When Allah Changes the Rules: Understanding Naskh

Alhamdulillah.

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Continuing in surah chapter number 73 the final verse verse number 20. It's a verse which contains in it an element or a method of legislation that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala refers to elsewhere in the Quran as an what is an is that a verse or a ruling may be changed. It could be made more strict. It could be made less strict. It could go from something that is waj to later being mustab. It could go from something that isab to later becoming waj. And it can do the same thing with respect to prohibitions. It could be something that is discouraged and then later made prohibited. It could be something that is at first prohibited and then later made discouraged etc. There are many there are many instances of a ness or in English we would say abrogation throughout the Quran and throughout the sunnah. Now this issue of is something which all of the scholars of Islam it is found in the Quran. It's evidence for a is in the Quran in the sunnah and also the consensus of the scholars and the ummah of Islam in general that this is something which is found in the legislation of the Quran in the legislation of the sunnah that something would be a law would be set and then later changed. by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. This is something which only occurs in laws and it does not occur in doesn't occur in information. So for instance, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is not going to abregate one of his names, one of his attributes that that that is no longer one of his names, no longer one of his attributes or something happened and then later it said that it didn't happen something that. Obviously that is not the realm of a ness. A ness is a legislative device that is used by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in order to incrementally introduce change in the society as a whole or the individuals etc. And this is something which all of the Muslim agree is found in the Quran, is found in the Sunnah. And why not being that the Quran abregated? What book? What book did the Quran abrogate? Huh? Correct. Every book has been abrogated by the Quran and abrogation happens in the Quran. It happens in the sunnah and this is not a reflection of a deficiency in legislation. there were innovative groups that came to be in Islam that started to from their claim from an intellectual or from a rational sense deny the existence of a in the Quran and Sunnah. And this is something that is an innovation that later cropped up in roughly the 3rd century after hijra. So the Muslim never differed on this issue. Roughly 250 years later the jahya were introduced. The mortzilla were introduced and one of their innovations was that abrogation is something that cannot happen. It cannot be. However, this is rejected. This is rejected by the clear verses of the Quran, the clear verse narrations of the prophet sallall.aii wasallam and the consensus the of all of the Muslim.

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Subhanahua youth bit. What you bit Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.

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Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala tells us in Bakar about in the Quran. He tells us in Bakar that no verse do we abregate nor make you to forget except that we will replace it with one equal or better. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala it is his book and that is to his discretion. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala later says in he says Allah erases whatever he chooses and he affirms whatever he chooses of the book subhanahu wa ta'ala of laws of prohibitions of obligations etc and so this is something which is found in the Quran there are verses which abregate other verses Now this doesn't happen always in the same way. Sometimes only a portion of a verse is abregated or only a portion of a ruling is abregated such as the verse that we have here verse number 20 when we look at the very beginning of the chapter Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says Stand for prayer at night. Stand for prayer all the night except for a portion. This is an obligation. This wording here, this wording and this diction, this articulates obligation. It is binding. And we discussed how this was obligatory at the very beginning of Islam and then was later made must later made highly encouraged when the five daily prayers were obligated in the way that we have them today. Now in this verse, so that's at the very first the second verse of the chapter. Then we fast forward to this verse which we know was revealed way later in the days of Mecca M was revealed and it said that it is the third chapter to be revealed in that consecutive order but the 20th verse was not revealed at the same time. The 20th verse was revealed way later. How do we know that? Well, we know that because Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala mentions jihad and the issue of jihad only came up in the way later years of the Meccan era and was later made permissible and then made preferable and then made obligatory in the days of Medina. So this is this verse when we look at the subject matter, we look at what it talks about, what it discusses, we can kind of see that this verse was revealed in the way later days of Mecca. And as a matter of fact, we know that this issue of jihad started to be started to be kind of articulated in so many words. We started to kind of see that jihad will eventually become something in the future. Glimpses of it and glimmers of it come up throughout the verses and chapters that were revealed in Mecca as kind of a as kind of a as kind of a prelude to jihad that this will become something. But this only came up in the later years of Mecca. Allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala here says in this verse he says says,.

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He says, "Indeed your Lord knows knows very well that you stand for prayer in the night a little less than 23 of the night or a little less than half of the night or a third of the night. You along with a band of those who are with you meaning of his companions meaning a group from those who are with you. Meaning that it wasn't all of the Muslim that were standing for. It was only some that were making salah in others were not. And this is why the strongest opinion of the scholars is that standing for prayer at night to it was only made obligatory upon the prophet sallall.aii wasallam at the beginning and highly encouraged for the rest of the Muslim. that was later then abregated and it remained either obligatory or highly encouraged for the prophet sallall.aii Wasam as well. And so Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, "And Allah is the one who decides and he is the one who sets the parameters. He sets the lengths. He is the one who causes the length of the days and nights to vary, to increase or decrease. He is the one who decrees that." He says he knows that you will not be able to maintain this kind of prayer all year round all of the time for all of the future. Things will happen. People will get sick. People will forget. People will get busy. People will travel. circumstances change, right? And so Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala then says and so Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has has made then thus things easier for you. So now we are going from obligation to what to something which is preferable which is a type of abrogation. Notice how it was done. You'll see this pattern throughout the legislation of Islam with respect to things that are a new discipline that we are supposed to be learning. It starts out really intense and then it eases up. And this is how we learn discipline. This is how we change habits. you notice for instance with respect to many legislations of Islam, it starts out very intense and then when everybody learns that discipline of that which is intense, then it takes it back a notch and it makes it less intense. Why? Because that discipline will now remain. Same thing with wudoo. Wudoo at the very beginning was obligatory for every prayer whether you broke your wudoo or not a person would make wudoo every time they wish to pray. And so now this became a part of what a part of people's discipline because a new discipline is being learned. Then when it became part of everyone's discipline, everyone is doing it. Everyone is fulfilling it. They are used to that which is more difficult. Now it can ease up a little bit and it becomes now it is it is preferred that a pe person make woo every time they go to pray but it's not obligatory. The same thing happened with with the same thing with fasting. In fasting when Ramadan was first obl obligated, the way that it worked is that a person if they were to break their fast and they were to fall asleep and they had not eaten yet, they were not permitted to eat until the next morning. So they had to fast all through the night. Why is that? Why is that ruling so strict? Because a new discipline now is being introduced. Fasting this is something fasting for an entire month. Fasting one day, people can do that. Fasting an entire month, that's a new thing. So Allah began with the very strict and then over time it became permissible to eat any time during the hours of the night. As long as it's night time, eat anytime you want. So it eased up. The same thing with respect to salah. We've mentioned salah. We've mentioned fasting. And you'll find this all through the Quran. And it moves differently when it comes to that which is prohibited. In prohibiting something, it doesn't start ex extreme and then become easier. It usually starts easy and slowly intensifies. You see that pattern with the prohibition of alcohol, with the prohibition of ribba, with the prohibition of gambling, with the prohibit, it started out what slowly intensifies over time. So as these new habits are being built, these old habits are being phased out. And so when it comes to new obligations, new disciplines, we'll see a pattern where it starts really intense and then gets easier. And when it comes to prohibitions, it's the opposite. It starts out really easy and slowly what intensifies. And this is the same pattern that we see here in this verse. Foreham.