for such wording is ambiguous, in that it may be understood in two different ways. This also covers the concise (mujmal) text, for it too is ambiguous, and its being made definitive consists in removing the meaning that might be imagined but was never intended. The same holds for every verse whose ruling has been repealed; in all of these cases the effect is to abrogate whatever Satan has insinuated into the meanings of the Quran.

For that reason the early scholars would ask, “Have you mastered the abrogating and the abrogated?”—for once the abrogating passage is known, the definitive one is known as well.

On this basis it is perfectly acceptable to speak of “the definitive and the abrogated” just as one speaks of “the definitive and the ambiguous.” His words that follow—“Then God makes His verses definitive” (22:52)—mean that He renders all the verses definitive, both those that were already definitive and those that had been ambiguous, just as He says:

Alif Lām Rā—

“A Book whose verses have been made definitive and then explained in detail” (11:1).