Jan 262013
This is a summary of the third Abdullah Yusuf Ali Memorial Lecture which I will deliver. This is the title of the lecture: “Is the Mushaf a complete record of the Qur’an? The controversy of abrogation.”
Dec 262012
The Qur'an describes Allah as having full and perfect knowledge of the past, present, and future. There are also verses that seem to suggest that Allah comes to know about certain things as they happen. The latter talk about the realization in the visible world of God’s foreknowledge, so both sets of verses are totally consistent.
Dec 162012
This is a detailed chapter-by-chapter summary of the book “Abrogation in the Qur’an and Islamic Law: A Critical Study of the Concept of ‘Naskh’ and its Impact.” The summary explains the subject of each chapter and how the different chapters are linked to form a comprehensive study of abrogation.
Oct 282012
Allah says that all the messengers that He sent before Prophet Muhammad, such as prophet Joseph, were men from various towns, to whom He revealed the Message. In describing the “men to whom We gave revelations” as being “from the people of the towns,” Allah emphasizes that those messengers were human beings who were known to their people.
Sep 232012
The overwhelming majority of Muslim scholars, past and modern, have accepted abrogation in both the Qur’an and the Sunna as an indisputable fact. Only a very small minority has rejected Qur’anic abrogation. We know this opposition existed because it is condemned and vilified in the earliest works on abrogation. But this ostensible consensus of the majority conceals enormous differences in the way abrogation is understood.
Sep 082012
“Naskh,” or “abrogation” as it is translated, has been the subject of numerous studies by Muslim scholars down the centuries. As the mechanism describing how divine rulings from the Qur’an and the actions and teachings of the Prophet (Sunna)1 were superseded by others from these sources, it is natural for naskh to acquire such prominence in Islamic sciences, particularly in Islamic law. Scholars, naturally, needed to know the chronological order of the revelations in order to identify which rulings were abolished and which ones were still operative.
Apr 212012
As the unchanged and unerring Word of God, the Qur’an has naturally been considered by Muslims as containing miracles. Many scientific claims have been identified in the Qur’an. Of course, any such identification presumes that the specific scientific claim is a definite fact. Linking a Qur’anic text to any conceived scientific fact often requires preferring one particular interpretation of a word or expression in that Qur’anic text over possible alternatives. Such effort is, of course, open to error. The supposed scientific fact may be later proved to be wrong and/or the interpretation of the relevant Qur’anic passage may be wrong.
Nov 282011
The four Gospels differ on a number of details in their accounts of the crucifixion of Jesus. I have dealt in previous articles with two disagreements, namely whether Jesus was arrested on or before the Passover and what charges were brought against him before Pilate. In this article, I discuss another conflict between the Gospel reports, which concerns the time of Jesus’ alleged crucifixion.
Sep 042011
In Islamic sciences, the term “fiqh” has developed the strictly legal meaning of “studying Shari’a or ‘Islamic law’,” which I briefly explained in my article “Shari’a,” “Fiqh,” and “Usul al-Fiqh” in Islamic Law. But the Arabic root of this term has a general meaning in the Qur’an.
Aug 282011
“Shari'a,” “Fiqh,” and “Usul al-Fiqh” are three fundamental concepts of Islamic law. It is not uncommon for these to be confused with each other. This article gives a brief and clear explanation of each.
