[Al Nasikh Wal Mansukh In Urdu
Abdul Soumphonphakdy
How do we know it?
As in the field of asbab al-nuzul, the information about al-nasikh wa al-mansukh cannot be accepted upon mere personal opinion, guesswork or hearsay, but must be based on reliable reports, according to the ulum al-hadith, and should go back to the Prophet and his Companions.
Abstrak : Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menganalisis konsep nasikh dan Mansukh serta implikasinya dalam hukum Islam. Jenis penelitian yang dipakai adalah kualitatif deskriptif. Penelitian ini menyimpulkan bahwa terdapat perbedaan ulama tentang definisi nasakh. Ada yang mendefinisikan dengan pencabutan pemberlakuan hukum yang terdahulu, atau mencegah kelangsungan hukum yang terdahulu dan ada yang mendefinisikan dengan berakhirnya masa berlakunya perintah yang pertama. Walaupun terdapat perbedaan dalam mendefinisikan nasakh tapi akibatnya sama yaitu hukum yang dinasakhkan sama-sama tidak berlaku lagi. konsep nasakh berkaitan erat dengan pemeliharaan kemaslahatan umat dan fleksibelitas hukum Islam yang disyariatkan kepada umat secara bertahap. Apabila tahapan berlakunya suatu hukum menurut kehendak syari' telah selesai, maka datang tahap berikutnya, sehingga kemaslahatan dan ketentraman umat senantiasa terpelihara.
Abstract: Nasikh Mansukh Concept and The Implications on Legal Istinbath. This study aims to analyze the concept of nasikh and mansukh and their implications in Islamic law. The type of research used is descriptive qualitative. This study concludes that there are differences between scholars regarding the definition of nasakh. Some define it by repealing the previous law or preventing the continuation of it, and some define it by ending the validity period of the first order. Although there are differences in defining texts, the result is the same: the passed laws are no longer valid. The concept of nasakh is closely related to the maintenance of the benefit of the people and the flexibility of Islamic law, which is prescribed to the people in stages. When the stages of enactment of law according to the will of the shari'a have been completed, the next stage comes so that the benefit and peace of the people are always maintained.
This prophesied schism, thus, took birth in the very early centuries of Islam, and at a time when the neighbouring, mighty Byzantine scholarship was undergoing a revival of Hellenistic philosophy. For any religious debate with them, an equal level of understanding of philosophical debate was required. Thus, philosophical polemics seeped through the walls of Islamic theology.
The scepticism that pumped blood into the Renaissance had developed as a reaction to European monarchs who, claiming to be divinely anointed and appointed, would exploit the general masses in every possible way. Christianity began to be seen as a twin of economic exploitation and hence, the aversion and loathing for the latter automatically meant rejecting the former, as both fuelled mutual interests.
These two dicta of Western philosophy are representative of its spiteful aversion to religion. Chronologically speaking, the former emerged around the time of the birth of Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmadas of Qadian (1835), the latter around the publication of his work Barahin-e-Ahmadiyya.
What must remain before the reader is that the roots of these philosophical movements ran deep into the cycle of politics and economics, better referred to as political-economics, where both fed off each other. Where the Christian monarchical system had led people away from religion, poverty remained at the heart of their social problems. People had generally grown weary of being exploited by their feudal masters, who, with the Industrial Revolution, had become owners of factories and mills and hence their employers. Members of the general public still remained instruments in the machines that churned out and produced wealth for the elite class.
The Man of the industrial age had embarked upon a pursuit of his lost self but ended up embroiled in the roaring wave of individualism. I am who I am and I can do what I want, when I want. I can wear what I want (if I want to); do what I want, where I want. Such were the lines along which lay his reactionary response to the existential question. Modern Man revolted against any religious, social, ethical, or even political restriction and took pride in this newfound sense of freedom and liberty.
As tides of irreligiousness washed the shores of human society with a never-before-seen vigour, religion struggled to find its feet, trying not to let the sand slip away from beneath them. The church was active and Isaac Newton can be seen as their stalwart who, despite being a very influential scientist, remained a devout Christian and worked to prove that science and religion were harmonious and not repulsive forces. Descartes, with his impressive mark on Western philosophy, too remained a Christian and tried to reconcile the two.
This was happening at a time when the Promised Messiahas was working at the Sialkot courts as a deputy sheriff. He would spend his leisure time in polemical discourse with Christian missionaries. This post-mutiny era of the mid-19th century was an immensely challenging time for the religious climate of India, and Christianity emerged as a champion.
This issue, which called for interpreting Quranic verses and ahadith on such, or similar topics, was addressed by leaders of almost all Islamic sects. This exercise resulted in further divide amongst Muslims and the Holy Quran became heavily disputed like never before. Various verses got to be seen as mansukh (abrogated) and others as their nasikh (that abrogated the former).
Whatever the intentions, the objective seems to have remained the defence of Islam in the face of a storm that had whirled past the shores and was heading steadily towards the poorhouse of Indian Islam. The likes of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan rushed to find ways of proving that Islam was compatible with Western thought, science and philosophy in particular.
In such confusion, where distinguishing Islamic theory and practice from un-Islamic ones was based on opinion, everything simultaneously seemed right and wrong. This situation called for a judgement that could transcend opinion and declare what was Islamic and what was not; what was right and what was wrong.
This, however, was not possible without divine intervention. As Islamic theology turned into a hodgepodge, it was only God who could put everything back together by revealing what his faith actually meant in the face of modern challenges.
This understanding of modern intellectual trends is evident right from the very start of the very first part of Barahin-e-Ahmadiyya; the huge bulk of his works that followed over the years further testifies to it.
If the testimony of reason relates to perceptible objects that can be seen, heard, smelled or touched, the ally that helps it reach the stage of certainty is called observation or experience. If the testimony of reason relates to events that happen or have happened in various ages and places, it finds another ally in the form of historical books, writings, letters and other records, which, like observation, bring clarity to the hazy light of reason, such that only a fool or madman will doubt them.
Where Muslim scholars were relying on rational arguments alone and saw no other way than to impose their own opinion on the questioning Muslims; where Muslims had turned against Muslims owing to the rationalisation of Islam; where the obsession with pure reason had rendered religion a nonissue; Hazrat Mirza Sahibas, through Barahin-e-Ahmadiyya, opened a new avenue of epistemology by introducing divine revelation as the strongest source of all knowledge.
This shows that the objective behind writing this book was not only to prove other religions, in their current state, to be misled and misleading, but also to fight off the challenge of Westernisation, before the current of whichall religions were on their knees.
The impetus and importance of this book are described at the very beginning, where the Promised Messiahas acknowledges the fact that a plethora of works of literature had been written, but they were addressed to followers of one religion or another.
Such a bold step was taken and a monetary challenge of ten-thousand rupees was offered to adherents of all other faiths. It was open for everyone and anyone to refute any argument presented in Barahin-e-Ahmadiyya from their own scripture and win the ten-thousand-rupee prize.
We would like to ask them in return to provide a parallel of such a bold challenge issued by any other scholar or leader working for the defence of Islam against not only other faiths, but also irreligiousness. The challenge was extraordinary, and hence, required extraordinary attention.
We have discussed above that as the Promised Messiahas embarked upon the task of writing this book, many objected to it and thought that there was enough literature to do the job. The Promised Messiahas addressed this question in part two of Barahin-e-Ahmadiyya:
With even a little reflection, our critics will realize that the forms of corruption that have presently engulfed the world have no parallel in history. Whereas people in the past mostly fell prey to blind following, the danger we face today is the misuse of reason. Whereas people of the earlier ages were corrupted by senselessly following irrational ideas, they are now being led astray by false reasoning and logic. This is why pious and eminent scholars of the past did not have to employ the kind of arguments and reasoning that we have to employ today.
Thus, the rationale for writing Barahin-e-Ahmadiyya was explained by the author himself: An obsession with pure reason, born out of Western philosophical trends, had spread its mighty wings to the extent that religion was now under its shadow. The situation was a never-before-seen one, and the solution had to be of a similar magnitude.
Seeing Barahin-e-Ahmadiyya as a response to the fast-spreading irreligious ideologies makes it a work of high stature. If it failed to defend Islam, and religion as an institution for that matter, it would be taken as a miserable failure altogether. There must be a test to see what this book actually did. We try a few below.
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