What is your opinion of the preachers who make mistakes in reciting the Qur'an and in narrating hadith, and what is the importance of learning grammar and the Arabic language?

The questioner : I say that many of our brothers, especially our Salafi preachers, when they deliver lessons, are lax in reciting the verse and in verifying the hadith. Even if the meaning is clear to them and they convey the material correctly, their recitation of the verses and the hadiths is not precise. Does this mean there is blame, or is there no blame on them? Or, in other words, what is the importance of this issue? The second issue is that I would like you to clarify for the youth, especially in future gatherings, because this question falls under the importance of our understanding of grammar and the importance of our understanding of the Arabic language. So, if you would be kind enough to clarify for us the importance of this virtue and the attention to it, which is grammar and the Arabic language.

The Shaykh : Regarding the first issue, if I were to base my answer on what I heard, my answer would be very general: it is obligatory for the preacher to recite the Qur'an as we received it from the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him), without any change from what the scholars of tajwid and recitation have established. Likewise, the Prophetic hadiths must be narrated and reported as they came in the authentic books of hadith. However, the reality is that the question gives me the impression of some brevity, such that I cannot say whether there is a serious lapse or whether it is limited to issues that can be considered secondary. I observe, without a doubt, that even some of the imams read in a manner contrary to the Sunnah. Recently, I prayed behind one of our brothers and drew his attention to the fact that he was reciting, for example, al-Fatihah. I told him, in text, that it is as if you are reciting al-Fatihah with one breath or two, but you are connecting the verse to the next with a pause. You say: One might recite the entire al-Fatihah in this manner, and this is contrary to the Sunnah. The Sunnah is to recite the entire Qur'an, and especially al-Fatihah, verse by verse, separating the verse from the one that follows it, with a slight breath. That is, you say: you take a breath to the end of it. As for well, this is a pause and not a separation of the verses from each other. This resembles the known pause in some of the few places in the Qur'an, such as His saying (Glorified and Exalted is He): you do not take a breath to separate according to its measure: this is not a pause here, it is a verse stop. So I drew attention to this, for example, and that it is contrary to the Sunnah received from the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him). But if he did that and persisted in it, we would not say that he committed a forbidden act, but he contradicted the guidance of the Messenger (peace be upon him) in his recitation of the Qur'an. Therefore, the previous question must be clarified: for example, when they cite a verse and they make a mistake in it, or in a hadith, do we say this is forbidden and it is not permissible for such preachers to come forward to call people to Islam with hadiths, or even with verses, which they distort from the recitation in which they were revealed? Can I know precisely what the question is that you are circling around?

The questioner : The question is, as I mentioned, that for example, instead of a fathah, it might be a dammah... diacritics from the perspective of precision.

The Shaykh : Yes, this is not permissible.

The questioner : This happens a lot, except for some of our brothers, may Allah reward them with good.

The Shaykh : Yes, in that case, my previous statement or answer is in its place. It is not permissible for them. They have one of two options: either they memorize the verses and hadiths well, even if they are illiterate, so that they do not fall into any of this distortion, which sometimes changes the speech completely upside down. Or, which is better for the preacher in general, is that they learn the science of grammar and the science of morphology, because that helps them to avoid mistakes in reciting the verse and the hadith first, and then it helps them to understand the Arabic speech, especially in the Book of Allah and the hadith of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), with a correct understanding. And in some of my general gatherings, I spoke about the obligation of studying two sciences: the science of hadith, its terminology and its men, and the science of usul al-fiqh and its rules. Because in these two sciences, the student of knowledge is able to understand Islam with a correct understanding and to reconcile its texts with a smooth and easy reconciliation, without any difficulty or contradiction. While the one who has not studied these two sciences will fall into many difficulties. And we are always, forever, and in every land of the world that we come to, we receive repeated questions: how to reconcile such and such a hadith with such and such a hadith? For example: how to reconcile His saying (Glorified and Exalted is He): and His saying (peace and blessings be upon him): ? This is an example from hundreds of examples. If the questioner or this student of knowledge had knowledge of the science of usul al-fiqh, in terms of the general and the specific, the absolute and the restricted, the abrogating and the abrogated, and the like, then very, very few of the texts of the Shari'ah from the Book or the Sunnah would be difficult for him. Now, of course, this also requires this note to draw their attention to the necessity of paying attention to studying the Arabic language and its literature, so that their tongues are correct in the Arabic language in which the Qur'an was revealed and in which the hadith of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) came.