It is narrated from Sayyiduna Ibn Umar (may Allah be pleased with them both), he says: "We spent a long period of our lives in such a state that each one of us was given faith before the Qur'an (was learned). Then when a surah was revealed to Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him), he would learn its lawful and its unlawful, and the places in it at which one should pause, just as you learn the Qur'an nowadays. Then (later) I saw people who were given the Qur'an (before faith); they read it from its beginning to its end, yet they do not know what its command is or what its prohibition is, nor at which places one should pause; they scatter it like (the scattering of) worthless dates (without understanding)." This hadith is sahih (authentic) on the condition of the two Shaykhs (Bukhari and Muslim); I know of no hidden defect ('illah) in it, and they did not record it.