when they are asked about any matter, they reply, “Do not ask about things which, if made clear to you, would distress you” (5:101). This too is applying the Quran in a way Allah never intended.

From this we realise the mistake in the oft-quoted praise of a certain woman they call “the one who speaks with the Quran.” Jawāhir al-Adab mentions her: a woman who would speak only in Quranic verses, and it is said that for forty years she has uttered nothing but the Quran for fear that she might slip and incur the displeasure of the Most Merciful. In my view her very behaviour is a slip, for by doing so she is forcing the Quran into meanings Allah did not intend.

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Abu ʿUbayd also said: Yazīd narrated to us, from Ḥumayd, from Anas, that ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb recited from the pulpit: “and fruit and abbā” (80:31). He then asked, “What is abb? We know the fruit, but what is abb?” Then he checked himself and said, “O ʿUmar, this is mere affectation!”

ʿAbd ibn Ḥumayd said: Sulaymān ibn Ṣurab narrated to us; Ibn Zayd narrated to us, from Thābit, from Anas, who said: We were with ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, and on the back of his shirt were four patches. He recited, “and fruit and abbā” (80:31) and asked, “What is abb?” Then he said, “This is sheer affectation; what harm is there if you do not know it?”

Explanation

Concerning the phrase “and on the back of his shirt were four patches,” its benefit from the standpoint of hadith methodology is that it demonstrates the narrator’s precision: he preserved the story so accurately that even the number of patches on ʿUmar’s garment did not escape him. As for the benefit in terms of conduct, it is that we come to know what