Naskh (tafsir) - Theology

Theology

Naskh stimulated several lines of theologizing to reconcile this "reality of the Fiqh" with Islam's core religious doctrines.

Probably the most immediate concern was explaining the very existence of progressive revelation. What could account for God's turn to this expedient outside of limits to His omniscience (subsequent rulings are "better" because they are informed by superior knowledge) or inconstancy in the divine will? Both prospects were repugnant to orthodox theologians (at least of the Sunni variety; compare this to the Shi'ite doctrine of bada', however) and so other rationales were put forth. One of these relied upon the tried apologetic technique (see the argument for theodicy from free will, for example) of reconstruing apparent limitations in the Creator as expressions of solicitude towards His creatures, and indeed as tokens of His mercy towards them. This was formalized in the doctrine of tahkfīf and is frequently expressed by commentators such as Tabarī, who argued in his exegesis of Q.2:106 that one motivation for naskh was God's desire to lighten the ritualistic and legal burdens He had imposed upon mankind:

The ruling may be better for you in this life, on account of its being easier to perform, where a previous obligation has been withdrawn, relieving you of the more difficult performance. For example, it has once been obligatory for the Muslims to engage in lengthy nocturnal prayers (Q.73:1). They were relieved of that burden (Q.73:20). That is an instance in which the nāsikh was better for them in this life.

Yet tahkfīf is equally applicable where the nāsikh introduces a more onerous requirement- for example, the extension of the ritual fast from a few days (Q.2:184) to the entire month of Ramadan (Q.2:185)- as its performance is "better" for men on account of it helping them attain greater reward in the Hereafter, or even when the change is indifferent, such as the switching of the qibla, as the reward will not change. Clearly, then, the criteria of tahkfīf is unfalsifiable, completely useless for distinguishing nāsikh from mansūkh, and therefore entirely dogmatic in character.

Another, much more specifically Islamic, problem was raised by the doctrine by mu'jaz- or the literary perfection and inimitability of the Qur'ān. How could one āya be replaced by one which is better than it, as Q.2:106 explicitly promises, if all āyat or inimitable and therefore incommensurable? This issue was sidestepped by interpolation; the superior replacement is the verse's ruling, not the verse's wording, and so no violation of the doctrine of mu'jaz is entailed.

Lastly, there is the issue of abrogated material whose wording is preserved in the mushaf (naskh al-hukm dūna al-tilāwa). Since the verse's ruling is inoperative, what purpose is served by retaining its wording? One common rationale, expressed here by Suyūti (Itqān) and mirroring the tahkfīf argument was:

...the Qur'ān was revealed so that its rulings might be known and their implementation rewarded; but... the Qur'ān is also recited with reverence, since it is the word of God, for whose recitation the pious Muslim is likewise rewarded. Further, to leave the wording, following the abrogation of the ruling was to provide for men a constant reminder of the compassion and mercy shown by their gracious Lord Who had lightened the burden of some his previous requirements.

Overall, though, the Muslim commentators demonstrate a remarkable degree of complacency in the face of naskh 's more theologically disturbing implications, supremely confident (as expressed in the following gloss on a famous Ā'isha hadith) that whatever the mechanisms used to expurgate or cancel the Divine revelation, what has ultimately come down to us is exactly what Allah intended mankind to have:

We were too occupied with the preparations in the Prophet's sick-room to give any thought to the safe-keeping of the sheets on which the revelations had been written out, and while we were tending our patient, a household animal got in from the yard and gobbled up some of the sheets which were kept below the bedding. Those who would account for all events here below in terms of divine agency could see in this most unfortunate mishap nothing incongruous with the divine promise, having revealed the Reminder, to preserve it. Here, indeed, was the working of the divine purpose... their removal, as an aspect of the divine revelatory procedures had been determined by God and had occurred under effective divine control. Having determined that these 'verses' would not appear in the final draft of His Book, God had arranged for their removal. The revelation was never, at any time, at the mercy of accidental forces.

Such complacency reflects the important constitutive effects of naskh's eventual theological sanitization. Once the genuineness of God's abrogation of His own commandments was accepted, the fact that no intelligible pattern underlay His sequence of actions was taken as indicative of important facts about the nature of the Creator, as well as the proper duties of His creatures. In particular this reinforced the extreme deontological currents within Islamic philosophy and ethics:

The Supreme Being imposes or forbids what He chooses. Nothing is either good or evil per se; God does not command 'the good' and prohibit 'the evil'. What God commands is good and what He forbids is evil. God is under no compulsion to any external moral imperative. Adherence to what He commands will be rewarded; performance of what he forbids will be punished. Both command and prohibition being tests of human obedience, God may naskh what He chooses.

The Creator and Sovereign Lord of the Universe shares His absolute power with none. To test man's obedience, God may order them to do whatever he chooses, or to desist from whatever He wills. He may command what was never previously required or forbid what was previously unregulated; equally. He may prohibit what He Himself had actually commanded, or command what He Himself had previously prohibited... Nor may men question anything that God requires of them. They must only identify what God has commanded or forbidden and act immediately to demonstrate their creaturely status and humble obedience.