It is only among the later commentators that we meet with the tendency to augment the number of verses thought to have been abrogated, and by some of these the figure has been placed as high as five hundred. In this connection, Suyūṭī, one of the well-known commentators, says: “Those who multiply (the number of abrogated verses) have included many kinds — one kind being that in which there is neither abrogation, nor any particularization (of a general statement), nor has it any connection with any one of them, for various reasons. And this is as in the words of God: ‘And spend out of what We have given them’ (2:3); ‘And spend out of what We have given you’ (63:10); and the like. It is said that these are abrogated by the verse dealing with charity (zakāt), while it is not so, they being still in force”.33 Suyūṭī himself brings the number of verses which he thinks to be abrogated down to twenty-one,34 in some of which he considers there is abrogation, while in others he finds that it is only the particularization of a general injunction that is effected by a later verse; but he admits that there is a difference of opinion even about these.
A later writer, however, the famous Shāh Walī Allāh of India, commenting on this in his Fauz al-Kabīr, says that abrogation cannot be proved in the case of sixteen out of Sayūṭī’s twenty-one verses, but in the case of the remaining five he is of the opinion that the verdict of abrogation is final. These five verses are dealt with as follows:
1. 2:180 “It is prescribed for you, when death approaches one of you, if he leaves behind wealth, for parents and near relations, to make a bequest in a kindly manner.” As a matter of fact, both Baidzāwī and Ibn Jarīr35 quote authorities who state that this verse was not abrogated; and it is surprising that it is considered as being abrogated by 4:11, 12, which speak of the shares to be given “after the payment of a bequest he may have bequeathed or a debt,” showing clearly that the bequest spoken of in 2:180 was still in force. This verse in fact speaks of bequest for charitable objects which is even now
33 It. II, p. 22.
34 Ibid, p. 23.
35 Famous commentators of the Holy Qur’ān.