In Islamic tradition, there is a well-known principle called naskh — the abrogation of one religious ruling by another. In classical theology, this principle came to be applied much more broadly than simply explaining the sequential revelation of divine guidance. In some schools of law, it was also used to argue that a prophetic report could establish an independent rule, restrict a Quranic ruling, or even abrogate its legal effect.
This is precisely where a fundamental question arises: On what basis can a human transmission abrogate something that is found in the Quran?
In this article, we deliberately do not present hadiths as quotations on the same level as the Quran. This is not accidental. If the subject of the investigation is whether a hadith can have the authority to abrogate a Quranic text, it would be methodologically strange to grant the hadith in advance the very level of authority that is itself under dispute. Therefore, hadiths will only be paraphrased here in order to show which positions are justified through them.
What Does the Quran Actually Say About Abrogation?
The main verse cited in discussions of naskh is 2:106:
“Whatever verse We abrogate or cause to be forgotten, We bring forth one better than it or similar to it. Do you not know that Allah is over all things capable?”
(Quran 2:106)
Notice who performs the action. It is Allah.
The verse does not say that the Prophet can independently abrogate the words of Allah. It does not say that a transmitter of a report can declare a Quranic ruling no longer valid. Nor does it say that later generations of scholars are granted the authority to alter the normative meaning of Scripture.
Even if naskh is understood precisely as the cancellation or replacement of a previous ruling, the verse itself establishes one primary point: this action belongs to Allah.
This distinction is fundamental. One cannot automatically transfer a divine action to a human source and then claim that such a transfer was established by the Quran.
Naskh Does Not Mean That Allah “Changed His Mind”
Here it is important to distinguish the Quranic text itself from later theological models.
The Quran does indeed show a sequence in revelation and changes in certain practical rulings. A good example is the treatment of intoxicants. In 2:219, it first states that they contain both benefit and great sin, with their sin being greater than their benefit. In 4:43, believers are prohibited from approaching prayer while intoxicated. In 5:90–91, believers are then commanded to stay away from wine and gambling.
This can be understood as a gradual process of guiding people toward a particular ruling. There is no need to present the situation as a correction of an initial mistake. Allah is not required to communicate the entire system of commandments to a person immediately in its final form.
Another example is the change in the direction of prayer in 2:142–150. The Quran explicitly describes people’s reaction to the change of the qiblah and explains it as a test through which those who follow the Messenger and those who turn away would become evident.
Therefore, the existence of successive stages in revelation does not itself create a problem. The problem arises when this principle is used to give human reports the authority to alter the Quran.
But Where Does the Quran Say That a Hadith Can Abrogate a Verse?
This is where the argument becomes considerably weaker.
The Quran contains verse 2:106, which speaks about abrogation. But the subject performing the action there is Allah. There is no separate Quranic provision establishing the following scheme:
Allah reveals a verse → sometime later a report about the Prophet is transmitted → this report abrogates the ruling of the verse.
Such a mechanism must be derived additionally.
This is precisely the central problem. A proposition cannot be proven merely because the Quran acknowledges the possibility of divine abrogation. From the statement “Allah can change a ruling,” it does not logically follow that “people can determine that a particular hadith abrogates a particular Quranic verse.”
These are two completely different claims.
What About 24:2 and the Punishment for Adultery?
One of the most revealing examples is the Quranic ruling in 24:2, which prescribes one hundred lashes for the man and woman who commit adultery.
In classical tradition, there are reports concerning rajm — stoning. On the basis of these reports, traditional jurisprudence developed a rule according to which a particular category of people receives a punishment that does not appear in the text of 24:2.
But an obvious hermeneutical question arises: Where does the Quran say that this ruling was abrogated?
It is not enough simply to present a report containing a different rule. It must be demonstrated that this report actually represents a subsequent divine ruling that abrogated an earlier revelation.
The mere existence of such a report does not establish this.
Moreover, traditional literature contains even more complex constructions, such as the idea that the text of a particular ruling could disappear from the Quran while its legal force remained. But this already requires additional theological premises that cannot simply be treated as established by the Quran itself.
An Even More Revealing Example — Dietary Prohibitions
In 6:145, the Quran says:
“Say, ‘I do not find in what has been revealed to me anything forbidden to one who would eat it, except carrion, flowing blood, the flesh of swine — for that is impure — and that which has been dedicated to other than Allah...’”
(Quran 6:145)
Here it is particularly interesting to look not at the later legal system, but at the structure of the statement itself.
The speaker says that in what has been revealed to him, he does not find other foods prohibited apart from the listed exceptions. The Quran then continues to discuss dietary restrictions elsewhere.
Within the traditional legal system, additional dietary prohibitions are derived from prophetic reports. In particular, Sunan Abi Dawud 4604 is used as an example of the claim that the Prophet was given authority to establish additional prohibitions outside the Quranic text. The report itself states that the Prophet was given not only the Book but also something comparable to it, after which additional prohibitions are mentioned.
But this raises a question that cannot be resolved simply by saying “sahih.”
What exactly has this report established?
It establishes only that there is a transmitted report to which the later tradition attributes a particular origin. The designation “authentic” within the hadith-critical system means that the report meets certain criteria of that system; it does not automatically transform the report into Quranic revelation, nor does it prove that the report possesses the authority to abrogate or expand the text of the Quran.
This is especially important in the context of our question. If we first accept the rule that “a hadith has legislative authority” and then use a hadith to prove that very rule, we end up with a closed system: the hadith proves the authority of the hadith.
But the Quran must remain an independent point of reference.
What About the Words “Obey the Messenger”?
This is one of the strongest responses from the traditional position: the Quran repeatedly commands believers to obey the Messenger of Allah.
There is no need to dispute that. The question is different: What exactly does obedience to the Messenger mean?
The Quran presents the Messenger primarily as one who conveys revelation and follows what has been revealed to him. In 10:15, he says:
“It is not for me to change it of my own accord. I only follow what is revealed to me.”
And in 46:9:
“I am not something unprecedented among the messengers. I do not know what will be done with me or with you. I only follow what is revealed to me...”
This does not appear to describe an independent legislator who has the authority to create religious norms separately from revelation.
Moreover, 69:44–47 contains an exceptionally strong warning: if the Messenger had attributed to Allah something Allah had not said, the consequences for him would have been severe.
Therefore, the claim that “the Prophet could independently establish binding religious rules” requires separate evidence. The mere fact that he was the Messenger of Allah does not by itself answer the question of precisely how he received normative authority and where the Quran establishes the limits of that authority.
History Also Matters
There is another level to the problem — the historical one.
The classical theory of naskh cannot simply be presented as a ready-made system that existed unchanged from the very beginning of Islam. The history of Islamic legal thought shows that understandings of naskh, its categories, and its scope developed over time. Modern academic studies of 2:106 likewise point to significant complexity and disagreement in early and classical interpretations of this verse.
The same applies to hadith-based arguments for the Prophet’s independent legislative authority. In the case of the report later recorded in Abu Dawud under number 4604, we are dealing with a tradition preserved in written form in a compilation produced considerably later than the Prophet’s presumed lifetime. The report is known in several versions, and its transmission history connects it with a Syrian network of transmitters in the second century AH. This makes the question of its historical origin a subject for separate investigation rather than an automatically established fact of the seventh century.
Here it is especially important not to confuse two things: the date when a particular legal thesis emerged in a developed form and the date when each individual hadith first appeared. It would be unjustified to claim that the entire theory was literally “invented” in one particular year. But it would be equally incorrect to present later systematization as an indisputable and completely transparent transmission of the original Quranic teaching.
What Happens When a Hadith Is Placed Above the Quran?
A strange hierarchy emerges.
The Quran is a text that a Muslim receives as revelation from Allah. It contains statements about its own nature, its guidance, its completion, and the criterion of truth.
A hadith is a historical report transmitted through human beings and reaching us through a later tradition.
If a contradiction then arises between the two, the classical system in some cases says that the hadith clarifies, restricts, or abrogates a Quranic ruling.
But then a simple question must be answered:
Where exactly did the Quran grant such authority to this historical report?
If the answer cannot be found in the Quran, then that authority does not come from revelation but from a later theological construction.
This is precisely where the fundamental boundary lies.
“But the Quran Does Not Contain Every Detail”
This is a separate argument frequently used to defend an additional legislative source.
Indeed, the Quran is not an instruction manual for every movement of the human body. It does not explain every minor aspect of daily life, establish a separate rule for every conceivable situation, or attempt to turn human existence into an endless list of legal provisions.
But this does not mean that every missing detail must be sought in another source and transformed into a binding religious rule.
The Quran itself says:
“Today I have perfected your religion for you...”
(Quran 5:3)
And it says:
“The word of your Lord has been completed in truth and justice. There is no changing His words.”
(Quran 6:115)
Therefore, the absence of a specific everyday rule from the Quran is not necessarily a deficiency. Perhaps precisely this absence leaves people room for choice, culture, circumstances, and reason.
The problem begins when this space is first declared to be a “deficiency of the Quran” and is then filled with a vast body of human reports, each of which is given binding religious authority.
The Central Question Remains Unresolved
The classical theory of naskh may be an internally sophisticated system. It may have its own definitions, categories, methods for reconciling texts, and centuries of scholarly debate.
But an internally developed system does not automatically become divine law.
To claim that a hadith abrogates a Quranic verse, at least three things must be demonstrated: that the specific report genuinely goes back to the Prophet, that it genuinely represents normative revelation rather than a historical report about a practice or statement, and that the Quran itself grants such a report the authority to abrogate its own text.
The last point is particularly important. It cannot be proven by the hadith itself, because the argument would then become circular.
The Quran does indeed speak about abrogation. But the subject of this action is Allah. The Quran does indeed command believers to follow the Messenger. But the Messenger himself describes himself in the Quran as following what has been revealed to him. The Quran does indeed allow for sequence and change in certain rulings during the course of revelation. But this does not create a human authority to declare verses invalid generations later.
Therefore, the classical proposition that “a hadith can abrogate a Quranic verse” does not follow from the Quran as a principle established by the Quran itself. It is a theological construction formed around a particular understanding of naskh, prophetic authority, and the status of the hadith tradition.
And if the Quran itself is the starting point, the burden of proof does not lie with the person asking this question. It lies with the person claiming that a human report possesses the authority to abrogate the word of God.
At present, we do not find a Quranic basis for such authority.
