THE SCIENCE OF ABROGATION (ABROGATION): MODERN CRITIQUE
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.62567/micjo.v3i3.3016Keywords:
Abrogation, Qur’anic Hermeneutics, Uṣūl Al-Fiqh, Maqāṣid Al-Sharīʿa, Coherence Theory, Ethics, Historicism, Usul, ExegesisAbstract
Abrogation (abrogation) holds a central, vexed position in Islamic legal-theological hermeneutics. Classical uṣūl al-fiqh elaborated a technical theory of abrogation that attempted to mediate the diachronic process of revelation and the demands of fixity of legal judgment (ḥukm). Tradition receipts that later scripture abrogates earlier scripture wherever actual, unavoidable contradiction is found, classically expressed as "al-nāsikh wa-l-mansūkh.". Pre-modern thinkers classified modes and cases of abrogation, inferred them from revelational phases, and counted suspected cases throughout the Qur'an and Sunna. Modern scholarship avoids both epistemic pretensions and hyperbolic earlier assertions of abrogation. The article tracks early meanings, introduces intratraditional caution that moderated abrogation, and evaluates recent re-analyses based on coherence theory, maqāṣid (purposes), historicization in context, and ethics. It argues that abrogation was included in pre-modern dogmatics as a component of a package of other hermeneutical strategies (specification, restriction, prioritization, suspension) and that available resources allow for a less ambitious, economy-of-means approach. A renovated dogma leaner, evidence-based, and syncretized with maqāṣid and semantics can ensure the normativity of revelation and make the law more attentive to modern moral concerns, such as gender justice, religious pluralism, and violence. The paper reaches its climax with the proposal of a "manifest conflict resolution" regime. where abrogation is held in reserve as a last resort and not the initial starting point and has ramification for legal rulings (fatwā), legal codification and education more widely. (Hallaq 1993; Kamali 2003; Auda 2008; Rahman 1982; Abu Zayd 2006).
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