Missing in Action: Sorry everyone!

Assalaamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatu everyone!

I apologize for not writing in a while AND going and changing the name and URL on you all; Alhamdulillah I'm doing fine, I don't want you to think I went through some crisis that caused me to drop off the face of the blogging world!

I don't know if any of you have heard of Seekers' Guidance (seekersguidance.org). If you haven't I strongly recommend checking it out; it's a great resource for learning about Sunni Islam. I really like it because you are able to send in questions and have them answered by sheikhs and teachers (the answers are posted on the website for everyone to read and benefit from). Masha'Allah, the answers are always very well-written and thought out with plenty of details and reasons why they answered the way they did; the writing style is also very accessible and not nearly as harsh or condemning as some other fatwa websites. I also love the fact that they have a variety of learned people answering the questions to provide a balance, including female teachers. :)

A while back, I was having a lot of trouble wrapping my head around the concept of abrogation in the Qur'an. My understanding of abrogation was that it rendered everything that came before it null and void and must be treated as if it didn't exist. To me, this didn't make sense; after all, I believe that the Qur'an is the perfect Word of ALLAH, so why would there be rulings in the Qur'an that are completely unnecessary? Even more troubling was the fact that I had read in certain places that with the revelation of the "Verse of the Sword" (9:5), all of the ayat related to peace, tolerance, and justice were no longer applicable. This made me very upset because I always believed that Islam was inherently peaceful. This troubled me so much that I decided to ask the learned people at Seekers' Guidance about it to see if they could clarify it for me.

Alhamdulillah, I just found out that they answered my question and posted it on their website. Much to my excitement/relief, I was happy to discover that the "Verse of the Sword" DOES NOT abrogate the peaceful verses, and that abrogation is not as cut-and-dry a topic as I thought. In reality, abrogation does not necessarily mean a complete overturning of an ayah; instead, it is more of a clarification, which is what I suspected in the first place. I read an example from islamawareness.net that illustrated the point quite well. It said:
"Suppose I say that I do not live in Los Angeles. Later I say that I do not live in California. Finally I say, I do not live in the United States of America. This does not imply that these three statements contradict each other. Each statement gives more information than the previous statement. The third statement includes the information contained in the first two statements. Thus, only by saying that I do not live in the United States of America, it is obvious, that I also do not live in California nor New York."
This point can also be seen in the gradual prohibition of alcohol. The first verse regarding alcohol consumption says that its harm outweighs its benefits. The verse revealed later says that one shouldn't approach the prayer while intoxicated. The final verse about alcohol says that its consumption is prohibited in all situations. The last verse is the one to follow, but it doesn't render the verses that came before it invalid. Alcohol's harms still outweighs its benefits, and one is still not allowed to pray while drunk, but the prohibition has been extended further to forbidding all alcohol. The rulings of the "Verse of the Sword" are allowed in certain cases (it was mentioned in conjunction with the Makkans constantly breaking the peace treaties with Muslims and threatening them), but it definitely doesn't command Muslims to go around killing all non-Muslims, because the rules of peace and tolerance are also still in effect (not to mention the fact that right after the Verse of the Sword it commands Muslims to grant asylum to people from among the people they are fighting if they ask for it).

Subhanallah, this answer really put my mind at ease. Islam really is a great religion that strives for peace and does not in any way condone the ugly, horrible violence some Muslims are committing against others. I realized that whenever I have any questions, doubts, or misgivings about Islam, it pretty much always turns out to be a misunderstanding on my part due to learning inaccurate information or not knowing about differing, legitimate opinions on a topic, and not a fault in the religion itself. Subhanallah, Subhanallah, I am so happy to have Islam as my religion. May ALLAH guide each and every one of us to the Straight Path and keep us on the Straight Path, Ameen!

Here's a link to my question and the answer; Masha'Allah it's a very interesting read: http://seekersguidance.org/ans-blog/2010/11/06/clarifications-concerning-abrogation-in-the-quran-and-the-verse-of-the-sword/