for authority itself is among Allah’s signs. Whoever disputes concerning Allah’s signs on the basis of authority is therefore disputing concerning some of His signs by means of others.

Such disputation is praiseworthy when one verse abrogates another or explains it in a way that differs from its apparent meaning, although the early generations called all of this abrogation. Thus, the Companions and their successors would not set aside what a verse of Allah’s Book indicated except on grounds they called abrogation. In their time, the only books on this subject were books on abrogating and abrogated passages. This amounts, at most, to disputing concerning Allah’s signs on the basis of authority—as when we dispute with the people of the Torah and the Gospel, both of which are among Allah’s signs, by means of the Quran, which Allah revealed to confirm the Scripture that preceded it and to stand as a guardian over it.

As for opposing the Quran with a rational argument or an analogy, none of the early generations considered this permissible. This practice was introduced only when the Jahmiyyah, the Muʿtazilah, and others like them appeared. They founded the principles of their religion upon what they called rational knowledge and made it the standard by which the Quran was interpreted. They said that when reason and revelation conflict, one must either withhold interpretation or reinterpret the text. These are among the foremost of those who dispute concerning Allah’s signs without any authority having come to them.

What later scholars call specifying a general statement, qualifying an unrestricted statement, and similar ways of departing from apparent meanings falls within what earlier scholars called abrogation. According to this terminology, abrogation applies to statements of fact just as it applies to commands. As for abrogation in the specific sense of repealing a ruling, in a report concerning an established matter there must be