revealed by Almighty Allah. Here, FAITH plays a major role.

          Interestingly, this concept is also mentioned in Linguistics. According to Noam Chomsky in his Transformational Grammar Theory (TG), the sentence in all human languages is of two types; DEEP structure (corresponds to kernel verses), and SURFACE structure ( corresponds to allegorical verses). The ambiguity comes only from the surface structure.

    Thus, the issue is ambiguity, which can be solved by converting the verse from surface structure to deep structure and not by abrogating the verses altogether.

 It was Imam Jaffar Al-Sadiq (AS) who confronted all those who were promoting abrogation. He stated that the progeny of the prophet inherited from him the mystical methodology of interpretation of the Quran. He also dismissed the validity of the use of analogy (القياس) in the interpretation of Quran. The Imam based his opinion on the very Quran by stating that Iblis was the first who used analogy when he refused to prostrate to Adam(AS) by saying to God, “ I am better than him; for You created me from fire, and created him from clay” (Al-A’raf-12). For using that analogy, Iblis was condemned and expelled from Paradise ( Al-Hajar- verses 32-44).