in which the Prophet ﷺ said, “May Allah make radiant the person who hears from us a statement and conveys it just as he heard it; for how many a recipient proves more retentive than the first hearer.” The verb naddara (“may He make radiant”) carries the sense of beautification, for nadr with a ḍād denotes beauty. Allah the Exalted says: “Faces on that Day will be radiant, looking toward their Lord” (Q 75:22–23); “radiant” (nāḍira) means beautiful, and “looking” (nāẓira) means beholding Him with their very eyes—may Allah include us and you among them. He also says: “So Allah protected them from the evil of that Day and granted them radiance and joy” (Q 76:11), that is, beauty in their faces and happiness in their hearts.

Accordingly, the Prophet ﷺ prayed that whoever hears a hadith from him and transmits it exactly as he heard it will have his face beautified by Allah on the Day of Resurrection. “For how many a recipient proves more retentive than the first hearer,” because it often happens that a person hears a hadith and passes it on, and the one who receives it is more knowledgeable, more perceptive, and more diligent in practice than the original listener. This is exactly as the Prophet ﷺ described, and it is something well known. Among scholars you may find one who is merely a transmitter: he memorizes the hadith and relates it but does not grasp its meaning. He conveys it to another scholar who understands the import, derives numerous rulings from the Prophet’s ﷺ words, and thereby benefits people.

We have already said that the first type is like land that holds water: people drink from it and are refreshed, yet it produces no vegetation. The fertile meadows that yield plants represent the jurists who comprehend the hadith, reflect upon them, and deduce the rulings of the Sacred Law.

As for the ḥadīth of Abū Hurayrah that follows, the Prophet ﷺ threatened the one who is asked about knowledge