Discover the meaning of the term Al-nskh (نسخ) in Islamic vocabulary.
Contents :
Updated on 11 April 2026 at 1:05 AM
📖 3 min readIn language: abolition and transfer; in the Law: that a later legal sign come upon an earlier legal sign, requiring the contrary of its ruling; it is thus a change in view of our knowledge, and a specification of the ruling's duration in view of God Most High's knowledge.
In language: it is change, lifting and abolition; one says: the sun abolished the shadow (nasakhati ash-shamsu az-zilla): it made it vanish; and in the Law: it is the announcement of the legal ruling's end regarding the one under the Law, its end being known with God Most High while it seemed to persist in our knowledge; naskh thus makes known its end to us, and was toward us change and alteration.
In the mansukh.
In language: used in two senses: the first is abolition and lifting; one says: 'the sun abolished the shadow': that is, made it vanish and lifted it, for the shadow does not remain in that place after the sun's presence; one says: 'the wind abolished the footprints': when it effaced them and annihilated them to touch.
The announcement of a later legal ruling's end, when it concurs in word and sense, by intention.
Transfer by means of a slighter effect, or a writing and the like, from its place, either by a punishment overriding it, or a citation dispensing with its absence; it occurs manifest in both senses in the cases of address; mentioned by al-Hurali. Ibn Kamal said (and al-Ta'rifat, p. 260): abolition and transfer; and by the Law: that a later legal sign come upon an earlier legal sign requiring the contrary of its ruling; it is thus a change in view of our knowledge, and a specification of the ruling's duration in view of God's knowledge. Al-Raghib said (al-Mufradat, p. 490): naskh is the abolition of a thing by what follows it, as the sun's naskh of the shadow and the shadow's of the sun, and gray hair's of youth; sometimes abolition is understood from it, sometimes establishment, sometimes both.