They are the same people who would go along with Moses...

They are the same people who would go along with Moses, and hear God's pronouncements. But by the time they returned to their people's midst to recount what they had heard, they would twist it out of shape.' The tahrif that they would carry out was not for the reason that they did not understand and so altered what they reported. No! They are an intelligent people and they understand matters the issues very well.

But despite the fact that they understand what they have heard they would recount them in a distorted manner for the people. This is what tahrif is, that is, distorting and twisting things out of their original shape-and they carried out tahrif even in Divine scriptures! In this context, in most of the cases the Qur'an uses the very term tahrif or expresses the matter in some other manner.

However, the exegetes have pointed out that the Qur'anic reference to tahrif in this context includes tahrif in wording as well as in meaning. That is, some of the instances of corruption that have occurred [in the scriptures at the hands of the Jews] relating to the wording and some of them relate to the meanings and interpretation. As this involves a digression from my main topic, I do not wish to discuss this matter any further. There is a story which would not out of place here.

One of the scholars used to recount that once during the day of his youth a maddah 2 from Tehran was visiting Mashhad. During the day he would stand in the Gawharshad Mosque or in the courtyard of the shrine and recite verses and eulogies. Among things that he recited was the famous ghazal ascribed to Hafiz: O heart! Be slave of the world's King and rejoice! Forever dwell in the shelter of God's grace!

Embrace the tomb of Rida, the Eighth Imam, From the heart's depth, and cling to the threshold of his shrine (bargah). This gentleman, in order to have some fun with him, had approached him and said to him, "Why do you recite this verse wrongly? It should be read like this, which means, as soon as you reach the shrine you must throw yourself down in the manner a bundle of straw (barekah) is rolled off the back of an ass.

Thereafter, whenever the poor maddah recited these verses, he would say bar-e kah instead of bargah and at the same time throw himself down on the ground! This is what tahrif does! Here I must point out that tahrif also differs in respect of the subject involved.