The Permanence of Religion and the Abrogation of Religious Law

The prophets (a.s.) possessed both an unchanging set of fundamental principles called “Islam” and branches and particular guidelines called “religious law” (sharīʿa). “Islam,” meaning the principles and general guidelines of ethics, jurisprudence, and law, is never abrogated: “Indeed, the religion with God is Islam.”(440) This means that the message of all prophets (a.s.) regarding monotheism (tawḥīd), prophethood (nubuwwa), messengership (risāla), resurrection (maʿād), and also the comprehensive underlying principles of ethics, jurisprudence, and law, is the same as the message of Islam, and every prophet verified the words of previous prophets in this regard. However, in particular branches that constitute “religious law,” each prophet communicates to people the specific rulings of their own era: “For each among you We have appointed a law and a way.”(441)

From the verse under discussion, one can clearly understand the permanence of religion and the variability of religious laws. Jesus (a.s.) combines “religion” and “religious law” (sharīʿa), and regarding the principle of “religion” he says: “And [I come] to confirm [the truth of] that which is before me of the Torah,” and regarding the particular branches specific to each religion, meaning “religious law,” he says: “and to make lawful for you some of the things that were forbidden you.” This means that I confirmed those general guidelines and changed some rulings by God’s command.

Since confirmation relates to “religion” and change relates to “religious law,” these two do not contradict each other, just as there is no contradiction between the permanent (religion) and the variable (religious law).

The phrase “and to make lawful for you some of the things that were forbidden you” indicates that the religious law of Jesus (a.s.) abrogated some of the rulings of Moses’s (a.s.) religious law, as some of the prohibitions in the religious law of Moses (a.s.) became permissible in the religious law of Jesus the Messiah (a.s.). These may have been the same things that were previously permissible for the Jews but were made forbidden to them due to their wrongdoing: “Due to the wrongdoing of the Jews, We prohibited them certain good things that were permitted to them [earlier], and for their barring many [people] from the way of God, and for their taking usury—though they had been forbidden from it—and for eating up the wealth of the people wrongfully. And We have prepared for the faithless among them a painful punishment.”(442)

The point is that prohibition is sometimes due to the harmfulness of a specific thing, even if only God knows its harm. Such a thing remains permanently forbidden. And sometimes it is for punishing the transgressors. Such a prohibition is transformed into permission after the era of the transgressors has passed.