All who transmit the report from Talhah—and likewise the other chains and corroborating narrations—retain this exact wording. The Prophet’s words, “Adorn the Qur’an with your voices,” mean: recite it with your voices, that is, enhance your voices while reading. Pleasant speech becomes still more graceful and attractive when delivered in a pleasant tone, something evident to all observers, as al-Sindi remarks. Interpreting the hadith in its reversed form, “Adorn your voices with the Qur’an,” is unnecessary. Such an inversion departs from the standard text, and the lone narration that carries it is anomalous, contradicting all the reliable versions mentioned earlier. It also clashes with the explanatory clause, “for a good voice adds beauty to the Qur’an,” which makes clear that the command is to beautify one’s voice so that the Qur’an itself is beautified; the adornment, therefore, is for the Qur’an, not for the voice—contrary to al-Munawi’s view. This understanding is further supported by the reports of Anas and Ibn Abbas—each reinforcing the other—stating: “Everything has an adornment, and the adornment of the Qur’an is a fine voice.” Shaykh Ali al-Qari comments: “Just as fine garments and jewelry add beauty to a fair woman—something plainly observed—so the narration in the reverse wording, ‘Adorn your voices with the Qur’an,’ must be deemed a textual inversion rather than the original formulation. Reflect on this, though the two wordings may be reconciled.” He adds in Fayd al-Qadir: “Rendering the Qur’an with a pleasant voice and skilled delivery stirs hearts to listen attentively, reflect, and lend an eager ear.” Al-Turbishti observes: “This remains the case so long as the melodic recitation does not override proper tajwid or lead one to neglect the arrangement of words and letters; once it does so, what was formerly recommended becomes disliked.” (*) Shaykh al-Albani ruled this report weak in Silsilat al-Ahadith al-Da‘ifa, no. 4322; see also p. 572 of the present work.