Tolerance Verses Versus Sword Verses, and the Problem of Abrogation

“There is no compulsion in religion” (Quran 2:256) and “to you your religion, to me mine” (109:6) sit alongside “kill the polytheists wherever you find them” (9:5) and “fight those who do not believe in Allah… until they pay the jizya with willing submission and feel themselves subdued” (9:29). Classical jurists resolved the tension chronologically: the Medinan sword verses abrogate the earlier irenic ones. Ibn Kathir’s tafsirtafsirClassical Quranic exegesis — the commentary tradition (al-Tabari, al-Razi, Ibn Kathir, etc.) that explains and contextualizes the text.Full glossary → on 9:5 cites al-Dahhak: it “abrogated every agreement of peace between the Prophet and any idolater.” The internal problem is twofold: the Quran both contains the contradiction and contains the abrogationnaskhAbrogation: the principle that a later Quranic revelation can cancel or replace an earlier ruling. Classical scholars catalogued dozens to hundreds of abrogated verses.Full glossary → mechanism (2:106) that institutionalizes it — and Quran 2:106 responds to the accusation of substitution (16:101: “when We substitute a verse in place of a verse… they say, ‘You are but an inventor’”) by affirming that substitution occurs.