Bada' (change in the divine ruling)

Bada' (Arabic: appearance, emergence) is a theological term for the emergence of new circumstances which cause a change in an earlier divine ruling. Al-Shahrastani distinguishes three sorts as it refers to the knowledge, the will or the command of God. In opposition to the divergent Sunni doctrine it is always treated in Shiite theology's chapter on the divine knowledge, without reaching a definitive formula; in its extreme form — mutability of God's will — it is taught by the ultra-Shiite sects (the Bada'iyya), while the moderate Imamiyya use words excluding or minimising change in God's knowledge. ²

Muslim heresiographers agree that the idea of bada' was first suggested by Mukhtar and then became part of the creed of the Shiite Kaysaniyya. When Mukhtar faced the decisive battle of his career against Mus'ab b. al-Zubayr he announced that God had revealed victory was certain; when defeat falsified the oracle, it was said that something had intervened (bada lahu) which made God change His mind. The idea then served to explain the failure of the hopes and prophecies of defeated imams — God's purpose stood, but He had altered His plan on grounds of expediency — and the change in legitimate succession when Musa al-Kazim, not the predestined Isma'il, succeeded Ja'far as seventh imam. To soften the cruder application, the saying ascribed to Ja'far was emended from "my son Isma'il" (ibni) to "my father Isma'il" (abi), transferring the change to the sacrifice of Abraham's son. ²

The Shi'a adduce Qur'anic passages (xiii, 39; iv, 29b; the sparing of Yunus's people, x, 98; the sacrifice of Isma'il; Moses' thirty nights extended to forty), traditions that virtuous acts lengthen the allotted span or alter the appointed destiny, pious legends of averted misfortune, and — against the Sunnis — the doctrine of abrogation (naskh): bada' is creative cancellation and cancellation is legislative bada'. Through Mu'tazilite influence, moderate Shi'ites tie bada' to al-aslah (the most expedient): divine decrees change as the demands of the general good change. To reconcile this with God's eternal, identical-with-being knowledge they devised formulae: bada' taken metaphorically (majazan), not a change in divine knowledge or regret; a future bada' already decreed in eternal foreknowledge; the two-tablets solution — the Preserved Tablet of unalterable decree and the lawh al-mahw wa'l-ithbat of decrees alterable by new causes; and Kulini's distinction between ilm mahtum, unalterable knowledge whose details God entrusts to the angels, and ilm makhsus, the knowledge of matters in suspense entrusted to no one. ¹

Even within the Shi'a, Sulayman b. Jarir of the Zaydis reproached the Imamites for the two errors of taqiyya and bada'. The bitterest opponents were Jewish theologians, who rejected the abrogation of divine law precisely because naskh implies bada', as Yahya b. Zakariyya al-Katib al-Tabarani argued against al-Mas'udi. In the 3rd/9th century bada' seems to have been a test of theological sagacity, given the difficulties it raised. ³