To abrogate means to abolish, do away with, or annul, especially by authority.This is a key term in studying the Quran. There are some peaceful, tolerant verses in the Quran. But the violent, intolerant ones have abrogated them. The Quran itself explains what to do with conflicting verses. If two passages conflict, it says, the one written later is better than the one written earlier. The earlier passage has been abrogated by the later one.
The bad news for non-Muslims is that almost all the peaceful passages were written earlier, and the intolerant, hateful, and violent ones were written later (read more about this).
The two key abrogation passages in the Quran are these:
2:106 "Whatever of Our revelations We repeal or cause to be forgotten, We will replace them with something superior or comparable. Do you not know that Allah has power over all things? Do you not know that Allah reigns sovereign over the heavens and earth and besides Him you have no protector or helper? Would you question your messenger as Moses was questioned in his time? Those who exchange their faith for disbelief have gone astray from the right path."
16:101 "When We exchange one verse for another, and Allah knows best what He reveals, they say, 'You are making this up.' Most of them do not understand."
Bill Warner writes, "There are as many as 225 verses of the Koran that are altered by later verses. This is called abrogation."
Read an excellent article by the Martel Group, who knew way ahead of the rest of us that Islamic violence and Islamization were a threat to the free world: Abrogation (PDF document).
Another good article on abrogation is here: Abrogation of the Koran, Koranic Contradictions and Muslim Taqiyya. I thought this was interesting (from that article):
Of the Koran's 114 suras (chapters), only 43 are without abrogated or abrogating verses. That is naturally surprising, and so unexpected that few Westerners are aware that significant segments of the Koran have been theologically annulled. Mohammed's non-Muslim contemporaries were just as surprised.
Another good article is Peace or Jihad? Abrogation in Islam.
For more on abrogation, read these selections from the ex-Muslim's site, FaithFreedom.org:
"Abrogation" means the canceling or replacement of one Quranic passage by another. It seems that as circumstances changed during the 23-year period that Muhammad dictated the Quran, the directions and precepts found therein sometimes changed to accommodate new and changing political and military realities, sometimes quite dramatically. Thus, the Quran abrogates or cancels itself in various passages and presents seemingly conflicting statements. Muslims do not view this sort of abrogation as a contradiction, but rather, as improvements to better suit varying circumstances or needs, or to fit Muhammad's religious concepts. For further reading, see the articles below.
The Quran's Doctrine of Abrogation:
http://www.islamreview.com/articles/quransdoctrine.shtml
Abrogation:
http://answering-islam.org/Index/A/abrogation.html
Abrogated Verses Of the Quran:
http://answering-islam.org/Quran/abrogatedverses.html
Abrogation in the Koran:
http://www.muhammadanism.org/Quran/abrogation_koran.pdf
The Problem of Abrogation in the Quran:
http://answering-islam.org/Authors/Farooq_Ibrahim/ abrogation.htm
Ahmad, Allah, and Abrogation:
http://answering-islam.org/Silas/abrogation.htm
Thank you for making this topic so clear for non-Muslims.
ReplyDeleteThe Arab peoples (and other non-Arab Muslims) have been manipulated for centuries by their own leaders. True individual decision-making is not allowed. The poor and ignorant in Western culture have also been manipulated, in both less and more subtle ways. Poor humanity!
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ReplyDeleteThe fact that the Qur'an and its depiction of its god can be quoted and interpreted as either peaceful or violent, tolerant or intolerant, merciful or vengeful depending on which interpretation serves the interest of whomever interprets it makes Islam dangerous and a threat to the civilized world. It's obviously quite easy to convince many thousands if not millions of Muslims that they are justified in using violence and waging jihad against non-Muslims and the non-Muslim world and to do so by invoking the literal holy text of Islam itself. A religion so easily used by bloodthirsty fascists to establish totalitarian rule in the name of a god can never truthfully be called a religion of peace.
DeleteUmmm...aren't all the books like that?
DeleteYes, violence is supposed to be only in defense, but it has been used traditionally, and by Muhammad himself, as a defense against an attack that was provoked. In other words, Muhammad attacks caravans, for example, and then when the Meccans respond with force, that is considered an attack on Islam and is "defended" with violence. So Islam, like a ratchet, keeps pushing, gets resisted, the resistance is considered an attack and Islam is defended, and so it goes until today we have 57 Muslim countries whose population of non-Muslims continually dwindles down over time because Islam is a machine perfectly designed to annihilate all other cultures.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.politicalislam.com/the-annihilation-of-civilizations/
And yes, those who follow Islamic doctrine will kill Muslims too because the Koran commands followers to kill the unbelievers AND the hypocrites.
http://www.citizenwarrior.com/2010/09/qurans-last-word-on-non-muslims.html
Also, the commands are not contextualized for the time and place. The language of the Koran is for all time.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.meforum.org/2159/are-judaism-and-christianity-as-violent-as-islam
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ReplyDeletethank you for your honesty and the links you provided
DeleteDokhtare Hamsade: Thank you for your very informative and helpful comments. I learned a lot from them, especially from your comments about some teachings being "tests" of the faithful.
DeleteMy question for you is this; ... could it be that verses calling for the killing of non-believers might be a misinterpretation, and actually just means "eliminating dis-belief" by spreading the word of the Prophet and showing that Islam is truly peaceful through good example? In other words, are the calls for violence, even against other Muslims, just a test, since logic would suggest that killing instead of teaching is so obviously counterproductive? If spreading the word is the goal, eliminating those who could possibly be taught by those words makes no sense.