Explanation of Riyad al-Salihin-62a

The reader: The author (may Allah have mercy on him) transmitted, in the context of the hadiths in the chapter on the virtue of reciting the Qur'an:
"From Uthman ibn 'Affan (may Allah be pleased with him), who said: The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said:

The best among you is he who learns and teaches the Qur'an.

خيركم من تعلم القرآن وعلمه

Sunan Abi Dawud 1452Sahih (Al-Albani)

Narrated by al-Bukhari.
And from 'Aishah (may Allah be pleased with her), who said: The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said:

The one who is proficient in the recitation of the Qur'an will be with the honourable and obedient scribes (angels) and he who recites the Qur'an and finds it difficult to recite, doing his best to recite it in the best way possible, will have two rewards.

الذي يقرأ القرآن وهو ماهر به مع السفرة الكرام البررة، والذي يقرأ القرآن ويتتعتع فيه وهو عليه شاق له أجران

Riyad as-Salihin 994

Agreed upon by al-Bukhari and Muslim".

The Shaykh : In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful:
The author (may Allah have mercy on him) stated in what he transmitted in his book *Riyad al-Salihin*: "Chapter on the Virtue of Reciting the Qur'an": From Uthman ibn 'Affan (may Allah be pleased with him) that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: : The address is to the entire Muslim community, so the best of people are those who combine these two descriptions: one who learns the Qur'an and teaches the Qur'an, learning it from others and teaching it to others. Learning and teaching include both verbal and conceptual learning. So, whoever teaches the Qur'an, meaning he makes people memorize it and recite it, is included in teaching. Likewise, whoever learns the Qur'an in this manner is included in learning. Through this, we know the virtue of the study circles (halaqat) that exist now in many countries, praise be to Allah. In the mosques, there are circles where children learn the speech of Allah (Mighty and Majestic). So, whoever contributes to them in any way has a reward, and whoever sends his children to them has a reward, and whoever volunteers to teach in them has a reward. All of them are included in His saying: .
The second type is conceptual teaching, meaning teaching tafsir (exegesis): that a person sits with people and teaches them the interpretation of the speech of Allah (Mighty and Majestic), how to interpret the Qur'an. And the Qur'an, as we know, contains ambiguous verses (mutashabih). You sometimes find some verses repeated with the same wording, such as: This was repeated with the same wording in two surahs, in Surat al-Tawbah and Surat al-Tahrim. Likewise, many verses are repeated. So the Qur'an contains ambiguous verses. If a person teaches others how to interpret the Qur'an and gives them the rules for interpreting the Qur'an, this is part of teaching the Qur'an. And let it be known that the Noble Qur'an is not like other books in terms of interpretation, meaning it is not permissible for a person to interpret the Qur'an according to his own desires and take the verses to mean what he wants, as the people of atheism do with the verses of Allah (Mighty and Majestic), such as the people of ta'til (denial of the divine attributes) and others. They take the verse to mean something other than what Allah intended. For example, regarding the saying of Allah the Exalted: He says: "And your Lord came," this is forbidden and not permissible, because the one who interprets the Qur'an is testifying that Allah intended such and such, and this is a great matter, not a trivial one. If you were interpreting the speech of a scholar among the scholars and interpreted it as you wanted, that would be considered a crime, so how much more so the speech of the Lord of the Worlds!
Therefore, it came in the hadith: , so it is obligatory for a person to be cautious about saying that the meaning of the verse is such and such when he does not know. But if he is a student of knowledge and speaks about the meaning of the verse in the presence of someone more knowledgeable than him, on the basis that he will guide him if he makes a mistake, then there is no harm. And of this is what is given in exams, for example, the student is asked to interpret such and such a verse, and the student does not have the meaning in his mind at that moment. Should he interpret it with what he has? We say: Yes, because this is a test, and if he makes a mistake, he has someone to point it out to him, but he should seek the truth. As for the person who interprets not in this manner and does not have knowledge, it is not permissible for him to proceed with this, because the speech of Allah (Mighty and Majestic) is not like other things.
As for the hadith of 'Aishah (may Allah be pleased with her), it contains: that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) informed: And these noble, righteous angels are the angels, as Allah the Exalted said: So the proficient one is with the angels.
And as for the one who stumbles over the Qur'an and recites it with difficulty, and it is hard for him, he has two rewards: the first reward is the reward of recitation, and the second reward is the reward of effort, the reward of effort and hardship. For this reason, the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said to 'Aishah: So the one who stumbles over the Qur'an and finds it difficult has two rewards: the reward of recitation and the reward of reading the Qur'an. But the first is better than the second, because the first has a great rank. And there is a difference between a person who has a high rank and a person who is below that but has a reward. We give an example of this, and the reward has no parallel, but if a man has honor, leadership, and a high status among people, but his dirhams are few, and another person is lowly among people and has no value but has many dirhams, the first is better. So the important thing is that the proficient one in the Qur'an, who masters it, is with the noble, righteous angels.
And as for the one who recites the Qur'an and stumbles over it, and it is difficult for him, he has two rewards. So the one who recites the Qur'an is not a loser no matter what; he is a winner in all cases. And Allah is the One who grants success.