Naskh

You know

the Message didn't come down neat and tidy,

printed on the pages of a nicely bound book,

to be read and reflected upon at our leisure,

like now.

The Qur'an that we read now,

this small book that can be read in not too many hours,

was revealed as a myriad snatches of the Message spread over 23 years,

each few ayats shaking the world

and transforming the society in which it was revealed.

And over those years the believers learned how

to live a new way of life together as muslims,

from a handful of believers to a city of believers

at the heart of a rapidly growing muslim ummah.

And they tried to live the Deen in what they did,

but most of the time through those 23 years

they spent their time doing what people do.

They ate, they slept, they had families,

they worked, they farmed land and cattle, and they traded.

And all the other things that people do when they live together.

I'm sure you can think of plenty.

Shoemakers, Weavers, Carpenters, Jewellers,

Water carriers, Wood gatherers, Metalworkers?

They lived their lives and tried to shape them to the Deen.

And for some, a big part of their lives would have been fighting,

skirmishes with other tribes or against caravans

that being an accepted part of the tribal way of life.

Now these skirmishes tended to be quite formalised,

sometimes beginning with poetry from each side,

and only occasionally ending up with a few casualties,

but they still bore the risks of warfare,

so although it was necessary for the muslims to maintain this way of fighting with other tribes,

the Deen now meant that muslims were at least safe from each other.

But of course there were life and death battles

of a much more severe kind

that happened over the years,

and these battles required all who were part of the community

to be prepared to sacrifice their lives.

So these were transformative moments

in the history of the community

and the personal lives of its members,

and because of that these battles are given great attention,

but they didn't take up much of the 23 years.

Altogether the great battles that are such a part of muslim history

took up only a few weeks of the years in which the Message was being revealed.

The siege of the Battle of the Trench lasted only a month.

Also, the scale of casualties

was nothing like we expect from warfare now.

It is reported that there were just 14 muslims killed at Badr

and 70 at Uhud,

and no muslim casualties at the Battle of the Trench.

So as the muslim community clustered around the Messenger,

they mostly lived their lives like people do,

and the Message was woven through those years.

And it came in bits and pieces,

sometimes scraps and sometimes whole surahs,

and sometimes it showed them

how to see the world around them in a different way,

and sometimes it required the behaviour of the society to change.

And it was recognised that the words of the Message were for all time,

but as the Companions were hearing it for the first time,

as it was revealed,

the Message was commenting on what was happening in their lives.

The Message was directly answering their questions.

So when people remembered the various ayats that were revealed,

they also remembered when and where,

and the setting of the revelation.

And so began a whole science concerning the meaning of the Message,

from the simple division as to whether a Surah was revealed in Makkah or Madinah,

to the Asbab al-Nuzul,

knowledge about the reasons behind the revelations,

knowledge about the particular events

and circumstances in history

that are related to the revelation of particular passages from the Qur'an.

The science of Asbab al-Nuzul

looks at whether an ayat was in response to a question

or an event,

and to whom that ayat was addressed,

one person or a group,

and deals with such things as

one revelation referring to several different events.

And the literature dealing with this is vast,

with no equivalent in human history,

an unmatched record of the descent of revelation

set in the day to day history of

the community into which it was revealed.

And the words that were requirements for change in people's behaviour

were taken as law.

And it was recognised that no verse could overrule another,

but sometimes there were ayats where

a knowledge of the order in which they were revealed

was relevant to the common meaning.

Sometimes different ayats affect each other

and the way that they are understood.

Sometimes one ayat might give a wider understanding

and another a narrower,

one ayat might allow greater permissibility

with another being more restrictive,

and clearly when these ayats are the foundations of law

they are of great importance to Shari'ah.

So these issues have been considered in detail

from very early on,

and in Arabic they are known as Naskh.

And Naskh means to abolish, or to replace.

Abolishing one way of understanding what is correct

and replacing it with another.

And the one that replaces is known as nasikh,

and the one that is replaced is known as mansukh.

And what this usually means

is that the original has a general meaning

that is replaced by a more particular one.

It is said that in this way,

by naskh or self-limitation,

the absoluteness of the Qur'an accommodates itself

to the changing worlds and lives of the humans

in the midst of whom it was revealed,

and the Qur'an itself mentions the process

as part of God's power over all things.

But the Shari'ah is specifically concerned with

how revelations become part of Law.

And with the formalisation of Shari'ah,

knowledge of nasikh and mansukh

was not just a precondition for understanding and application of Shari'ah law

The study of Naskh sheds light not only on the way Shari'ah law developed,

but also directly on the immediate meaning of the ayat concerned.

So it also became one of the important preconditions

for those giving explanation of the Qur'an,

known as tafsir.

So the study of Naskh was treated with all the rigour of Law,

making sure that these understandings could be trusted,

tracing them back to the Messenger,

defining terms precisely,

and setting limits to assumptions and types of approach.

But in fact there are very few verses that can be considered mansukh,

according to Suyuti there are only 21,

of which Shah Waliullah only considers 5 to be genuine,

and some say there are none.

But with the development of Hadith sciences and literature,

as the remembered sayings of the Messenger

were gathered as formal collections into books,

there was a tendency to give the Sayings of the Messenger

equal legal status to the Message,

which brought in a whole new range of

possible naskh relationships,

and which brought about a whole new range of

philosophical and legal arguments.

Because now it had to be considered whether a Hadith could overrule an ayat of the Qur'an,

and many were not happy with that idea,

especially as all the traditions that use the Sunnah in this way

can only be traced back to individual companions,

or alternatively traced back to

a variety of different opinions amongst the companions.

Which means at the very least,

that when considering the Qur'an in the light of Hadith,

the information must be treated with extreme caution,

as for all reports concerning the text of the Qur'an,

two independent witnesses are required.

Nonetheless, many scholars have used the Hadith in this way

to make rulings that are rarely questioned.

The punishment of stoning adulterers to death,

as opposed to the punishment set out in the Qur'an,

can only be traced as far as one companion,

just Umar bin Khattab,

yet is treated by many as a valid naskh

replacing the Qur'anic judgement.

But other scholars, such as Shafi'i,

consider it inappropriate for the Sunnah

to be used to abrogate the Qur'an.

So it seems there is considerable disagreement amongst lawyers themselves

as to the validity of any kind of naskh relationship

apart from the Qur'an on the Qur'an.

But we know that the Message itself speaks of placing one ayat in this relationship with another,

and by doing so requires us to explore the context,

the lived in circumstances of the revelation of the Message.

And that way, by exploring the context of the revelation of the Message,

we are better able to understand the Message itself,

and with that better understand

how to apply the Message in the context of our own lives.