abrogation of the Quran contradicts its "eternal validity". Mohammed al-Ghazali quotes "jurist and historian", al-Khidri, as "categorically rejected" naskh of Quranic verses, saying abrogation "does not occur except to make specific, or limit, or explain that which is otherwise general and unconditional." Mohammed al-Ghazali also quotes Rashid Rida as quoting the first part of Q.2:106 — "We do not abrogate (naskh) a sign or cause it to be forgotten" — in his opposition to naskh. Syed Ahmad Khan "vehemently" rejected abrogation of Islamic revelation. Some Muslim scholars (Al-Sha`rani and Shah Wali Allah) were skeptical of the use of Naskh, considering it a sort of short cut to be avoided. According to contemporary scholar Jonathan A.C. Brown, the Sufi jurist Al-Sha`rani considered claims of abrogation to be the recourse of those mediocre and narrow-minded jurists whose hearts God had not illuminated with his Light. They could not perceive all the interpretive possibilities in the words of God and the Prophet … By taking the shortcut of stamping Quranic verses or Hadiths 'abrogated', such ulama had restricted the interpretive plurality that God had intended in the Shariah. For Sha'rani only when a Hadith included the Prophet's own clear abrogation, like his report about visiting graves, could it be considered Naskh. Shah Wali Allah was similarly skeptical of the ulama's excessive indulgence in abrogation to explain the relationship between Quranic verses or hadiths. In all but five cases, he found explanations for how to understand the relationship between scriptural passages without recourse to abrogation. Although not a denier of naskh, Abdul-Rahim notes that not only were the early Muslims unable to agree on every alleged instance of naskh, they also could not agree on the details of the alleged instances, the number of instances; and the classification of the instances. Among the arguments Islamic Modernist mufti Muhammad Abduh offers against naskh of the Quran (mentioned earlier) is that "the Quran nowhere announced that verse so-and-so is naskh, or that verse such-and-such is Mansukh". Nor is Naskh an article of faith of Islam, like belief in the prophets, angels, books of Allah. It is "merely a technique employed by the exegetes of the first century." Since an abrogating verse must have been revealed after an abrogated verse, being able to determined which verse came first is crucial, but (according to Abduh) scholars do not "possess an undeniable indication that one verse is earlier or