Al-Baqarah 2:106

The issue

In the midst of the doctrinal controversy between Muhammad and the Jews in Medina, the Jews noticed that Muhammad was annulling, time and again, rulings that he had enacted. This issue became a subject of their criticism. They said, “Don’t you see that Muhammad commands his Companions to do something, then forbids them from it and commands them with its contrary. Doesn’t he say something today, then takes it back the next?”

Muhammad answered their criticism with this verse, telling them that annulling, abrogating, cancelling, or forgetting the verses, is evidence of the power of Allah. With this verse, Muhammad pointed to two phenomena of the Qur’ān, which are explained below.

First Phenomenon: Abrogation

Abrogation means to annul a ruling and enact another in its place. Al-Tabarī identifies the scope of abrogation: “That is, it makes the lawful (halāl ) unlawful (harām), and the unlawful, lawful. It changes the permissible to impermissible, and the impermissible to permissible. That only applies to commands and prohibitions, to restrictions and releases, and to forbidding and allowing. However, reports (akhbār, the plural for khabar, or report) do not come under abrogation.”

Muslim scholars support the abrogation of the Qur’ān. However, some scholars believe the word naskh (“copy, replace, or abrogate”) here means to copy or transcribe a script. This viewpoint is based on an arbitrary interpretation of the word naskh and does not agree with the context of the verse, which very clearly means the annulling of legislation. Hence, al-Qurtubī rejects this view, saying, “[I]t has nothing to do with this verse.”

In another verse, the Qur’ān affirms abrogation and calls it “substitution,” saying, “And whenever we change one verse for another,-God knows best what He sends down. They say, ‘Thou art but a forger!’-Nay, most of them do not know”

Second Phenomenon: Forgetting

Qur’ānic verses could be subject to forgetting with this text: “Whatever verse we may annul or cause thee to forget…” (Q 2.106). The person addressed here is Muhammad, meaning, “we make you [Muhammad] forget it: that is, we erase it from your heart.”

The scholars considered a verse subject to being forgotten as part of the process of abrogation. They said, “The prophet reads a verse or more, then he is made to forget it, then it is recalled [to heaven].” In another hadīth (saying or naration of Muhammad) it says, “Allah, Almighty, was making his prophet forget whatever he [Allah] wanted and abrogated whatever he [Allah] wanted.”

In the codex of Ibn Mas‘ūd, the verse states, “We make you not forget a verse or abrogate it.” On the other hand, Sa‘d Ibn Abī Waqqās. read it as “we abrogate not a verse or you forget it,” a reading that considers that Muhammad is being addressed, “as if he meant: You forget it, O Muhammad.”

The scholars have said that one of the meanings of “we…cause to be forgotten” is “we erase it.” Erasure is stipulated by the Qur’ān in another verse, where it states, “God blots out what He will, or He confirms; and with Him is the Mother of the Book” (Q 13.39).

Just as some commentators tried to avoid the embarrassment of abrogation by explaining that it means “copying the book by hand” [instead of saying that Allah annulled the verses], other commentators have read the verse using the expression nansa’aha as “we delay it, we do not transmit down its ruling and we lift up its recitation” or “we delay it in the Preserved Tablet,” instead of nonsiha (“to cause to forget”). However, the meaning of nansa’aha is inconsistent with the internal idea of the verse and proves that the text of the Qur’ān was subject to the demands of Muhammad’s environment.

Another Problem

In addition to the two phenomena of abrogation and forgetting, the verse points to the variations in the equivalence of verses. It says, “we will bring a better one than it, or one like it” (Q 2.106). This statement means the substituted verse is better than the one that was abrogated or forgotten, or at least just like the one annulled or forgotten. This begs the question, “Why wasn’t the “better” transmitted in the first place, since the Qur’ān is there in heaven, in the Preserved Tablet (al-Lawhal-Mahfūz. )? Also, if a “similar” is brought forth, what is new in this case?”

These problems found in Q 2.106 refute several understandings held by Muslims regarding the inerrancy of the Qur’ān and its preservation in the Preserved Tablet.

Another Contradiction

Abrogation in itself presents a contradiction within the Qur’ān. The verse, “And whenever we change one verse for another,” (Q 16.101) contradicts the verse, “there is no changing the words of God!” (Q 10.64). (See the comment on Q 10.64 in the second volume of this book.)