16.101 – When We exchange a verse in place of (another) verse
The second challenge comes from opponents who say that the messenger is merely inventing his recitations. See the discussion on verses that accuse the messenger of inventing at 69.44.
Verse 101 suggests that Allah may substitute ( baddala ) one verse for another. To the audience, however, the exchange of verses seems to be an arbitrary action of the messenger.
This verse (along with 2.106; 13.39; and 22.52) became one of the most important props for the Islamic theory of “abrogation” – that in certain cases, verses believed to have been recited by Muhammad later in his career abrogate or cancel the rulings of verses believed to have been recited earlier.
For many Muslim scholars, this theory of abrogation has provided a way to deal with the contradictions within the Quran on a number of important themes, including response to conflict and the treatment of non-Muslims. Scholars placed the contents of the Quran on a timeline according to the Muslim story of Islamic origins and then declared that in case of contradiction, the verse recited later in the story would overrule the earlier verse.
As an example, some Muslim scholars asserted that since – according to their chronology – Sūra 9 was the last or second to last sūra to be recited, 9.5 should have abrogating power over all verses that suggest a gentler treatment of non-Muslims. David Powers found in his study of the subject that for some scholars, 9.5 abrogates “every other verse in the Quran which commands or implies anything less than a total offensive against the non-believers”. In this case, Muslim agreement with the theory of abrogation would prove very dangerous for non-Muslims!
A related action in both 2.106 and 87.6–7 is that Allah would cause or allow a verse ( āya ) to be forgotten. This possibility gave rise to speculation among some early Muslim scholars that the messenger of Islam recited certain verses that did not find their way into the final edition of the Quran.