The second category is the teaching of meaning—that is, teaching tafsīr. A person sits with the people and explains to them the interpretation of Allah’s words: how the Qur’an is to be explained. As we know, the Qur’an contains passages that resemble one another; at times you will find verses repeated verbatim, such as His words, “O Prophet, strive against the disbelievers and the hypocrites, be stern with them; their abode is Hell—an evil destination indeed.” This verse appears, in exactly the same wording, in both Sūrat al-Tawbah and Sūrat al-Taḥrīm, and there are many other instances of repetition. Therefore, when someone teaches others how to interpret the Qur’an and provides them with the proper principles for doing so, this too counts as teaching the Qur’an.

Let it be known, however, that the Noble Qur’an is unlike any other book when it comes to interpretation. It is impermissible for a person to interpret the Qur’an according to his own whims, bending the verses to serve what he himself wants—as the irreligious do with Allah’s verses, among them the deniers of the divine attributes and others. They twist the verse away from what Allah intended. For example, regarding the verse, “And your Lord will come, and the angels, rank upon rank” (Q 89:22), one of them says, “What comes is the command of your Lord.” This is unlawful; it is not permissible, because the one who interprets the Qur’an is, in effect, testifying about Allah that He meant such-and-such. This is a grave matter, not a trivial one. If you were to reinterpret the words of a scholar in a way that he did not intend, it would be deemed a violation; so what, then, of the words of the Lord of all worlds?

For this reason the ḥadīth states, “Whoever speaks about the Qur’an on the basis of his own opinion, let him take his seat in the Fire.”