Why Muslims abrogate verses in the Qur’an

Muslims say: “There is no god but Allah” and people should worship only him, rejecting idolatry and polytheism. Jews agree. Muslims believe Allah created the world in six days and so do Jews and Christians.

Allah sent tens of thousands of Prophets to all of the tribes, nations and kingdoms in the world; and 313 Messengers like Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Jesus, and Muhammad, and each brought to their believers a special sacred book. Jews and Christians can also agree to this.

All prophets and their followers were Muslims (submitters to the one and only God), though Muslims do tend to conflate the general and specific meanings of the words Islam and Muslim.

Five messenger prophets received scriptures from Allah prior to the Qur’an, notably the Scrolls of Abraham (now lost), the Torah of Moses, the Psalms of David, and the Gospel of Jesus. Most Muslim scholars in later generations claimed that the messages and books, had became corrupted or were lost.

Jews and Christians strongly reject this slander because the Qur’an itself states: “So if you are in doubt, [O Muhammad], about that which We have revealed to you, then ask those who have been reading the Scripture before you (the Jews and Christians). The truth has certainly come to you from your Lord, so never be among the doubters.” (10:94)

Also many Qur’an verses have been abrogated by other verses. Not all Muslims believe that the Quran abrogates itself and would reject these traditions. Yet, many Muslims do believe that the Quran abrogates itself. According to some scholars the Qur’an abrogates only the Qur’an. They base their view on verses 2:106 and 16:101.

According to them the Qur’an does not abrogate the sunna nor does the sunna abrogate the Qur’an. This is the view held by Shafi’i. Others claim that the Qur’an may abrogate the Qur’an as well as the sunna. They base their view on Sura 53:3-4

The Muslim scholar Ahmad Von Denffer said regarding the conflicting views held by Muslim scholars over the precise nature of abrogation: “The number of verses that are considered to have been abrogated increased dramatically between the eighth and eleventh centuries (al-Zuhri mentions 42 abrogated verses, al-Nahhas 138, and Ibn Salama, 238), at which point an upper limit seems to have been reached (Ibn ‘Ata’iqi identifies 231 abrogated verses, and al-Farsi, 248). Yet “al-Suyuti (died 1505 CE) recognized only twenty instances of true abrogation, and Shah Wali Allah (d 1762 CE) reduced that number to five.

Here is a good example from: SAHIH BUKHARI Volume 6, Book 60, Number 13: Narrated Al-Bara: The Prophet prayed facing Bait-ulMaqdis (Jerusalem) for sixteen or seventeen months but he (really) wished that his Qibla would be the Ka’ba (Mecca). So Allah revealed verse (2:144) and he (Prophet Muhammad) offered ‘Asr prayers (in his Mosque facing the Ka’ba at Mecca) and some people prayed with him.

“A man from among those who had prayed with him, went out and passed by some people offering prayer in another mosque, and they were in the state of bowing. He said, “I, testify that I have prayed with the Prophet facing Mecca.” Hearing that, they turned their faces to the Ka’ba while they were still bowing.

“Some men had died before the Qibla was changed towards the Ka’ba. They had been killed and we did not know what to say about them (i.e. whether their prayers towards Jerusalem were accepted or not). So Allah revealed:– “Allah would never make your faith (prayer) to be lost (i.e. your prayers offered (towards Jerusalem are holy). Truly Allah is Full of Pity, Most Merciful towards mankind.” (2.143)

The many dozens of Prophets in the Hebrew Bible make only a few references to to the religious texts of prior religions. The New Testament is an add on to the Hebrew Bible; which quotes the Hebrew Bible 302+ times, and claims to be the Old Tenement’s fulfillment. The Qur’an is a stand alone text which mentions both Torah and Injil together 12 times, mentions Injil three times, and Torah six times by themselves; and quotes the Zabur only once (Psalm 37:9,11,29) in Qur’an 21:105.

The term suhuf (scroll books Qur’an 20:133, 21:48, 87:19) is used for texts of Prophets Abraham, Aaron and Moses which were written separately, and later added in as part of the Oral Torah written down by the rabbis in the second century. (Qur’an 6:91) This was the original meaning of Tahrif.

At first it would seem that Tahrif (Arabic: تحريف, “distortion, alteration”) an Arabic term used by Muslims for the alterations which Islamic tradition claims Jews and Christians have made to their revealed books, specifically the Tawrat (Torah), Zabur (Psalms) and Injil (Gospels); is the direct opposite of Midrash.

In the Zabur of Prophet David it is written: “One thing God has spoken; two things have I heard” (Psalms 62:12). The rabbis in the Talmud (Sanhedrin 34a) asserted that this means there are multiple interpretations of each verse of Scripture that can be correct, and the word of God, even if they contradict one another. The Hebrew term for this concept of pluralistic interpretation of sacred scriptures is Midrash.

Midrash (מדרשׁ) is an interpretive activity of seeking answers to religious questions (both practical and spiritual) by plumbing the meaning of every word in the Torah. In the Bible, the root d-r-sh [דרשׁ] means inquiring into any matter, including seeking out God’s word. Midrash responds to contemporary problems and crafts new narratives, making connections between new Jewish realities and the ancient unchanging Hebrew text.

Midrash falls into two categories.When the subject is law and religious practice (halacha ), it is called Midrash halacha. Midrash aggadah, on the other hand, interprets biblical poety, prophecy and narrative, exploring questions of ethics or theology, and creating lessons, new insights and different views all based on the ancient text. In some ways Midrash is like Islamic Tafsir which means fasara, meaning “to discover”;  the derived verb form fassara means “to explain, interpret, or to elucidate.” Tafsir is the explanation or interpretation of something “exposing its secrets.

Written by rabbis steeped in Bible and absorbed by the many different questions that arise over the centuries, midrash occupies the meeting ground between reverence and love for the word of the fixed text of the Torah, and religious creativity in meeting new developments in society and culture. Midrash thus yields religious insights that have made Torah directly applicable to the later realities of Jewish life.

The best-known rabbinic midrash is the legend of Prophet Abraham, who as a young child in Mesopotamia smashed his father’s idols. Not just a simple morality tale about a national hero, the text in Midrash Rabbah for Genesis suggests that Abraham’s selection by God did not come out of nowhere, as Genesis 12 literally reads. Rather, Abraham had independently come to a point where he would be receptive to the voice of the one God.

This midrash lays out Prophet Abraham’s relationship to his family and to the people and culture around him, and his willingness to challenge conventional wisdom. It is not only a depiction of this patriarch, but also a model of an ideal spiritual personality for Jews, Christians and Muslims in any age and foreign culture.

The narrative about Abraham breaking his father’s idols is related in the Qur’an once in 19:41-50 and again in 21:51-66 for a total of 24 verses. In the written Torah this event is not mentioned at all; but it is the center of several oral Torah Midrash accounts.

This would be called Tahrif by Muslims; and is called Midrash by Jews, but if you ask most Jews today, especially well educated Jews who are less educated in Judaism, where the Abraham breaking his father’s idols event is related; they will respond it is written in the Book of Genesis in the Torah.

So the Qur’an states: “And there is a party among them who twist their tongues while reciting the [Torah] Book to make you think that it [their Midrash/Tafsir] is part of the Book, when in fact it is not. They say: ‘It is from Allah’, when in fact it is not from Allah. They falsely fix a lie upon Allah, and do so wittingly.” (3:78)

As a Reform Rabbi I agree with the above ayah. The party the Qur’an criticizes are those Orthodox Rabbis, who when the subject was law and religious practice (Midrash halacha) kept expanding the number of dietary laws, the strictness of Sabbath restrictions, and female purity laws.

Narrated Abu Huraira: The Prophet said, “Religion is very easy and whoever overburdens himself in his religion will not be able to continue in that way. So do not be extremists, but try to be near to perfection and receive the good tidings that you will be rewarded.” (Bukhari Vol. 1, Book 2, # 38)

Reform Rabbis regard the increasingly restrictive developments in the laws of kosher diet, especially for Passover, as a counterproductive, overburdening of the Jewish people by extra-pious Orthodox rabbis. The expansion of restrictions on Shabbat activities is also seen by Reform Rabbis as a counterproductive, overburdening of the joy of Shabbat.

The Qur’an wisely differentiates between extremism and striving to be near perfect (no one is perfect) which involves a rejection of extremism. Just trying to do well will be rewarded. Religion should not be hard. Making religion easier does not mean making religion soft or impious.

This is a very important Hadith because all religions have believers who think that more is always better, and that much more harder; is still even better.