This hadith tells us that there are many people who hear...

This hadith tells us that there are many people who hear these words and hear the truth of the religion directly from the Imam (a.s.) and memorize it, but they are not people of understanding and analysis. There are also many people who take the words and truths of the religion and pass them on to other people, but the people whom they pass this knowledge on to are much more worthy and are much better at understanding and comprehending this knowledge.

For example, a person heard the words of the Prophet (S) when he said: لاٌ ضَرَرَ وَ لاٌ ضِرٌارَ “Do not do anything that causes harm to yourself or to others.” However the person who heard these words did not have the ability to understand how deep or profound this sentence was. Nonetheless, he memorized it and then passed it on to the next generation, and the next generation understood it better than he did – and this generation too passed it on to the next generation.

It is possible that this will continue on until the twentieth generation and they will understand it better than the first, second and third generation, as this twentieth generation will be better equipped to understand it. The Qurʾan is the same. We cannot say that the people who were in the past understood the Qurʾan better (than others) - rather, it is the opposite of this.

The miracle of the Qurʾan lies in the fact that the Qurʾan is always one step ahead of the commentaries which are written about it – meaning that in each and every time period in which the Qurʾan has been explained, when the knowledge and understanding of the people increases, they will go forth to re-interpret and re-understand the Qurʾan and they will see that the Qurʾan has far surpassed their commentary and is much more advanced than what they had written.

We do not need to go far in this discussion – simply look at the Science of Jurisprudence (ʿIlmul Usul).

Without doubt, the companions of the Noble Prophet (S), the companions of Amirul Moʾminin ʿAli ibn Abi Talib (a.s.), the companions of Imam Jaʿfar ibn Muhammad as-Sadiq (a.s.) and even companions such as Zurarah (r.d.a.) and Hisham ibn al-Hakam (r.d.a.) were people who had learnt the laws of Fiqh either directly from the Prophet (S) or from one of the A’immah (a.s.), however they did not understand, analyze and examine the rules of jurisprudence as Muhaqqiq al-Hilli (q.d.s.), ʿAllamah al-Hilli (q.d.s.), Shaykh Murtaḍa (q.d.s.) and Shaykh Ansari (q.d.s.) did.