The responsibility of elucidation and interpretation of the...

The responsibility of elucidation and interpretation of the Holy Quran vests with the Holy Prophet and his designated successors. After every revelation, the Prophet use to dictate the verse of Quran and hadith explaining the same, to Hazrat Ali (a.s.) who scripted his teachings and compiled it for the posterity.

The Prophet’s (S) imparted his teachings to Ali (a.s.) in different gatherings the details of which are as follows: (A) Systematic teaching sessions Several authentic books of hadith have recorded the teaching sessions that Amir-ul-Mumineen, Ali (a.s.) had with the Holy Prophet (S). In this context, Hazrat Ali (a.s.) himself has been quoted in the book of `Kafi.’.

Imam (a.s.) says: “Verily, I am the only person who had a daily admittance to the Prophet (at least) once during the day time and once during the night when I used to be alone with him. On such occasions, I had the honour to discuss with him on whichever subject he was inclined to talk. The Prophet’s companions were aware that none else except I enjoyed such a privilege with the Holy Prophet. Such visits would often take place at my house and the Prophet used to come to see me.

When I was to enter any of his (Prophet’s) room to see him he would ask his wives to vacate the room for the sake of privacy with me and there would be none with him besides me. But when the Prophet had his turn to visit my house for private conversation, he would not exclude Fatimah (my wife) and any of my sons from this conversation. In such meetings, he would reply to my queries and when I had exhausted my queries then he would initiate further discussions.

The Prophet never missed recitation of even a single verse and I did not miss writing any of his dictations. Similarly, the Prophet never skipped the mention of any revelation to me. Thus he taught me the basic import of each and every verse, its complete explanation including the verses that were abrogative and the verses that were abrogated, the clear verses and the ambiguous ones and also those verses that were general and specific.

And then the Prophet prayed to Allah to bestow upon me the true understanding of Quran and its unfailing memory. Ever since the Prophet had prayed for me, I never forgot a single verse from the Book of Allah, nor did I forget the knowledge which the Prophet had imparted to me and which I had written down’.’ It is a lengthy hadith. Before we proceed further with this tradition, let us mention another tradition at this juncture.