al-Thawrī from Mughīra—of no weight—from Abū al-‘Āliya, who said:

Ubayy ibn Ka‘b was asked, “Give me counsel.” He replied: “Take the Book of Allah as your guide, and accept it as judge and arbiter. It is what His Messenger appointed as his successor among you: an intercessor whose intercession is heeded and a witness above suspicion. It contains accounts of what preceded you, accounts of what is among you, mention of what preceded you, and mention of what is in your midst.”

Sufyān also narrated from a man whom he named, from Ibn Abzā, from Ubayy, who said: “Act upon whatever becomes clear to you; whatever remains unclear to you, believe in it and entrust it to the One who knows it.”

Some of them said that the ambiguous passages are those that have been abrogated, while others included all declarative passages. Thus, Qatāda, al-Rabī‘, al-Dahhāk, and al-Suddī are reported to have said: “The clear passages are the abrogating passages, which are acted upon; the ambiguous passages are the abrogated passages, which are believed in but not acted upon.” The same appears in al-‘Awfī’s transmission of the commentary of Ibn ‘Abbās.

As for al-Wālibī’s transmission of the commentary of Ibn ‘Abbās, it states: “The clear passages of the Quran are its abrogating passages, its declarations of what is lawful and unlawful, its prescribed limits and obligations, and whatever is to be believed in and acted upon. The ambiguous passages are its abrogated passages, its earlier and later passages, its parables and oaths, and whatever is to be believed in but not acted upon.”

The first view is, and Allah knows best, derived from His words:

“Allah abolishes what Satan casts, then Allah makes His verses firm.”

Here He contrasts what is abolished with what is made firm. Yet He, glorified be He, meant only the abolition of what Satan had cast, not the abrogation of what He Himself had revealed. They nevertheless classified abrogated passages in general as ambiguous because they resemble other passages in recitation and composition