concerning serial transmission. Its sequence may sometimes be interrupted midway, as is the case with the musalsal of “The first ḥadīth I ever heard,” according to the soundest view. Allah knows best.

The Thirty-Fourth Category
The Abrogating and the Abrogated in Ḥadīth
This is an important and demanding discipline in which Imām al-Shāfiʿī—may Allah have mercy on him—had a far-reaching, pioneering role. Some later scholars introduced into it material that does not truly belong there because the concept itself is subtle. The preferred definition is that naskh (abrogation) occurs when the Lawgiver replaces an earlier ruling He Himself legislated with a later one.

1. At times the abrogation is established by an explicit statement of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, as in his words: “The last of the two commands from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ was to dispense with wuḍūʾ after eating something that has been touched by fire.”
2. At other times it is known through chronological evidence.
3. Still other instances are inferred from the unanimous agreement of the scholars, such as the ḥadīth prescribing execution for the wine-drinker on his fourth offense. Consensus itself neither abrogates nor is abrogated, but it points to the existence of an abrogating text. Allah knows best.