He also says,

“These are the verses of the Wise Book” (10:1), according to one of the two accepted explanations of the phrase.

In that context He divides the verses into two categories, definitive and ambiguous, when He says, “Among them are definitive verses—they are the foundation of the Book—while others are ambiguous” (3:7). These ambiguous passages are part of what the All-Merciful Himself revealed; they are not among the things Satan threw in and God later repealed.

Accordingly, the term “definitive” (muhkam) in the Quran is sometimes set in contrast to “ambiguous” (mutashabih), with both classes being verses from God, and at other times it is contrasted with those passages God abrogated after Satan had insinuated them.

Some people generalize this latter usage: they oppose muhkam to everything God has abrogated, so they will say, “This verse is definitive; it has not been abrogated,” and they deem any abrogated verse non-definitive, even though God revealed it at first. They do so on the basis of the outward wording of His statements, “then God abrogates” and “God makes His verses definitive.” Thus three distinct notions can stand opposite to muhkam, and one must be alert to all three.

In sum, ihkām (rendering something definitive) can occur in two ways.

1. Ihkām in the very act of revelation. Here its opposite is what Satan casts in. A verse definitively sent down by God has been rendered so by Him—that is, He separated it from anything that might be confused with it and stripped away whatever does not belong to it. Ihkām, after all, means separation, discrimination, differentiation, and delimitation, through which a thing is verified and perfected. For that reason the notion of “preventing” enters into it, just as it does into the term ḥadd (limit); prevention is part of its meaning, though not the whole of it.

2. Ihkām in preserving the revealed text in the face of abrogation—the abrogation that removes a previously legislated ruling, according to the technical usage. Or, to put it in terms closer to the early generations, they called every form of removal naskh, whether it eliminated a legal ruling or merely set aside an outward indication.

Satan’s casting into the Prophet’s recitation may occur in the very words he conveys, or it may occur in the hearing of the one who receives the message, or it may