What is the meaning of “I would have adorned it for you with adornment”?
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The questioner:
May Allah reward you, Honorable Shaykh. This questioner says: How do we understand the hadith of Ibn Mas'ud (may Allah be pleased with him) that when the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) listened to his recitation, he said, “If I had known that you were listening, I would have adorned it for you with adornment.”
The Shaykh:
Abu Mas'ud al-Ansari. Yes.
The questioner:
He said, “If I had known that you were listening, I would have adorned it for you with adornment.”
The Shaykh:
The Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) said to him, “You have a beautiful voice.” Abu al-Hasan al-Ansari (may Allah be pleased with him) had a beautiful voice, and the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) would listen to his prayer and recitation at night, standing and listening. He said, “If you had seen me listening to your recitation last night.” He said, “If I had known that you were listening, I would have adorned it for you with adornment,” meaning I would have beautified it with my voice as a form of beautification. There is no harm in that if the intention is to beautify the voice for the Qur'an in order to honor the Qur'an and affect the listeners. This is a good thing. Yes.
May Allah reward you, Honorable Shaykh. This questioner says: How do we understand the hadith of Ibn Mas'ud (may Allah be pleased with him) that when the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) listened to his recitation, he said, “If I had known that you were listening, I would have adorned it for you with adornment.”
The Shaykh:
Abu Mas'ud al-Ansari. Yes.
The questioner:
He said, “If I had known that you were listening, I would have adorned it for you with adornment.”
The Shaykh:
The Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) said to him, “You have a beautiful voice.” Abu al-Hasan al-Ansari (may Allah be pleased with him) had a beautiful voice, and the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) would listen to his prayer and recitation at night, standing and listening. He said, “If you had seen me listening to your recitation last night.” He said, “If I had known that you were listening, I would have adorned it for you with adornment,” meaning I would have beautified it with my voice as a form of beautification. There is no harm in that if the intention is to beautify the voice for the Qur'an in order to honor the Qur'an and affect the listeners. This is a good thing. Yes.
Source
قناة «العلامة الدكتور صالح الفوزان»، معنى لحبرته لك تحبيرا؟ لمعالي الشيخ صالح الفوزان — youtube.com
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.