He said, “It is plainly stated in the Revelation that we are duty-bound to take whatever the Messenger of Allah ﷺ commands and to abstain from whatever he forbids.”

I asked, “Is that obligation the same for us, for those before us, and for those who will come after us?”

He replied, “Yes.”

I then said, “If it is obligatory for us to follow the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, does that not mean that whenever he imposes something on us he must also show us the manner in which that obligation is to be observed?”

He said, “Yes.”

I continued, “So can you—or anyone who lived before you or will live after you without having seen the Messenger of Allah ﷺ—fulfil Allah’s command to follow the Messenger’s orders in any way other than through reports transmitted from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ?”

Indeed, my insistence on accepting this only on the basis of such reports itself proves to me that Allah has obliged me to take what comes from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ.

I further said to him, “The same necessity applies to knowing which verses of the Qur’an abrogate others and which are abrogated.”

He responded, “Then mention an example of that.”

I said, “Allah—exalted is He—says: ‘It is prescribed for you, when death approaches any one of you, that, if he leaves some wealth, he should make a bequest for his parents and close relatives’ (2:180).

And He also says regarding the fixed shares of inheritance: ‘For his two parents—for each of them a sixth of what he leaves, if he has a child; but if he has no child and his parents inherit him, then his mother receives a third. If he has siblings, then his mother receives a sixth’ (4:11).”

Thus, on the basis of a report from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, we maintain that the verse on the fixed shares abrogated the ruling on bequest.