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The exegesis of Q. 2: 106 and the Islamic theories of naskh: mā nansakh min āya aw nansahā na'ti bi khairin minhā aw mithlīhā

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

John Burton
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Extract

The story of the exegesis of Q. 2: 106 cannot be told briefly, on account of the quite appaling degree of muddle which has bedevilled the Muslim discusions of this verse. The greatest imaginable confusion regins as the definition of the term naskh and as to its supposed meaning(s). For that reason, it may be convenient first to set out the following formulae which represent the classical theories of naksh. There are, in fact, two such theories.

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Articles
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Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 48 , Issue 3 , October 1985 , pp. 452 - 469
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 1985

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References

1 Mālik B.Anas, Muwatla', Hudūd, hadd al-zinā

2 Shāfi'ī seeks to argue that the stoning penalty was latest ascertained act of the Prophet. It represented the abrogation of one sunna ('Ubāda) by a later sunna, (Mā'iz). The 'Ubāda hadiīth functioned to provide the Prophet's (earliest) exegesis of Q. 24: 2 Which was later modified in the exegesis presented in the Mā'iz hadith. Risāla, (ed. Shākir) Cairo, 1358/1940, 128–32., but cf. below, n. 15.

3 See: Burton, J., ‘Those are the high-flying cranes’, Journal of Semitic Studies, XV, 2, 1970, 246–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 AnŠārĪ, Muhammad b. Ahmad, al-Jāmi' li aḥkām al-Qur'ān, 20pts., in 10vols., Cairo, 1369/1950, II, 62.Google Scholar

5 al-Tၫsī, Muhammad b. al-Hasan, al-Tibyān fi tafsīr al-Qur'an, 10 vols., Najaf, 1376/1957, I, 393.Google Scholar

6 cf. Makkī b. abi Tālib, al-Nāsikh wa-'l-Mansūkh, MS Istanbul, Sulaimaniyeh, Shahīd 'Alī, no. 305, f. 6a: Q. 22:52 does not “indicate” the intellectual acceptability of naksh. It merely shows that God eradicates what the Devil insinuates into the Prophet's recital [of the Qur'ān]. It does not indicate the occourence in the divine revelations of the naskh of what God considers to be part of His truth. Q. 22: 52 refers to the expression: nasakhat al-rī al-aīhār, where no trace of either the nāsikh or the mansūkh remains'. See now, Kitāb al-īdāh li nāsikh al-Qur'ān wa mansūkhihi, ed. Ahmad Hasan Farhāt, Riyād, 1976.

7 al-Fakhr al-Rāzī, al-Tafsīr al-Kabīr, 32 pts., in 16 vols., Tehran, [n.d.], III, 226.

8 The printed text should be amended: for ahamm, read a'amm

9 Loc. cit., 229.

10 ibid., 230 ff.

11 for a preferabale reading, see below, p. 459.

12 cf. Qurtubī cit., p. 63, which is based on: Abū 'Ubaid al-Qāsim b, Sallām, Kitāb al-Nāsikh wa-'l-Mansūkh, MS Istanbul, Ahmet III, A. 143, ff. 7b–8a.

13 ibid., f. 7a.

14 Qurtubī 67;Abū 'Ubaid, op. cit., f. 5a.

15 Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūtī, Kitāb al-Itqān 'lūm al-Qur'ān, 2 pts., in 1 vol., Cairo, 1354/1935, pt. 2, p. 27. Verse may be not merely either mansūkh or nāsikh. They may also be munsa'-sc. their revelation is delayed until circumstance are propitious. For Shāfi'ī, the 'Ubāda hadith was the munsa' ruling promised by God(q. 4. 15), to regulated sexual irregulairty: The verse reads: aw yaj'al allāh lahunna sabīl, while the hadith reads: qad ja' allāh lahunna sabīl. Cf. Risāla, 131–2.

16 Abū 'Ubaid, op. cit., f. 5a; Bukhārī, Buyū', bāb: man ahabb al-basat fi al-rizq; Ādāb, bāb: man busita lahu fi al-rizq; Muslim, al-birr wa-'I-sila bāb: silat al-rahim.

17 Risāla, 108. ef. Qurtubī, 68; Baidāwī, Tafsīr, 2 pts., in 1 vol., Cairo, [n. d.] (Q. 2: 106), pt. 1, p. 23.

18 Abū Ja'far Jarīr, Muhammad b., jāmi' al-Bayān 'an ta'wil āy al-Qur'ān, ed. Shākir, 15 vols. (to date), Cairo, 1954, II, 471.Google Scholar

19 This wording is frequently borrowed: cf. e.g. Abū Ja'far al-Nahhās, Kitāb al-nāsikh wa-'l-mansūkh, Cairo, [n. d.], 8; Sallāmah, Hibatullā b., Kitāb al-nāsikh wa-'l-mansūkh, Cairo, 1379/1960, 4.Google Scholar

20 Divine statements, being eternally true, are subject to no alternation. For this reason, some prefer to eschew entirely use of the term tabdīl. Cf. al-Sarakhsī, Abū Bakr Muhammad b.Ahmad, 'Usūl, 2 vols., 1372/1952, II, 54.Google Scholar

21 Tabarī 473 ff.

22 These reference to Q. 87 and Q.18 call for tow 2nd pers., masc. sing. ‘readings’ which can then be distinguished solely by different ‘voice’. The subtlety of this distinction between an active and a passive reading eludedthe normally vigilant Goldziher, cf. Goldziher, I.,Die richtungen der Islamischen Koranuslegung, Leiden, 1952, 24–5.Google Scholar

23 P. 476: La'amruka inna al-mawt mā ansa'a al-fatā laka al-tiwal al-murkhā wa thinyahu bi-l-yad ‘By thy life, however long a term a brage may be granted, You hold but the extend tether whose ends, however, are in the grasp of Death’ (Tarafa)

24 Abū, 'Ubaidah, Majāz al-qur'ān, 3 vols., Cairo, 1954–1962, pt. 1, p. 50, can cite a second line from Tarafa to confirm a different of the stem n 's.Google Scholar

25 cf. n. 22.

26 p. 478.

27 pp. 478–9.

28 Yūsufb, Muhammad b.Hayyān, 'Ali b., al-Muhīt, 8 vols., Riyād, 1969, I, 344, cites the same objections and attributes them to al-Zajjāj.Google Scholar

29 Th., Nöldeke;, Geschichte des Qorāns, 2nd. edition, ed. Fr. Schwally, 2 vols., Leipzing, 1909–1919, I,234–8. Cf. Itqāln, loc. cit., 25–6, derived from Abū 'Ubaid, Fadā'il al-Qur'ān, MS Tü., Ma VI 96 f. ff. 46–47b.Google Scholar

30 Cf. Burton, J., The collection of the Qur'ān, Cambridge, 1977, 46–9.Google Scholar

31 p. 482–3.

32 cf. Risāla, 113–7.

33 This paragraph is at serious variance with Tabarī's own tafsīr of Q. 2: 184-vide III, 417.

34 Qurtubī 67.

35 This list is problematic; for Ibn 'Abbās's ‘reading’, cf. Tabari, II, 246, Cf. Qurtuī, 68. For 'Ubaid b. 'Umair's ‘reading’, cf.Tabarī, 474, 477.

36 cf. above, n. 2, n. 15, and see: al-Ghazzālī, Abū Hāmid, Kitāb al-Mustasfā, 2 vols.,Bulāq, 1322/ 1904, I, 124.Google Scholar

37 Tibyān, loc. cit., 395.

38 Abū 'Ubaid, who saw nothing amiss in accepting that God had caused His Prophet to forget some of the divine revelation (Q. 87) found the ‘readings’ aw tansachā; aw tunsahā aw nunsihā, al equally acceptable. Interested in the ‘fact’ of Qur'ānic omissions, he was indifferent to the minutiae of ‘readings’. Kitā al-nāsikh wa-l-mansūkh, f. 6b.

39 'Alī, in fact, reports from Ibn 'Abbā aw nansahā natrulc hā lā nubaddilhā -of. Tabarī, 476.

40 Qurtubī 67.

41 Qurtubī 65–6; Collection, 52.

42 Collection, 72 ff,; 92.

43 Rāzī, 232.

44 In case of the naskh of the Qur'ān, both nāsikh and Mansū for the Shāfi'is must be verses; in cases of naskhof the Sunna, both must be hadīths. Shāfi'ī himself distinguished the nāsikh from the ma'ti bihi, Risāla, 110.

45 It is the Shāfi'īs who argue this way, never Shāfi'i. He has admitted this 'Umar hadīth into his Hadīh canon (see Ikhtilāf al-Hadīth, marg. v. 7, Kitāb al-Umm, 7 vols., Bulāq, 1321–4/ 1903–6, 250–51). but does not rely upon it in his argumentation-see above, nn. 2, 15. Mālik, from whom Shāfi'ī quotesthe 'Umar hadīth in passing, was not himself too concerned about the actual source of the stoning penalty; he suggests three possible sources: the stoning-‘verse’ in the Pentateuch; the stoning-‘verse’ of the Qur'ān ('Umar) the Sunna of the Prophet, see Muwatta' loc. cit.; cf. Collection, 90.

46 Risāla, 110.

47 ibid., 108.

48 Mustasfaā loc. cit., 124; (cf. Risāla, p. 103).

49 ibid.

50 ibid., 125; Collection, 57–9.

51 ibid., 124; Collection, 92–4.

52 Risā, 107.

53 ibid., 122.

54 ibid., 109.

55 ibid., 106.

56 Schacth, J., The origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence, Oxford, 1950, 15.Google Scholar

57 Collection, 68; 89; 100.

58 ibid., 90–94.

59 Rāzī, 229. See now Sa'id, al-Ansārī, Multaqat Jāmi' al-Ta'wil, Calcutta, 1340/ 1921.Google Scholar

60 Collection, 46–9.

61 cf. above, p. 459.