them suspiciously convenient for proponents of naskh and especially for experts in the field. (Not only do they provide validity for the theory from "the mouths of men believed to have known the Prophet's mind best", but the reports specifically call for judicial or religious offices in the community to be occupied by those trained in "this indispensable knowledge".) Early reliable evidence However even if these reports were later fabrications and the rules of naskh were not directly passed down from Muhammad to the Salaf Muslims, it is known that the idea that some Qur'anic verses were abrogated can be found towards the end of the first century of Islam, and the development of theories of naskh can be dated "with certainty" to the time of Imam Shafi'i (d.204 AH). The early schools of law that were in existence towards the end of the first century of Islam included the idea of abrogation in the Qur'anic verses. Ibrahim al-Nakha'i (d.96 AH/714) is reported to have said that the part of verse Q.5:106 — which allows a non-Muslim to bear witness to the bequest of a Muslim during a journey if the Muslim is on their death bed — was abrogated to require the witness to be a Muslim. The principle of abrogation (without its naskh terminology) makes an early appearance in the Muwatta' of Mālik (d.179 AH/795 ) according to John Burton and Ahmad Hasan. At one point Malik notes that "his teacher Zuhrī had told him that the Muslims had adopted as standard the latest of all the Prophet's reported actions" when there is a conflict. In another chapter Mālik states that of the two conflicting Qur'an rulings, "one had replaced the other". Elsewhere, Mālik "rejects the notion that a ruling remains valid despite the withdrawal" of the (supposed) Qur'an verse the ruling is based on. However, according to Abdul-Rahim, "the earliest extant materials ever written" on the tafsir genre, naskh al-Qur'an came earlier than Malik. The two works — Kitab al-Nasikh wa al-Mansukh fi Kitab Allah Ta'ala by Qatadah ibn Di'amah al-Sadusi (d. 117/735) and Kitab al-Nasikh wa al-Mansukh by Muhammad ibn Muslim ibn Shihab al-Zuhri (d. 124/742). — begin "immediately to point to the abrogated in the Qur'an" feeling no need to elucidate what naskh is. According to Abdul-Rahim, the fact that these and other early works followed this practice indicates a "widespread understanding of naskh" in