Thumma inna AAalayna bayanah (surah Qiyamah: 19)

Tafseer Tafheem-ul-Quran by Syed Abu-al-A'la Maududi

(75:19) then it will be for Us to explain it. *13

Summa inna `alainaa bayaanah

*13) This gives the feeling, and some early commentators also have given expression to the same, that probably in the beginning the Holy Messenger of Allah used to ask of the Angel Gabriel the meaning of a verse or a word or a command of the Qur'an even in the very midst of the Revelation itself. Therefore, the Holy Prophet was not only given the instruction that he should listen quietly to Revelation when it carne down to him, and assured that its each word would be preserved in his memory precisely, and he would be enabled to recite the Qur'an exactly as it was revealed, but at the same time it was also promised that he would be made to understand the meaning and intention of each command and each instruction of Divine Revelation.
This is a very important verse, which proves certain fundamental concepts which if understood well, can protect one against the errors which some people have been spreading before as they are spreading them today.
First, it clearly proves that the Holy Prophet (upon whom be peace) did not receive only the Revelation which is recorded in the Qur'an but besides that he was also given such knowledge by revelation as is not recorded in it. For, if the meaning and intention of the commandments of the Qur'an, its allusions, its words and its specific terms, which the Holy Prophet was made to understand, had been recorded in the Qur'an, there was no need to say that it was also Allah's own responsibility to explain its meaning, for it should then be there in the Qur'an itself. Hence, one will have to admit that the explanations which were given by Allah of the meanings of the contents of the Qur'an, were in any case in addition to the words of the Qur'an. This is another proof of the secret Revelation to the Holy Prophet which the Qur'an provides. (For further proofs of this from the Qur'an, see our book Sunnat ki A ni Haithiyat pp. 94-95 and pp. 118-125).
Secondly, the explanation of the meaning and intention of the Qur'an and of its commandments that was given by Allah to the Holy Prophet (upon whom be peace), was given for the purpose that he should make the people understand the Qur'an by his word and deed according to it and teach them to act on its Commands. If this was not the object, and the explanation was only given so that he may restrict its knowledge to himself, it was then an exercise in futility, for it could not help in any way in the performance of the prophetic duties. Therefore, only a foolish person could say that this explanatory work had no legal value at all. Allah Himself has said in Surah An-Nahl: 44: "And O Prophet, We have sent down this Admonition to you so that you may make plain and explain to the people the teaching which has been sent for them." (For explanation, see E.N. 40 of Surah An-Nahl). And at four places in the Qur'an Allah has stated that the Holy Prophet's task was not only to recite the verses of the Book of Allah but also to teach the Book. (Al-Baqarah: 129,.151, Al-Imran: 164, Al-Jumu`ah: 2. We have fully explained all these verses at pp. 74-77 of Sunnat ki A'ini Haithiyat After this, how can a believer of the Qur'an deny that the Qur'an's correct and authoritative, as a matter of fact official, explanation is only that which the Holy Prophet (upon whom be peace) has given by his word and deed, for it is not his personal explanation but the explanation given by the God Who sent down the Qur'an to him. Apart from this, or leaving this aside any person who explains a verse, or a word, of the Qur'an according to his personal whim and desire, commits a boldness which no true believer could ever commit.
Thirdly, even if a person has read the Qur'an only cursorily, he cannot help feeling that there are many things in it whose actual meaning and intention cannot be understood by a reader of Arabic only from the words of the Qur'an, nor can he know how to act on the commands enjoined in them. Take the word salat for instance; The act which has been most stressed by the Qur'an after the affirmation of faith is the act of salat. But no man only with the help of the dictionary can determine its actual meaning. At the most what one can understand from the way it has been repeatedly mentioned in the Qur'an is that this Arabic word has been used in some special terminological sense, and it probably implies some special act which the believers are required to perform. But merely by reading the Qur'an no reader of Arabic can determine what particular act it is, and how it is to be performed. The question: If the Sender of the Qur'an had not appointed a teacher from Himself and explained to him the precise and exact meaning of this term and taught him the method in full detail of implementing the command of salat, could there be even two Muslims in the world who would have agreed on one method of acting on the command of salat just by reading the Qur'an? The reason why Muslims have been performing salat in one and the same way, generation after generation, for more than 1500 years, and the way millions and millions of Muslims are carrying out the command of salat similarly in every part of the world, is that AIlah had not only revealed the words of the Qur'an to His Messenger but had also explained to him fully the meaning of those words and the same meaning he taught to the people who accepted the Qur'an as the Book of Allah and him as the Messenger of Allah.
Fourthly, the means of knowing the explanation of the words of the Qur'an that Allah taught His Messenger and the Messenger his Ummah by word and deed, is none but the Hadith and the Sunnah, The Hadith implies the traditions which the earliest followers passed on to the later generations about the sayings and acts of the Messenger on sound authority, and the Sunnah implies the way of life which became prevalent in the individual and collective life of the Muslims by the Holy Messenger's oral and practical teaching, the details of which have been bequeathed by the former to the latter generations by reliable traditions as well as seen .by them practically in the life of the earliest followers. The person who refuses to acknowledge this means of knowledge, in fact, says that Allah after taking the responsibility of explaining the meaning of the Qur'an to His Messenger had, God forbid, failed to fulfil His promise. For this responsibility had not been taken to explain the meaning only to the Messenger in his personal capacity but for the purpose that the Ummah also be made to understand the meaning of the Divine Book through the agency of the Messenger. And as soon as the Hadith and the Sunnah are denied to be a source of law, it virtually amounts to saying that Allah has failed to carry out His responsibility. May Allah protect us froth such blasphemy! To the one who argues that many people had also fabricated Hadid, we would say that fabrication of Hadid itself is a major proof of the fact that in the beginning the entire Ummah gave the sayings and acts of the Holy Messenger (Upon whom be Allah's peace) the status of law, otherwise why should the people who wanted to spread error have fabricated false ,Hadith. For only those coins are counterfeited which are current in the bazaar; nobody would print paper currency which had no value in the bazaar. Then, those who say such a thing perhaps do not know that this Ummah had seen to it from the very beginning that no falsehood was ascribed to the holy man whose sayings and acts had the status of law, and as the danger of ascribing false things to him increased, the well-wishers of the Ummah made greater and still greater efforts tt) distinguish the genuine from the counterfeit. The science of distinguishing the genuine from the false traditions is a unique science invented and developed only by the Muslims. Unfortunate indeed are those who without acquiring this science are being misled by the western orientalists to look upon the Hadith and the Sunnah as un-authentic and un-reliable and do not realize how grievously they are harming Islam by their foolhardiness.