# Quran Abrogation Naskh Problem ## Intro *Naskh* is the classical Islamic doctrine that one Quranic verse can cancel, supersede, or replace another, and in some formulations that the *Sunna* (the hadith corpus, the prophetic example) can override a verse of the Quran. The doctrine grew out of the obvious internal tension in the Quran itself between earlier and later revelations, especially between conciliatory Meccan passages and more militant Medinan passages, and between transitional rulings (wine, bequests, the direction of prayer, the rules of war and marriage) and their later replacements. The Muslim jurists who developed *usul al-fiqh* (principles of jurisprudence) needed a mechanism to make sense of these tensions without conceding internal contradiction. Naskh is that mechanism. Sunni jurisprudence works with three categories of naskh: (1) abrogation of the ruling and the recitation together (the verse vanishes from the text and from practice), (2) abrogation of the ruling while the recitation stays (the verse is still in the *mushaf* but no longer binding in law), and (3) abrogation of the recitation while the ruling stays (the legal force binds but the words are no longer in the text). The third category is the source of the most pointed apologetic controversies, including the so-called *Satanic verses*, the *rajm* (stoning) verse said to have been recited under Umar but absent from the canonical text, and the *rada al-kabir* (suckling-of-the-adult) ruling said to have been recited then lost. Shia jurisprudence largely rejects the Sunni three-tier scheme, holding that every verse in the canonical Quran is binding and that the apparent need for naskh reflects defects in the Sunni hadith corpus rather than in the Quran. For Christian apologetics the doctrine of naskh sits uncomfortably with two Quranic claims that Muslims advance as evidence for the Quran's superiority over the Bible. Q 5:3 says *"this day I have perfected for you your religion and completed My favor upon you,"* and Q 15:9 says *"We have sent down the Reminder, and We are its preserver."* Internal abrogation, especially recitation-without-ruling and ruling-without-recitation, makes both claims hard to sustain. The Christian alternative is not internal abrogation but covenantal fulfillment. Jesus says he comes *"not to abolish but to fulfill"* the Law and the Prophets ([Matthew 5.17](/codex/matthew-5-17/)); the writer of Hebrews frames the move from old covenant to new as the better covenant promised in Jeremiah, not as a deletion of earlier text ([Hebrews 8](/codex/hebrews-8/), [Hebrews 10.1](/codex/hebrews-10-1/)). The Christian Bible never erases its own earlier text; the Quran (on the classical Sunni doctrine) does, and then has to explain why. ## In full **Naskh** (Arabic نسخ, *abrogation, copying-out, supersession*) is the principle in classical Sunni Islamic jurisprudence that a later divine ruling may cancel an earlier one, where both rulings come from the Quran, both from the Sunna, or where one comes from the Quran and the other from the Sunna. The doctrine is anchored exegetically in two Quranic verses. Q 2:106 says *"We do not abrogate a verse (*nansakh min ayah*) or cause it to be forgotten except that We bring forth one better than it or similar to it,"* and Q 16:101 says *"And when We substitute a verse in the place of a verse, and Allah is most knowing of what He sends down, they say: 'You are but an inventor.' But most of them do not know."* These two passages function as the Quran's self-authorization for internal supersession. Naskh is treated in every classical *usul al-fiqh* work. Foundational discussions include **Al-Shafi'i, *Al-Risala***; **Al-Tabari, *Jami al-bayan***; **Hibatullah ibn Salama, *Al-Nasikh wal-Mansukh***; **Ibn al-Jawzi, *Nawasikh al-Qur'an***; and **Al-Suyuti, *Al-Itqan fi Ulum al-Qur'an***. The counts of abrogated verses given by classical scholars vary widely: Ibn Salama lists around 238 abrogated verses, Al-Suyuti accepts only about 20, and modern revisionists such as Subhi al-Salih try to reduce the list further or eliminate it. The classical consensus, however, is that naskh occurs, that it is essential to the operation of Islamic law, and that the jurist who does not know the *nasikh* (abrogating) from the *mansukh* (abrogated) cannot read the Quran correctly. ## The three classical types of naskh Sunni jurists, following Al-Shafi'i and the later codifiers, distinguish three kinds of abrogation. The taxonomy is not optional or marginal; it is the framework every classical commentator uses. ### 1. Naskh al-hukm wa al-tilawah (abrogation of ruling AND recitation) The verse is removed from the text *and* the ruling is removed from law. The Quran itself no longer contains the verse, and no Muslim today is bound by its ruling. The standard evidence for this category is hadith, not the *mushaf* (the codified Quranic text): the verses are reported in collections such as Sahih Muslim and Sahih al-Bukhari as having once been recited by Muhammad but not preserved in the Uthmanic codex. The apologetic stake is sharp: this category concedes that material once held to be divinely revealed Quran is no longer in the Quran. The standard response (the verse was withdrawn by God before final codification) raises the question of how the doctrine of Q 15:9 (*"We are its preserver"*) is sustained when revealed material has been actively *un*-preserved. ### 2. Naskh al-hukm dun al-tilawah (abrogation of ruling but not recitation) The verse stays in the *mushaf* and is still recited as Quran, but its legal force has been cancelled by a later verse. The reciter today utters words that are part of the Quran without any binding instruction attached. This is the most commonly accepted category among classical jurists and the one that drives most concrete fiqh applications. Standard examples: - **The Sword Verse and the peaceful verses.** Q 9:5, *"slay the polytheists wherever you find them,"* is held by many classical commentators to abrogate the earlier conciliatory verses about leaving disbelievers alone (Q 2:256, *"there is no compulsion in religion"*; Q 109:6, *"to you your religion, and to me mine"*). Whether the Sword Verse abrogates these is internally disputed in Islam; many modern reformist readings reject the abrogation; classical commentary (Ibn Kathir, Al-Tabari) generally affirms it. - **The bequest verses.** Q 2:180 commands a Muslim to write a bequest for parents and relatives. This is held by classical jurists to have been abrogated by the later inheritance verses Q 4:11-12, which set fixed shares. The bequest verse stays recited; the bequest obligation is gone. - **Wine prohibition stages.** Q 16:67 (wine and milk as good provision), Q 2:219 (wine has *some* benefit but greater sin), Q 4:43 (do not approach prayer drunk), Q 5:90 (wine is the work of Satan, abstain). The classical reading takes the earlier verses as legally abrogated by Q 5:90 even though all four stay in the *mushaf*. - **The direction of prayer (*qibla*).** Q 2:142-150 records the change from Jerusalem to Mecca; the earlier instruction is gone, but the narrative remains in the text. ### 3. Naskh al-tilawah dun al-hukm (abrogation of recitation but not ruling) The verse is no longer in the *mushaf* (no Muslim recites it as Quran today), but the legal ruling it once carried is binding in law. The ruling stands on the authority of hadith reports that the verse once existed. This is the apologetically loaded category, the most theologically uncomfortable, and the one Christian critics return to most often. Major reported cases: - **The stoning verse (*ayat al-rajm*).** The hadith attributed to Umar ibn al-Khattab in Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim records Umar saying that the stoning verse (*"the old man and the old woman, when they commit adultery, stone them outright as a punishment from Allah"*) was once part of the Quran, that he feared people would say *"we do not find the stoning verse in the Book of Allah,"* and that he would have written it in the *mushaf* himself if not for the worry of innovation. Stoning for adultery is binding in classical Sunni law on this basis even though the underwriting verse is not in the Quran. The doctrine: ruling without recitation. - **The suckling-of-the-adult verses (*rada al-kabir*).** The hadith from Aisha in Sahih Muslim says that *"ten clear sucklings make a person prohibited"* was revealed and recited, then was reduced to five, and that this revealed text *"was being recited as Quran when the Prophet died,"* but is not in the *mushaf*. The classical Shafi'i ruling on which adults count as foster-relatives derives from this lost recitation. - **The Satanic verses (*gharaniq* incident).** The reports preserved in Al-Tabari and Ibn Sa'd that Muhammad initially recited verses praising the three pagan goddesses Al-Lat, Al-Uzza, and Manat (*"these are the exalted *gharaniq* (cranes), whose intercession is to be hoped for"*) before retracting them as Satanic interpolation are not strictly a case of naskh, but they are the locus classicus where the question *"can Satan substitute material that gets recited as Quran?"* is forced. The classical Sunni response involves either denying the report or distinguishing recitation from authorized recitation; both responses cost the doctrine of Q 15:9. ### A fourth category sometimes added: naskh of the Quran by the Sunna Outside the three-fold taxonomy but central to the apologetic conversation: classical Hanafi jurisprudence allows the Sunna (mass-transmitted *mutawatir* hadith) to abrogate a verse of the Quran. Al-Shafi'i rejected this, holding that only Quran can abrogate Quran and only Sunna can abrogate Sunna; the Hanafi position accepts it. On the Hanafi reading, hadith reports thus carry power to cancel revealed text. The stoning ruling is sometimes filed here as well as under naskh al-tilawah dun al-hukm. ## Major abrogation disputes catalogued | Case | Putative abrogator | Putative abrogated | Type | Inter-Muslim dispute | |---|---|---|---|---| | Sword Verse | Q 9:5 | Q 2:256, Q 109:6, and other peaceful verses | Ruling, not recitation | Yes; many modern reformists reject | | Bequest | Q 4:11-12 | Q 2:180 | Ruling, not recitation | Classical consensus accepts | | Wine | Q 5:90 | Q 16:67, Q 2:219, Q 4:43 | Ruling, not recitation | Classical consensus accepts | | *Qibla* | Q 2:144 | Q 2:115 (and the lost earlier Jerusalem instruction) | Ruling, not recitation | Classical consensus accepts | | Stoning (*rajm*) | hadith reports | absent from *mushaf* | Recitation, not ruling | Sunni accept (mostly); Shia reject | | Suckling-of-adult (*rada al-kabir*) | hadith reports | absent from *mushaf* | Recitation, not ruling | Shafi'i accept; others vary | | *Mut'a* (temporary marriage) | hadith reports of Muhammad's later prohibition (or Q 4:24 read prohibitively per Sunni) | Q 4:24 read permissively per Shia | Ruling, not recitation (Sunni) | Sunni accept abrogation; Shia reject | | Fasting in Ramadan | Q 2:185 | Q 2:184 | Ruling, not recitation | Classical consensus accepts | | Night prayer obligation | Q 73:20 | Q 73:1-4 | Ruling, not recitation | Classical consensus accepts | | Satanic verses (*gharaniq*) | corrected revelation in Q 53 | the initial recitation per Tabari and Ibn Sa'd | (Disputed framing) | Most modern Sunnis deny the report; classical sources record it | For the *mut'a* case specifically, see the companion hub [Mutah Temporary Marriage Contradiction Objection Defeater](/codex/mutah-temporary-marriage-contradiction-objection-defeater/), which treats the Sunni-Shia split on temporary marriage as a recurring apologetic flashpoint and a clean example of naskh-driven sectarian divergence. ## Sunni-Shia divergence The two largest Islamic traditions split sharply on naskh. - **Sunni jurisprudence** accepts the three-fold typology, accepts naskh of Quran by Quran, and in the Hanafi school accepts naskh of Quran by Sunna. The abrogation framework is essential to the operation of Sunni *fiqh*. The classical Sunni hadith corpus (Sahih al-Bukhari, Sahih Muslim) carries the reports of the stoning verse, the suckling verses, and the *gharaniq* incident, and Sunni jurisprudence built around them. - **Twelver Shia jurisprudence** largely rejects the Sunni three-fold typology. The dominant Shia position is that every verse currently in the Uthmanic codex is binding and that the entire Quran was preserved verbatim from Muhammad's recitation. Reports of lost verses (stoning, suckling) are generally rejected as fabrications produced by the early Sunni state to justify rulings the bare Quran does not support. Some Shia thinkers will accept abrogation of one Quranic verse by another, but the bulk of the controversial naskh-by-lost-recitation material is rejected. The corollary is that *mut'a* (temporary marriage), prohibited in Sunni jurisprudence on naskh grounds, is permitted in Twelver Shia jurisprudence; the Shia reading of Q 4:24 is permissive and there is no recognized abrogator. - **Ismaili, Zaydi, and Ibadi** positions vary, generally holding to a narrower naskh doctrine than Sunni jurisprudence and a broader one than Twelver Shia. The split matters apologetically because it shows that *naskh is not a settled exegetical fact about the Quran; it is a sectarian doctrine adopted (or rejected) downstream of which hadith corpus a tradition treats as authoritative*. A doctrine that depends on which hadith collection you accept cannot at the same time underwrite the Quran's status as a self-evidently preserved revelation. ## Christian apologetic stakes The doctrine of naskh creates four distinct pressure points for the Islamic claim that the Quran is the final, preserved, complete divine revelation. ### 1. The preservation pressure point (Q 15:9) Q 15:9 says *"We have sent down the Reminder, and We are its preserver."* Muslims standardly cite this verse against Christians to contrast the Quran's textual stability with the Bible's manuscript variations. But naskh al-hukm wa al-tilawah (category 1) and naskh al-tilawah dun al-hukm (category 3) concede that material once held to be revealed Quran is not preserved in the Quran today. The stoning verse is the cleanest case: a verse Umar held to have been revealed is not in the *mushaf*. If preservation is the Islamic boast, the doctrine of naskh stands as an internal counter-witness. ### 2. The perfection pressure point (Q 5:3) Q 5:3, recorded as one of the very last revelations, says *"this day I have perfected for you your religion and completed My favor upon you."* If the religion was perfected at that moment, then the ongoing pattern of abrogation that preceded it implies that the religion as practiced at any earlier moment was imperfect, including the religion practiced by Muslims who died believing the now-abrogated rulings. A revelation that perfects itself only by progressively cancelling its earlier instructions sits uneasily with the claim of a single timeless revelation from a perfect source. ### 3. The hadith-over-Quran pressure point The Hanafi position that *mutawatir* Sunna can abrogate the Quran inverts the standard Muslim apologetic line that the Quran is the supreme authority. If hadith reports can cancel verses, then the Quran's authority is in practice mediated by the hadith corpus, which classical Muslim scholarship itself rates as having varying degrees of authenticity (*sahih, hasan, daif, mawdu*). The naskh-by-lost-recitation cases (stoning, suckling) make this worse: the ruling that binds Muslims today rests entirely on hadith with no extant Quranic anchor. ### 4. The Christian alternative: fulfillment, not abrogation The Christian Scriptures handle the relation between earlier and later revelation through *fulfillment* rather than abrogation. Jesus says in [Matthew 5.17](/codex/matthew-5-17/): *"Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill"* (Matthew 5:17, NASB95). The writer of Hebrews develops this at length: the Mosaic ceremonial law was a *"shadow of the good things to come, and not the very form of things"* ([Hebrews 10.1](/codex/hebrews-10-1/), Hebrews 10:1, NASB95). [Hebrews 8](/codex/hebrews-8/) frames the new covenant as the *better* covenant Jeremiah promised, with the old retaining its function as the witness that points forward. The OT is not deleted; it is fulfilled. No earlier text is removed; no earlier ruling is said to have been revealed and then withdrawn so that no Christian today reads it. Two consequences: - **No internal deletion.** Christianity does not have the parallel of *naskh al-hukm wa al-tilawah*. Every passage Christians believe was given by inspiration is in the Bible today, in continuous textual transmission. Ceremonial laws are fulfilled in Christ, not erased from Leviticus. - **No revealed-but-not-recorded ruling.** Christianity does not have the parallel of *naskh al-tilawah dun al-hukm*. There is no Christian doctrine that binds Christians today on the strength of a passage once revealed but now absent. The closest analog is the canon-vs-tradition debate between Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants, but even there the disputed material (tradition, deuterocanon) is preserved and readable. Nothing is lost in the strong sense that the stoning verse is lost. The two frameworks are doing different jobs. *Naskh* makes sense of internal inconsistency by canceling earlier revelation. *Fulfillment* makes sense of progressive revelation by carrying the earlier forward into the later. The Christian framework keeps everything; the Sunni framework deletes some things and keeps others, and the deletion mechanism is itself the apologetic problem. ## Comparison summary | Question | Sunni Islam (naskh framework) | Twelver Shia | Christianity (fulfillment framework) | |---|---|---|---| | Can revealed text be cancelled? | Yes (rulings can be; recitations can be) | No, generally | No | | Can revealed text be deleted from the canonical book? | Yes (categories 1 and 3) | No | No | | Can later non-canonical material override the canonical book? | Yes per Hanafi school (Sunna over Quran) | No | No | | Are early conciliatory passages still binding? | Disputed; many classical jurists say no | Yes | Yes (always); the moral law is fulfilled, not cancelled | | What is the textual fate of earlier instruction? | Sometimes preserved with no binding force, sometimes removed entirely | Always preserved and binding | Always preserved; fulfilled in Christ | | What authorizes the cancellation? | Q 2:106; Q 16:101; hadith reports | (Cancellation rejected) | (No cancellation occurs) | ## See also - [Mutah Temporary Marriage Contradiction Objection Defeater](/codex/mutah-temporary-marriage-contradiction-objection-defeater/), companion hub on the cleanest Sunni-Shia naskh divergence. - [Islam](/codex/islam/), the parent religion-hub. - [Crucifixion Denial in Islam](/codex/crucifixion-denial-in-islam/), a different category of Quran-vs-historical-Christianity tension. - [Crucifixion Denial in Islam Objection Defeater](/codex/crucifixion-denial-in-islam-objection-defeater/), the debate-prep form of the crucifixion issue. - [Bible Contradictions Objection Defeater](/codex/bible-contradictions-objection-defeater/), the reverse charge directed at Christianity, with response patterns that explain why the *naskh* framework does not apply to the Christian Bible. - [Christianity](/codex/christianity/), the parent worldview-hub for the fulfillment framework. - [Atheism](/codex/atheism/), for the parallel charge atheists levy that any internal scriptural tension defeats inspiration claims. - [Matthew 5.17](/codex/matthew-5-17/), Jesus on fulfillment versus abolition. - [Hebrews 8](/codex/hebrews-8/), the new covenant as the *better* covenant Jeremiah promised. - [Hebrews 10.1](/codex/hebrews-10-1/), the law as shadow pointing to the substance.
## Common questions this page answers **Q: What is naskh in Islam?** *Naskh* (Arabic for *abrogation*) is the classical Islamic doctrine that a later divine revelation can cancel or supersede an earlier one. Sunni jurisprudence works with three categories: abrogation of ruling and recitation together (a verse is removed from the Quran and from law), abrogation of ruling without recitation (the verse stays in the Quran but no longer binds in law), and abrogation of recitation without ruling (the verse is gone from the Quran but the legal ruling still binds, on hadith authority). The doctrine is rooted in Q 2:106 and Q 16:101, where the Quran says God may *"substitute a verse in the place of a verse."* **Q: Does the Quran contain abrogated verses?** On the standard Sunni reading, yes. Classical jurists such as Hibatullah ibn Salama listed around 238 abrogated verses; Al-Suyuti accepted around 20; modern revisionists try to reduce the count further. Examples that classical commentators almost universally treat as abrogated include the bequest verse Q 2:180 (cancelled by the inheritance verses Q 4:11-12), the wine-permitting verses (cancelled by Q 5:90), and on many classical readings the peaceful verses such as Q 2:256 (cancelled or restricted by Q 9:5, the Sword Verse). Twelver Shia jurisprudence largely rejects the Sunni framework and holds that every verse in the canonical Quran is binding. **Q: What is the stoning verse in Islam?** The stoning verse (*ayat al-rajm*) is a verse that, according to a hadith attributed to Umar ibn al-Khattab in Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim, was once part of the recited Quran but is not in the Uthmanic codex today. The reported wording is *"the old man and the old woman, when they commit adultery, stone them outright as a punishment from Allah."* Sunni jurisprudence holds that stoning for adultery is binding in classical Islamic law on the strength of this report, even though the verse itself is no longer in the Quran. This is the standard example of *naskh al-tilawah dun al-hukm* (abrogation of recitation but not ruling). **Q: How do Christians respond to the Islamic doctrine of naskh?** The Christian apologetic response focuses on the tension between *naskh* and two Islamic claims about the Quran. First, Q 15:9 says *"We have sent down the Reminder, and We are its preserver,"* yet *naskh al-hukm wa al-tilawah* (category 1) and *naskh al-tilawah dun al-hukm* (category 3) both concede that material once revealed as Quran is no longer in the Quran. Second, Q 5:3 says God has perfected the religion, yet the abrogation pattern implies the religion as practiced earlier was imperfect. The Christian alternative is *fulfillment*, not abrogation: Jesus says he came *"not to abolish but to fulfill"* the Law and the Prophets (Matthew 5:17), and Hebrews develops this as the move from shadow to substance, with no earlier text deleted or revealed-then-withdrawn. **Q: Do Sunni and Shia Muslims agree about naskh?** No, and the disagreement is structural, not marginal. Sunni jurisprudence accepts the three-fold typology of *naskh*, accepts abrogation of one Quranic verse by another, and in the Hanafi school accepts abrogation of the Quran by mass-transmitted Sunna. Twelver Shia jurisprudence largely rejects the typology, holds that every verse in the Uthmanic codex is binding, and rejects the reports of revealed-but-now-missing verses (such as the stoning verse and the suckling-of-the-adult verses) as fabrications from the early Sunni state. The clearest practical consequence is *mut'a* (temporary marriage): prohibited in Sunni jurisprudence on *naskh* grounds, permitted in Twelver Shia jurisprudence because the abrogator is rejected. **Q: What is the difference between abrogation and fulfillment?** Abrogation cancels earlier revelation; fulfillment carries earlier revelation forward into a culminating form. On the classical Sunni doctrine of *naskh*, an earlier Quranic ruling is replaced by a later one, sometimes with the earlier text staying in the Quran without legal force and sometimes with the earlier text removed entirely. On the Christian doctrine of fulfillment (Matthew 5:17, Hebrews 8, Hebrews 10:1), the Old Testament moral and prophetic content points forward to Christ and is brought to its intended meaning in him; the ceremonial law is fulfilled in his sacrifice rather than cancelled by fiat; and crucially, no Old Testament text is ever deleted from Scripture. The Christian Bible keeps everything; the Sunni framework deletes some things and recontextualizes others. **Q: Can hadith abrogate the Quran in Islamic jurisprudence?** It depends on the school. Al-Shafi'i held that only Quran can abrogate Quran and only Sunna can abrogate Sunna. The Hanafi school, however, accepts that mass-transmitted (*mutawatir*) hadith can abrogate verses of the Quran. The Hanbali and Maliki schools take intermediate positions. The apologetic point: if hadith reports can cancel revealed verses, then the Quran's practical authority is mediated by the hadith corpus, which classical Muslim scholarship itself grades on a sliding scale of authenticity. The cases of the stoning verse and the suckling-of-the-adult verses make this concrete: rulings bind Muslims today on the strength of hadith reports with no extant Quranic anchor.