Theory
Naskh employs the logic of chronology and progressive revelation. The different situations encountered over the course of Muhammad's more than two decade term as prophet, it is argued, required new rulings to meet the Muslim community's changing circumstances. Or, from a more theologically inflected stand-point, the expiration points of those rulings God intended as temporary all along were reached. A classic example of this is the early community's increasingly belligerent posture towards its pagan and Jewish neighbors:
Many verses counsel patience in the face of the mockery of the unbelievers, while other verses incite to warfare against the unbelievers. The former are linked to the Meccan phase of the mission when the Muslims were too few and weak to do other than endure insult; the latter are linked to Medina where the Prophet had acquired the numbers and the strength to hit back at his enemies. The discrepancy between the two sets of verses indicates that different situations call for different regulations.
Yet despite its dependence on chronology, naskh is in no way a historiographical enterprise:
While it cannot really be doubted that there is an implicit assumption of the chronological-progressive order of the Qur'ān in the naskh texts, it is notable that the discussions themselves do not generally make this point explicit; naskh, be it with regards to wine or direction of prayer, always assumes that the present law is known (that is, no wine and facing Mecca), and the verses which agree with that fact are necessarily the valid ones. Any verses which contradict this are necessarily invalid, and thus can be logically arranged according to a basic notion of 'progressive revelation.' The arguments found in the naskh texts are, in short, based on logic not chronology.
Naskh applies to only the regulative parts of God's revelation. In Tabarī's words:
God alters what was once declared lawful into unlawful, or vice-versa; what was legally unregulated into prohibited and vice-versa. But such changes can occur only in verses conveying commands, positive and negative. Verses cast in the indicative and conveying narrative statements, can be affected by neither nāsikh nor mansūkh .
In particular, the central tenets of the faith are excluded from this process.
Read more about this topic: Naskh (tafsir)
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