Al-Baqarah · Madani · ayah 106 of 286

Al-Baqarah 2:106

۞ مَا نَنسَخْ مِنْ ءَايَةٍ أَوْ نُنسِهَا نَأْتِ بِخَيْرٍ مِّنْهَآ أَوْ مِثْلِهَآ ۗ أَلَمْ تَعْلَمْ أَنَّ ٱللَّهَ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَىْءٍ قَدِيرٌ

“We do not abrogate a verse or cause it to be forgotten except that We bring forth [one] better than it or similar to it. Do you not know that Allāh is over all things competent?”

Saheeh International

Essence

Whatever ruling Allah lifts or lets be forgotten, He replaces with something better or equal, knowing each change from the start.

A reflection

A planned course, not a change of mind

On the first day of a course of treatment, a doctor writes the whole plan on one page. A high dose for a week, then half, then half again, then stop. A neighbour watching the boxes change says the doctor 'keeps changing her mind'. The patient knows better. Every change was on that first page.

The objection this ayah answers was exactly the neighbour's. The commentaries report that opponents said Muhammad ﷺ commanded something one day and forbade it the next, so the Quran must be his own words. A major legal commentator answers by drawing a line. Abrogation is not badāʾ, a new idea occurring to someone who did not know before. That belongs to human beings, because of their limits. It is the moving of servants from one ruling to another for their good. He compares it to a physician attending to a patient's changing state. His address changes, the commentator says; His knowledge and His will do not.

A work on fine distinctions in Arabic puts it simply. Badāʾ is when something becomes clear to you that was not clear before. That cannot be said of Allah, who knows by His own self.

Here is where the ego shrinks. We change our plans because we learn, misjudge or run out of options. Allah has never learned anything. The ayah closes with a question rather than a lecture: do you not know that Allah is over all things competent? The power that sends the ruling is the power that knew its term from the beginning.

Someone may hear that closing question as power silencing a fair complaint. But the ayah does not stop at power. It gives a reason too: whatever is lifted is replaced by something better, or its equal. An early Companion explained 'better' as better for you, and gentler on you. He is free of need (35:15). The change serves the patient, never the physician.

The humble response is the patient's: trust the page you cannot yet see.

The full entry has 5 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.