Naskh (“Abrogation”) in Muslim Anti-Jewish Polemic: The Treatise of Rashīd al-Dīn Hamadānī (1247–1318)

Abstract

A strong case can be made that the concept of naskh, “abrogation” or “annulment”, was the most potent weapon in the arsenal of Muslim polemicists seeking to convert Jews (Burton‘s Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān is highly informative but deals almost exclusively with naskh in its internal Islamic contexts, e.g., hermeneutics and legal theory). Naskh did not necessarily involve any rejection of Jewish scripture or tradition as fraudulent or corrupt. It rested on the simple premise, explicitly confirmed by the Qur’an, that the deity may alter or replace His legislation over the course of time. In the first part of this paper, I will briefly review the topic, adding some texts and observations that, to the best of my knowledge, have not appeared in the academic literature (comprehensively surveyed in Adang’s Muslim Writers on Judaism and the Hebrew Bible: From Ibn Rabban to Ibn Hazm, 1996; also in Adang and Schmidtke’s Polemics (Muslim-Jewish) in Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World, 2010). The bulk of this paper will consist of a fairly detailed summary of an unpublished tract on naskh written by Rashīd al-Dīn Faḍlullāh Hamadānī (RD) (1247–1318), himself a Jewish convert to Islam and a monumental politician, cultural broker, historian, and author.

1. Observations and Texts on Naskh

Prooftexts drawn directly from the Torah were not hard to find; for example, they can be found in the ever-restricting series of legislation concerning forbidden foods from the time of Adam to the time of Moses or in the practice of marrying two sisters, which Jacob committed legally but which was later prohibited. Maimonides made the rejection of naskh the centerpiece of his famous thirteen principles; indeed, in my view, the often violent conversion pressures of the Almohads were the main reason that Maimonides drew up this list.1 One of the earliest (if not the earliest) exemplars of Jewish anti-Muslim polemics, penned by Shmu’el ben Ḥofni Gaon (d. 1034), was a treatise on the abrogation of the law (naskh al-shar‘), which unfortunately is only partially preserved (Sklare 1996, pp. 28–29).

Responses to the naskh-based polemics are embedded even in non-polemical Jewish texts, attesting to the deep inroads that the topic had made into Jewish consciousness. For example, the philologist Yonah Ibn Janāḥ (d. 1055), in Kitāb al-Luma‘, the first part of his chef d’oeuvre Kitāb al-Tanqīḥ, offers two resolutions to the apparent contradiction in the biblical story of the binding of Isaac (Genesis 22). The narrative opens with God’s command to offer Isaac as a burnt offering (Gen 22:1), but that order is nullified in verse 12. Such reversals of divine commands are precisely what the Muslim polemicists pointed to when speaking of naskh. Ibn Janāḥ remarks that his explanations “will rebut for us the confusion on the part of those who use it [this abrogation] in order to force us to replace our Torah”.2

One should not be misled into thinking, however, that discussions of naskh are limited to religious polemics. Al-nāsikh wa-l-mansūkh (“the abrogator and the abrogated”) has an important place in traditional Qur’anic studies. Qur’an 2:106 states clearly that God may abrogate a Qur’anic verse (āya, literally “sign”), only to replace it with something better, “No sign do We abrogate or cause to be forgotten, but that We bring that which is better than it or like unto it. Dost thou not know that God is Powerful over all things?”3 The Qur’an’s recognition that God may abrogate a verse, only to replace it with something better, allowed interpreters of the Qur’an to solve contradictions within the Qur’an in a direct manner: a later revelation, al-nāsikh, abrogates an earlier revelation, al-mansūkh.4 Didactic reasons were supplied as to why the Qur’an nevertheless retained the earlier revelation, even though it no longer had normative force. Interpreters, of course, debated whether a certain verse was abrogated or not. Al-Zamakhshari reports that the verse cited above was revealed in response to complaints to the Prophet that Allāh was always changing His legislation; He would command something today and retract it tomorrow or forbid something, only later to allow it.5 It is possible that a complaint of this sort motivated response from Samau’al al-Maghribī (d.c. 1180; Perlmann 1964, p. 34), a Jewish convert to Islam who penned a vociferous repudiation of his former faith, “If they say that the wise one [God] does not prohibit a thing, later to permit it … the answer is that one who commands a thing and its opposite at two different points in time does not contradict himself in his command …”.

In the course of his chapter on al-nāsikh wa-l-mansūkh al-Suyūṭī casually notes that Jews reject the idea of Scripture abrogating itself as if this belongs under the rubric of Qur’anic interpretation rather than polemic.6 Are Jews joining Muslims in an interfaith discussion on legitimate hermeneutical methods rather than defending themselves against Muslim polemicists? In fact, new converts (presumably Jews and Christians) continued to oppose naskh even after joining the Muslim community. Al-Qurṭubī, in his discussion in Qur’an 2:106 (<Altafsir.com -تفسير ايآت القرآن الكريم (5-1-106-2) >), observes that abrogation is rejected by “groups of people who have recently joined Islam (ṭawā’if min al-muntamīn li-l-islām al-muta’akharīn)” as well as groups (but not the entirety of) Jews. The claim of those Jews is refuted by several examples, for instance, the permission given to Noah’s descendants to consume all forms of living flesh, later restricted by the Mosaic dietary rules, or—once again—God’s rescinding His command to Abraham to slaughter his son. His calm presentation of a list of biblical legislation whose abrogation is unchallenged within the Jewish tradition reads as a scholarly analysis rather than a polemical invective, and his well-reasoned and striking conclusion explicitly applies to all religious traditions:

“This [divine abrogation] is not a chapter in caprice, but rather taking the servants from one [level of] worship to another, and one law to another, for the purpose of some improvement, making His wisdom manifest and perfecting His kingdom. There is no disagreement among intellectuals: the law codes of the prophets were intended for the spiritual and material betterment of humankind. Caprice would have been necessarily involved only on the part of someone who did not know how things develop. However, someone who does have knowledge of that will alter his preaching as the [type of needed] improvements change, just like the doctor who attends to the circumstances of his patient. So also does He attend to His creation, by His will and choice, there is no god other than Him! His discourse is replaced, but His knowledge and will do not change; indeed, that is impossible with regard to God Most High”.

Naskh, within the Qur’an, impacted relations with Jews and Christians in another way. The Qur’an repeatedly expresses toleration toward “unbelievers”—in 114 verses, by one count—yet fanatics claim that all of those verses are abrogated by the “Sword Verse” in Qur’an 9:5 (“Kill the unbelievers wherever you find them”). The debate concerning the “Sword Verse” continues into modern times (Krawulsky 2011, pp. 112–17). Finally, it should be noted that some Jewish sectarians accepted naskh (Lasker 1995, p. 170 n. 17).

From the Risāla of Rashīd al-Dīn

The life and cultural contributions of RD seem beyond the capacity of an ordinary human being. I do not have room here even for a brief recap; fortunately, I can refer to some recent publications that offer insights into a good part of his accomplishments (Krawulsky 2011; Akasoy et al. 2013; Kamola 2019; Brack 2023). RD was himself a convert from Judaism to Islam. Beyond whatever motivations of converts he may have had for criticizing, or even besmirching, his ancestral faith, Rashīd al-Dīn had solid reasons for writing the essay that I am about to summarize. His imperial Mongol patron, Öldjeytü, had a strong interest in religion and commissioned Rashīd al-Dīn to write a commentary on some verses from the Qur’an. In the year 1306, the Prophet Muhammad appeared to Rashīd al-Dīn in a dream and encouraged him to begin his commentary (Krawulsky 2011, p. 80). The treatise on naskh is labeled as an appendix (dhayl) to the essay on chapter 109 of the Qur’an, al-Kāfirūn (“The non-believers”). I do not have access to the commentary on chapter 109, and my study is limited to the appendix, a stand-alone tract in its own right. In the appendix, RD professes to solidify and reinforce the arguments already broached in this essay.

These essays (rasā’il) were written in Persian. RD promptly asked one Taqī al-Dīn al-Ḥusaynī to translate them into Arabic. The final product consisted of two extraordinarily beautiful codices, one in Persian and the other in Arabic; both can claim to be “originals”.7 The Persian copy, however, was lost sometime in the mid-twentieth century. The Arabic copy is safely housed in the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris, where it is listed as MS arabe 2324; the treatise of interest occupies ff. 111a-117b, and it was copied in 710 A.H./1310 C.E.8 I have based my study on the Paris manuscript (henceforth P), along with MS Istanbul, Kılıç Ali Pasha 835/854 (henceforth K), which proved useful, as the writing in the Paris manuscript is quite cramped. I register folio numbers for K; for P, I further locate the passages by T(op), M(iddle), or B(ottom). Obviously, my work thus far has not resulted in anything approaching an edition.9 The importance of RD’s perspectives justifies the publication here of my extensive notes and occasional deeper dives, which, I certainly hope, will motivate additional and more thorough work on the text.

RD presents this essay as mostly original research. Though he modestly refers to himself by cognomens such as hādha al-ḑa‘īf (“this weakling”), he occasionally expresses astonishment that he has arrived at insights that no one else has detected on this well-traveled polemical path. The discussion is organized systematically in a tree-like structure, with the divisions of his study divided into sections dubbed aqsām, subsections called wujūh, and sub-subsections labeled anwā‘. This essay is also organized chronologically, dealing first with naskh as applied to pre-Mosaic laws, notably, with those associated with standout Prophets Adam, Noah, and Abraham; then naskh as evident from internal contradictions or alterations within Mosaic legislation; and finally, evidence that the Jewish tradition foretold its future wholesale naskh.

Some of the issues and related verses that Rashīd cites are famous features of Muslim-Jewish polemics, though they do not truly involve naskh. A good example is the verse from the Qur’an 61:6, which states, “And [remember] when Jesus son of Mary said, “O Children of Israel! Truly I am the Messenger of God unto you, confirming that which came before me in the Torah and bearing glad tidings of a Messenger to come after me whose name is Ahmad”. At least on the face of it, the verse avers that Jesus came only to confirm the Torah, and for that reason, the Jews should have accepted him; hence, one could reasonably suppose that “Aḥmad” would not invalidate the Torah.10

RD finds in Genesis 17:20, which announces Ishmael’s future greatness, a hint of the prophet’s name as it appears in the Qur’anic verse cited above (Aḥmad).11 This hint is revealed by applying gematria (the alphanumeric equivalents of the Hebrew letters), a hermeneutic that, according to RD, plays a mammoth role in Jewish biblical interpretation. He states, “… the science of letters (‘ilm al-ḥurūf) which is as highly regarded as can be (mu‘tabar^an ghāyat al-i‘tibār) among the Jews. They base many laws upon it. This computation is called in their language gemaṭriyā” (P 115a M; K 214b). RD’s discussion is lengthy, but eventually, he correctly calculates that the Hebrew bi-me’od me’od has the alphanumeric value of ninety-two, the same as Muḥammad (the shadda on the second mīm does not double its value).

Note that this is the application of a Jewish hermeneutic, not a Muslim polemical ploy. For this reason, Rashīd declares that the Jews have known full well that the name of the Prophet of Islam is found in the Torah. Indeed, this particular polemic appears to have originated among Jewish converts to Islam. Maimonides says as much in his mocking dismissal of this proof, which was spread among the Jews of Yemen by an unnamed apostate, “Neither the untutored multitudes nor the apostates themselves who delude others with them, believe in them or entertain any illusions about them. Their [the apostates’] sole purpose in citing these verses is to win favor in the eyes of the gentiles by demonstrating that they believe the statement of the Koran that Muhammad was mentioned in the Torah. But the Muslims themselves do not accept these arguments; they do not admit them nor cite them because they are manifestly fallacious”.12

The earliest occurrence of the argument from gematria may, in fact, be from the polemical tract of Samau’al al-Maghrabī, mentioned above, who was a talented mathematician.13 However, I see no direct connection between Samau’al’s tract and RD.

RD does not, as a rule, rebut Jewish counter-polemics. One exception concerns the verse from Deuteronomy 18:15, where Moses promises, “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen”, which he views as one more proof text that Moses had prophesied the coming of Muhammad (P 114b T; K 213a). This verse, which looms large in RD’s essay, does not appear to have played a major role in Muslim–Jewish polemics; according to the list compiled in (Adang 1996, p. 264), the one Muslim polemicist to cite this verse is ‘Alī ibn Rabbān al-Ṭabarī, according to whom, “from your brethren” excludes Jews, limiting the choice to non-Israelites who are “brethren”.14 However, he knows that the Jews reject this argument on the grounds that the verse specifies “your brothers”, a qualification that does not apply to Muhammad. RD counters the Jewish objection with Deuteronomy 2:4, where the offsprings of Esau are called “your brothers”, and Deut. 22:8, where the Torah calls the Edomite “your brother”. RD suggests that the Biblical term refers to the children of your brother, that is, a cousin rather than a brother; this, he avers, is the conventional usage of the term in Arabic (al-muṣṭalaḥ fī ‘ibarāt al-nās). Ibn Janāḥ, who, as we have seen, is sensitive to Muslim polemics, does not address this verse specifically, as far as I have seen. However, in his dictionary, he lists meanings for the Hebrew ’aḥ, “brother”, ranging from men having the same father and mother to the brotherhood of man (for the latter, he cites Gen. 9:5).15 At the very least, this disallows the more limited meaning given to the phrase in Deut. 18:15 by Ibn Rabbān.

There are indications, though not many, that RD had some acquaintance with Jewish traditional interpretations. Thus, for instance, in his long analysis of Deuteronomy 18:15, he notes that “some Israelites” are of the opinion that Ayyūb (Job) was a contemporary of Moses (P 114b M; K 213b); this view is recorded in the Babylonian Talmud, Bava Batra 15a.

For most of the cases that are raised in his polemic, RD finds not only the mansūkh, the abrogated verse, but also its nāsikh, or abrogating verse, in the Hebrew Bible rather than in the Qur’an. This mirrors the situation in Qur’anic exegesis where, as we have seen, al-nāsikh wa-l-mansūkh constitutes a well-defined field of inquiry, and the abrogating verse along with the one abrogated are both found in the same scripture. But this is not always the case. RD alleges that the calendar that is now determined by a fixed algorithm is purely a concoction of the Jews. He mistakenly claims that the Torah legislates fixing the calendar by observation, noting that the Jews have abrogated this practice without warrant from Scripture. RD adds that a few Jews reject this calendar. A reference elsewhere to the view of “a few Jews (qalīl min al-yahūd)” likely applies to the Karaites, though it is by no means certain that RD knew of the existence of this sect. (see P 115b T; K 216a-b).

RD makes much of the Torah’s describing God’s regret or remorse at some action, using Hebrew forms built from the root n.ḥ.m.. Such usages, for example, in Genesis 6:7, where God ostensibly regrets having made humankind, do not indicate the abrogation of a specific legislation. Instead, they establish the theological principle that the deity does change His mind, so to speak, thus bolstering the theoretical underpinning of naskh. Jewish scholars were not oblivious to this issue. Sa‘adya deliberately avoided this interpretation of niḥamti in Genesis 6:7, which he translates as tawā‘adatuhum, “I threatened them” or “I warned them”.16 In my view, he has deliberately chosen this meaning from among the seven possibilities that he lists for n.ḥ.m. in order to avoid any opening for naskh. Taken in context, the full Hebrew phrase ki niḥamti ki ‘asitim thus means “I warned them when I created them”. In other words, humanity had been warned from the outset that depravity of the sort into which humanity had sunk would be punished by destruction, and now the day of reckoning has come. Sa‘adya thus steers clear of the polemical challenges posed by the difficult verse whose theological implications had exercised commentators at least since Philo, as Zucker informs us in his note.

For his part, RD insists that the Hebrew root in question signifies nidāma, remorse. He further avers that “the presence of the divine glory (ḥaḍrat al-‘izza) is far above remorse”, yet Jews and Christians tenaciously insist upon ascribing nidāma to the deity. He adduces scriptural proof texts, all of which contain the forms of n.ḥ.m. and presses his attack: “Seeing that these verses which belong to the text of the Torah and the belief system (mu‘taqad) of the Jews pronounce nidāma with regard to[both] humanity and [divine] action, the Jews simply must remonstrate themselves. They ought to denounce themselves and their book by way of nidāma and naskh, rather than the religion of Islam. Indeed, the Islamic peoples do not ascribe to God nidāma in either word or deed. There is not a single verse of the Qur’an which mentions nidāma. But the Torah and Gospel have many verses, in addition to those that we mentioned, which mention nidāma” (P, 112b M; K, 216b). All such verses fall under the rubric of nāsikh wa-mansūkh, and they are all abrogated and invalidated by the doctrinally more proper Qur’an. The abrogation of these verses argues for the abrogation of the Torah in its entirety.

RD meshes Qur’an 3:93 into a sketch constructed upon several verses from Genesis in order to produce an integrated narrative of the accumulation of more and more restrictions with regard to forbidden foods. Though Genesis 1:29 implies that Adam was allowed only a vegetarian diet, no food (other than the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge) was explicitly prohibited for him. Noah was allowed to eat all animals, fish, and fowl; however, he was prohibited from consuming blood [Genesis 9:3–4]. Abraham must have received additional restrictions that were recorded in his maṣḥaf (written copy of the divine revelation) and which were still observed by the “Hebrews”, who could not share a meal with the Egyptians [Genesis 43:32]. The “Hebrews”, RD points out, denote a more numerous collective than the “Children of Israel”, who, according to Qur’an 3:93, adhered to a new prohibition instituted by their father Isrā’īl (Jacob). It has been suggested that the Qur’anic verse refers to the gid ha-nasheh (sciatic nerve) [Genesis 32:33].17

The soundest way to rebut an opponent, says Rashīd al-Dīn, is to present him with evidence from his own statements, traditions, and beliefs that contradict his position on the issue in question. In the debate before us, the Jews deny that their religious tradition allows for naskh, and so RD cites from the Torah prooftexts, which illustrate how the divinely inspired laws concerning forbidden foods and illicit marriage relations have been changed under the tutelage of the “resolute” (ūlū’ al-‘azm) Prophets Adam, Noah, Abraham, and Moses.18 He concludes, “It has thus become clear that the claim of the Jews that ‘naskh has not occurred in our religion or within our community’ is false and vain. We have refuted them on the basis of their belief-system and their statements that rules that were operative in the past no longer apply to them; and we have confirmed what we assert in regard to this”. [P 113a B; K209a]

Some of RD’s examples are surprising; can he not distinguish between a stipulation or exception that is appended to a law at its inception and the abrogation of that law? The Torah prescribes that a Hebrew manservant shall serve for six years and, on the seventh, shall go free. However, the Torah immediately adds a rider: should the servant wish to remain with his master, he may do so, but he must have his ear pierced (See Exodus 21:2–6). Even though this clause is an integral part of the original legislation, RD views the stipulation as naskh of the rule that the servant serves for no more than six years.19

Some alleged abrogations make no sense. The biblical prohibition of cooking a goat in his mother’s milk (Exodus 23:19, 34:26; Deuteronomy 14:21), which Jewish law expands into a general prohibition on consuming meat and dairy products together, is said to be abrogated by the practice of cooking certain specific sacrifices (qarābīn mu‘ayyana) in curdled milk (laban rā’ib) (P 113bM; K 209b). No source is given for this practice, and I have no idea where RD heard of it. Might RD or an assistant have misread the unpointed Hebrew text in Leviticus 3:16 as ḥālabh (milk) rather than ḥēlabh (“fat”)? Or perhaps he misunderstood Deuteronomy 32:14 (“Curd of kine … with best of lamb”) as a commandment rather than a lyrical theophany? In any case, RD later presents a longer analysis of the same biblical injunction. He asserts that the Hebrew verb li-bhashēl is used in two different senses, cooking (ṭabkh) and rearing the young (tarbiyya). The second of these is the correct choice for the biblical injunction; the Torah instructs not to delay bringing the first-born lamb as an offering by allowing it to grow on its mother’s milk. However, the Jews mistakenly interpreted the verse according to the first sense. Not only that, but they have expanded the prohibition into a blanket ban on consuming dairy and meat products together. Indeed, RD asserts that “they have gone to such an extreme with regard to this issue that they say: were a piece of meat to be thrown upon the end of a cotton cloth that is one hundred cubits long, for example, and a little dairy cast upon the other end, then it would be forbidden to eat this” (P 115b M; K 217a). Here again, I find no trace of such a law or custom, even as an extra-legal restriction practiced by some particular community.

The injunction forbidding one “li-bhashēl” the kid in his mother’s milk, has long challenged students of the Bible. However, nearly all of the various interpretations and suggested emendations maintain that li-bhashēl means to cook or to boil.20 Modern scholarship also notes the obviously different contexts of the two verses in Exodus (laws pertaining to sacrifices) and the one in Deuteronomy (dietary code).21 RD takes no note of the multiple occurrences of the prohibition nor of their different contexts—this despite his earlier remark on the critical role of context in deciding which of several possible meanings to assign to a term.

To the best of my knowledge, only two exegetes assigned to li-bhashēl a meaning nearly identical to that chosen by RD: Jacob Joseph ben Isaac Bekhor-Shor of Orléans, a twelfth-century Talmudist, exegete, and poet, and Jacob al-Qirqisānī, an arabophone sectarian who flourished early in the tenth century. The former observed that “rearing” or “fattening” fits the context only for the two occurrences of the verse in Exodus.22 Tabriz, the Ilkhanid capital where RD resided and built huge institutions of learning, attracted visitors from near and afar (Pfeiffer 2013). We know something about European visitors, especially diplomats (Jackson 2005, pp. 137, 165–75, and passim). However, none of the known visitors were Jewish, so I can see no route by which Bekhor-Shor’s interpretation could have reached RD. Ostensibly, al-Qirqisānī, who wrote in Arabic, would have been more accessible, but I can say no more than that. A significant number of intellectuals with whom RD was in contact have been identified (Van Ess 1981), but, again, none were Jewish.

RD ends his discussion of the topic (P 115*b M; K 217a)23 with a caustic rant about the Jews, who themselves have abrogated the laws of the Torah without rhyme or reason. Like the pigheaded man who told his companions that the issues facing them are threefold and then raised four fingers to illustrate the point, the laws and customs of the Jews are irrational and certainly not based on the text of the Torah.

The divine injunctions against fighting the Edomites, Moabites, and Ammonites are said to have been abrogated by the massacre of the Midianites, which the Israelites carried out in response to the debauchery and punitive plague brought on by the Midianite maidens (Numbers 31:2–11). RD proclaims, “There is no more certain proof than this that naskh applies [to the Torah]” (K 210b; P 113b B). The instruction not to be belligerent toward the Moabites and Ammonites (Deuteronomy 2:9, 19) is allegedly abrogated by the prohibition of admitting any one of these people into the congregation of Israel (Deuteronomy 23:4).

RD moves on to some interesting generalizations. The Torah justifies the ban on Moabite or Ammonite proselytes by a historical episode, namely, the refusal of those people to sell food and water to the Israelites. This justification is to be construed as an admission on the part of the Torah that some rules do change in response to changing circumstances. Indeed, the Torah always supplies a historical context for its legislation, which is a de facto opening for an abrogation or alteration as circumstances may change. Hence, the claim that the laws of the Torah are eternal is refuted. “On every occasion where that [claim of eternal application] is applied, specific periods and times are indicated; it [the law in question] is specified on every occasion for one time as opposed to another” (P 114aM; K 211a-b).

Philology also serves to substantiate this point. Consider the laws concerning the Hebrew servant. Should the servant not wish to be manumitted, his ear is pierced, and then he will serve his master “to eternity” (li-‘olam; Exodus 21:5). However, humans do not live forever, so the Hebrew li-‘olam must denote a finite period of time. Moreover, RD knows that Jewish tradition has indeed interpreted li-‘olam as a finite period of time, “until the beginning of the year whose name in the Hebrew language is yobhel, which is the fiftieth year …” (P 114aM; K 211b). Indeed, adds RD, if the servant had his ear pierced only a year or two before the yobhel, then the “eternity” of his servitude is no more than two years.

RD, however, jumps to an incorrect generalization when speaking of the Hebrew term. He states that li-‘olam not only signifies adwārukum, “your generations”, but also “it [the Torah] repeats the expression adwārukum in all of the places [where li-‘olam features]. It, thereby, means specific generations, which appertain to them in their statehood (dawla)”. Were li-‘olam meant to denote “forever”, it would not be qualified by “your generations”. RD reminds us here that Moses warned the Jews that “your statehood and your religion will swiftly come to an end”.

While the Torah does, at times, use a double expression, e.g., “throughout your generations, as a statute forever (Exodus 12:14)”, there are not a few places where it does not. In particular, Deuteronomy 23:7, part of the passage discussed above concerning the status of the Ammonites and Moabites, employs li-‘olam but does not mention generations. The potential (or actual) use of this phrase for polemical purposes was not lost on Jewish writers. Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Foundational Laws of the Torah 9:1, counts li-‘olam as one of the phrases cementing the eternity and immutability of the Torah. Seeing as we have that the rejection of naskh was the centerpiece of his famous list of normative Jewish beliefs, this is only to be expected. Thus, should someone claim “that those commandments that have been legislated for Israel are not forever and throughout all generations, but rather laws that suit a certain time”, we will know to identify that person as a false prophet.

On the other hand, Joseph Albo (1388–1444) argues against Maimonides’ position. An entire chapter of his magnum opus, the Book of Principles, III, 16, is devoted to this issue.24 Albo cites some of the examples adduced by RD (of whose treatise he could have had no knowledge), but being far more familiar with Jewish sources, he makes a much stronger case. Noting that “someone” has brought proof for the eternity of the Torah from li-‘olam and similar phrases, he asserts that this position is by no means unassailable. To begin with, unlike RD, Albo knows that not all biblical commandments are qualified in this way, from which one may deduce that only those commandments that are specifically said to be in force li-‘olam are eternal. Indeed, some commandments, such as the injunction of consuming certain animal fats and blood, which were recorded in the context of the Temple rituals, would seem to lose their force after the destruction of the Temple—hence, the Torah must stipulate for them that they are eternal. This is an insight of the Talmud (Qiddushin 37b), which Albo cites. Albo was deeply involved in religious polemics, but in his case, the opponents were Christian missionaries, and, unlike Maimonides, he was not troubled by potential hints of naskh within the Torah.

Let us return to RD. He compares the Hebrew term ‘olam (which he transcribes into Arabic characters as li-‘ulūm) with its Arabic cognate, ‘ālam, in both the singular and plural forms. Backtracking a bit on his sweeping generalization that li-‘olam always denotes a finite period of time, he allows for the semantic field of the term to include an endless eternity. In an insightful remark, he states that the meaning of the term can be determined only by its context; in his words, “the intent (murād) of this can be understood by means of the context (bi-l-qarā’in), what comes before this utterance (kalām), and what comes after it” (P 114a B; K 212a). Ultimately, however, RD returns to his original generalization, namely that ‘olam always refers to a finite period of time, which he states more fully and forcefully, “this term … does not indicate the true eternity (’abad)—not in view of the expression (lafẓ), not in view of its signification (ma‘nā), not in view of its context” (ibid.).25 He reinforces this view by citing Ecclesiastes 1:4, “One generation passes away, and another generation comes, and the earth remains li-‘olam”. But the earth will not endure forever, RD observes, and so even here, li-‘olam does not mean an unending eternity.26

In his long analysis of Deuteronomy 18:15. RD again delves deeply into the Hebrew text. We have already briefly remarked upon his discussion of the meaning of ’aḥ, “brother” (P 114b; K 212b-213a). After that lengthy disquisition, he turns his attention to yaqīm, “raise up”, which features in the phrase, “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet”. However, he seems unaware that the Hebrew phrase is in the hif‘īl conjugation, the transitive form corresponding to the fourth form of Arabic verbs. He consistently writes yaqūm—it is vocalized as such in the Paris manuscript—and that is the vocalization, in the first, intransitive form, of both the Hebrew verb and its Arabic cognate. RD’s mistaken transliteration is, thereby, responsible for his claim that the sense of the Hebrew is “will arise unexpectedly (bughat^an)”. According to him, the employment (in Arabic translation) of yaqūm rather than yaẓhur means that the prophet whose coming is foretold will not be one, or perhaps the one, that is “anticipated by you (Israelites), mutawaqqa‘ukum”. RD has no suggestion what the Hebrew verb corresponding to yaẓhur might have been. The verbs built on the root q.w.m. are fairly synonymous in Hebrew and Arabic, but there is no Hebrew cognate for yaẓhur. Indeed, if one were to allow here the Hebrew zohēr, “shine”, then its semantic field might extend to the sense of “sudden appearance” that RD wishes to ascribe to yaqūm.

Whose coming did the Israelites anticipate? Another Jew, of course. The verse in Deuteronomy 18:15 is meant to correct this anticipation—the prophet of whose coming Moses is foretelling will not be a Jew.27 At the time, it was well-known that Joshua—a Jew—would be Moses’ immediate successor. Hence, the verse cannot be speaking of Joshua; that would have been superfluous and unnecessary (‘abth). Moses’ specification that the foretold prophet will be “like me” means that he will be one of the ūlū al-‘azm, a term applied earlier to the great pre-Mosaic Prophets Adam, Noah, and Abraham. There were many Jewish prophets in Moses’ time, but none measured up to the standard of ūlū al-‘azm; in particular, none of them established a sharī‘a. Among the various criteria that were used to determine this special group, RD highlights the establishment of a law among their respective peoples.28 In sum, the prophet whose coming is foretold in Deuteronomy 18:15 is Muḥammad: a descendant of Ishmael, the brother of Isaac, he fits perfectly the description of “your brethren”—a cousin, not a brother—and a lawgiver, ṣāḥib sharī‘a. Like Moses, he is counted among ūlū al-‘azm. One last point: Moses is never proclaimed in the Jewish tradition to be “the seal (khātim)”, that is the very last of the prophets. Hence, there is no reason that the Jewish tradition cannot allow for an even greater prophet to arise (and seal the phenomenon of prophecy) (Paris 114bB-115aT; K 214b).

RD presses this polemic by citing Deuteronomy 34:10, “Since then, no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses …”, and his argument is simple. Moses has already foretold the coming of a prophet like him from among his brethren, and now we have a promise that no prophet like Moses will arise in Israel. Ergo, the future prophet who will be like Moses, can only arise from Moses’ brethren—cousins rather than brothers, that is, the descendants of Ishmael. However, one critical grammatical point must first be clarified. The verse employs the perfective mood in Hebrew, we-lo qam, and in RD’s Arabic translation, we find wa-lam yaqum, which, too, is in the perfective; so how can the phrase signify for a future prophet? RD simply declares (P 115a T), “The expression lam yaqum is in the past tense, but its intent is the future time, and there are many examples of this in Arabic”. He cites Qur’an 7:48, which employs the perfective form even though it clearly speaks about a future event to take place on the day of judgment. However, it might have been simpler to cite Sa‘adya’s translation, which employs the imperfective or future form, wa-lā yaqūm ba‘da dhālika.29 Indeed, the Jewish tradition writ large took the phrase to be in the imperfective mood, that is, an undetermined period of time. The Midrash also saw that the phrase excepted all Jewish prophets and named Bil‘am specifically as the prophet who equaled Moses—a remark that medieval exegetes felt that they had to address, even in a non-polemical context. It is hard to imagine that RD knowingly passed on the opportunity to bolster his interpretation from Jewish sources. Hence, once again, we must conclude that his familiarity with Jewish texts was quite limited.

RD amasses verses from the end of Deuteronomy (e.g., 4:25–27), which speak of the imminent and complete destruction of the Jewish people. Though he does not say this explicitly, it seems as if he is extending the meaning of naskh to include the abrogation or annulment of the Jewish people and not only their laws. Indeed, it is clear from his presentation that RD considers a valid law code to be the prerogative of a sovereign people, and the Jews have not enjoyed that status since the destruction of the Temple. RD returns to a favorite theme: the abandonment of certain practices by Jews, not on account of a later revelation, but rather due to the destruction of the Temple, whose full functioning is needed for their implementation. The fact that on their own, without divine direction, the Jews had to abandon those practices is “the greatest and most powerful proof for naskh” (K 217b). Examples are animal sacrifices and the trial of the unfaithful spouse described in Leviticus 11. There can be no argument that both are mandated by the Torah and neither is in force, nor have they been for many centuries. The laws were abrogated along with the destruction of the Temple, and the Temple was destroyed as part of the ruin of Jewish sovereignty.

Still, here again, RD’s account is marred by fanciful, unhistorical details. Assuming, as I do, that he is not simply making all of this up, one can only wonder where or how he heard of these details. For example, he observes that when the Temple was functioning, fire descended from heaven and completely consumed the animal, bones and all. But now (al-’ān; but when?), were someone to slaughter many sheep and pile upon them a lot of sulfur, they would not burn at all. Though Jewish tradition does occasionally speak of fire descending from heaven, the Torah explicitly instructs the priests to place the fire on the altar (Leviticus 1:7); the Talmud elaborates upon this further (Yoma 21b).

We encounter a similar mix of fact and misunderstanding, along with an intriguing account of different practices among the Jews, in RD’s polemic concerning the ashes of the red heifer used in some biblical purification rituals (K 281a-b, Paris 115baT; see Numbers 17). A priest sprinkles a liquid containing the ashes upon the defiled person on the third and seventh day of a seven-day quarantine. While these laws are certainly no longer in practice, they too—pace RD—are connected to the Temple, since only a person desiring to enter the Temple compound must undergo them. RD adds that most Jews have abandoned the week-long quarantine as well, though some still observe it, even though the full purification ritual is impossible. This report warrants further investigation.

RD cites a maxim of the Jewish sages, which states that purity and impurity are irrelevant while the Jews are in exile, adding that the Jews are foolish not to realize that this rule confirms naskh. Interestingly enough, the post-exilic status of the laws of purity seems to have been mainly a concern of Karaite Jews.30 Clearly, for RD, naskh is far more than a tool used when a new revelation supersedes an earlier one; it refers to the annulment of Jewish law or custom by historical circumstances as well. God’s timeless knowledge that Jewish sovereignty and the Temple, including necessarily all laws that depend upon those institutions, will be lost at some point in earthly time necessarily entails naskh of critical features of Judaism within the divine master plan, so to speak.

RD lists, one after the other, the many biblical laws, from holidays to purification rituals that require an animal sacrifice, accusing the Jews of abrogating each one. Additionally, by deleting these practices, they have abrogated the general biblical directive not to add or subtract from any of the laws given in the Torah (Deuteronomy 13:1), a point that applies even while the Temple is standing. RD cites the commandment to change the Temple shewbread on each Sabbath (Leviticus 24:8) as an abrogation of the injunction not to perform any labor on that holy day.

Historical episodes are cited as evidence of abrogations of Mosaic law by later prophets. Their contents, when contradicting something of the Torah, are to be considered naskh: “Even though those [later prophetic] books do not contain a new law, the Jews believe in them exactly as firmly as they believe in the Torah of Moses, proclaiming that they are all books of God Most High (P 115*bM; K 220a)”31. For example, Joshua’s pact with the Gibeonites abrogated the biblical commandment not to make any treaties with the inhabitants of Canaan.32 RD includes a lengthy exposition of the misdeeds of the Jews and their disregard for their own prophets, notably Jeremiah; several verses are cited, not all of which can be readily identified, and his description of the Temple and some of its rites differs significantly from traditional Jewish accounts. For our purposes, the key takeaway is that naskh, the abrogation of scripture, is intimately bound with the nullification of the Jewish religion tout court: the same polemic serves to establish naskh kutubihim wa-’ibṭāl dīnihum.

The final section of the essay concerns what RD calls “future abrogation”, his term for the far-reaching changes that Christians have made to Jewish law and custom. Repeating an assertion made earlier on, RD notes that Nestorians and Jacobites are really Jews; hence, the many arguments made for naskh apply to them as well.33 As for the changes introduced into Jewish practice by the generality of Christians, which are designated taghyīr (“alteration”) and tabdīl (“substitution”), they amount to naskh in deed if not in name.

Two passages from the Gospels are cited at length in order to illustrate Jesus’ role in breaching Mosaic legislation, namely, the “Sermon on the Mount” (especially Mark 5:38) and the story of “Jesus in the grain fields” (Matthew 12). RD then discusses five reversals of the Torah that were implemented by the Apostles: (1) making Sunday the Sabbath rather than Saturday; (2) allowing the consumption of pig’s flesh; (3) allowing marriage to some degrees of kin that are forbidden in Judaism; (4) outlawing polygamy; and (5) the story of Jesus and Zechariah as related in the first book of Luke. It is not clear what RD wishes to derive from the last of these, as there is a lacuna in both manuscripts. Even more intriguing is the marginal note at the top of K 224a that the lacuna (al-biyāḍ) is found in “both copies”. One might expect that all versions of the Arabic rasā’il derive from P, but what is the second manuscript consulted by the copyist of K? Could it be the Persian original?34

We have reached the end of the treatise; RD states his conclusion, “These are the verses sent down in the Torah and the Gospels that contain the abrogation of the laws of the Torah and religion of the Jews. From this, one learns clearly and decisively that ever since the creation of Adam, peace be upon him, until the time of Moses, peace be upon him, and from the time of Moses until the end of the epoch of Jesus, peace be upon him, naskh befell the laws. After that date, God, praised and exalted, sent the chosen one, Muḥammad, the seal of the prophets, to all of humanity… (P 117bM; K 224a)”. The final lines cite some Qur’anic verses as well as one hadith in support of this claim.

2. Conclusions

In the field of religious polemics, naskh, “abrogation”, is best known as the claim that an earlier divine revelation—the laws recorded in the Hebrew Bible in particular—has been abrogated by a later disclosure, namely, the Qur’an. However, the compass of the concept is much wider. In Qur’anic hermeneutics, contradictions between two verses are, at times, explained by the one having abrogated the other. Surprisingly, Jewish opposition to this particular device is registered in the Islamic literature, with no hint of a polemical context. Moreover, even after having converted to Islam, some former Jews or Christians continued to reject naskh as an interpretative tool.

The reach of naskh was greatly extended in the essay of RD. Indeed, he hardly refers to Qur’anic legislation at all, harping instead on themes within the Jewish tradition and the contradictions and abrogations that he detects within. RD makes much of the cancellation of practices sanctioned by the Torah even in the absence of any contradictory revelation (at times marking this by a different term, buṭlān). Moreover, he insists upon a close binding of the normative status of Jewish law and custom with Jewish political independence. The termination of the latter, accompanied by the destruction of the Temple and the dispersion of Jews, serve for him as strong a proof as any that the Law of the Torah, the Jewish sharī‘a, is no longer in force. The level of RD’s command of Jewish texts and practice cannot yet be determined, nor can any specific sources be identified beyond the Bible and Talmud. Some of RD’s accounts resonate with Karaite traditions.