the Muslim world at that time. Meaning Naskh meaning evolved as early applications of the concept were abandoned (like other technical terms within Islamic exegesis — such as asbāb al-nuzūl, the historical context in which Quranic verses were revealed). In early works of tafsīr (before about 150 AH), Naskh was used to refer to a ruling that narrowed rather than replaced an earlier one (nasakha min [al-āya] — "an exception is provided to [the verse]"). This usage was later reformulated by Shāfi'ī as takhsīs (specification/exception). Theory The "elaboration of the theories" of naskh can be dated with certainty to the last half of the second century of Islam, when Imam Shafi'i (d.204 AH/820), in his work Risāla, (and in the somewhat later Ikhtilāf al-Hadīth") worked to resolve the "apparent discrepancies between certain Qur'ānic verses and others; between certain hadith and others; and, most serious of all, between certain Qur'ānic verses and certain hadīths", according to John Burton. Ibrahim al-Nakha'i (d. 96/714) is reported to have said that verse Q.5:106 was abrogated Naskh as "a technical term meaning 'abrogation'" was used "early on in exegesis, for example, in Muqātil's [d. 149-150] Khams mi'a āya and his tafsīr. "'Ilm al-Nasikh wa'l-Mansukh" (Knowledge of the Abrogating and Abrogated) became one of the Islamic sciences. John Burton argues, naskh become more important following the establishment of the principle of As-Shafi'i that hadith of Muhammad overruled all other reports from Companions or others on the same subject. This doctrine led to the growth in hadith attributed to the Prophet. Since "far too many" of these hadith "were mutually contradictory"—some contradicting the Quran -- "their use might court the risk" of failing to follow divine law (the view of some of the Mu'tazila of the era). For proponents of the As-Shafi'i doctrine a practical problem was the contradictions would lead to an abandonment of basing Islamic law on prophetic hadith. Medieval times At least by the eleventh century the classical concept of naskh of the Quran and Sunnah was widely accepted enough for one scholar — Ibn Hilal al-Nahwi — to assert that "whoever says" that there is no abrogation in Islam "is not a believer, but rather a kafir, denying that with which Muhammad came. He must renounce his position or be killed". Modernist dissent A "celebrated icon" of deniers and rejecters of naskh was the fourth-century Hijri scholar, Abu Muslim al-Isfahani, who was very