and when he makes a covenant, he breaks it; and when he quarrels, he exceeds all bounds. He thus declared that whoever possesses one of these traits possesses a trait of hypocrisy.
It is authentically reported that he said to Abū Dharr, “You are a man in whom there remains something of pre-Islamic ignorance,” even though Abū Dharr, may Allah be pleased with him, was among the people most truthful in faith. In another rigorously authenticated ḥadīth he said, “Four practices in my community are remnants of the Age of Ignorance: boasting about forefathers, disparaging other people’s lineage, wailing over the dead, and seeking rain by the stars.”
He also said in a sound narration, “You will surely follow the ways of those before you, handspan by handspan and cubit by cubit, such that if they were to enter a lizard’s hole you would follow them into it.” They asked, “The Jews and the Christians?” He replied, “Who else?”
In another authentic report he said, “My community will certainly adopt what the nations before it adopted, span for span and cubit for cubit.” They asked, “Persia and Rome?” He answered, “And who are the people except those?”
Ibn Abī Mulaykah said, “I met thirty of the Companions of Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him), and every one of them feared hypocrisy for himself.” It is also related from ʿAlī—or from Ḥudhayfah—may Allah be pleased with them, that he said: “Hearts are of four kinds: a polished heart containing a radiant lamp—that is the heart of the believer; a sealed heart—that is the heart of the disbeliever; an inverted heart—that is the heart of the hypocrite; and a heart with two sources, one supplying it with faith and the other supplying it with hypocrisy. Those are a people who have mixed a righteous deed with another that is evil.”
When this is understood, it becomes clear that every servant benefits from Allah’s mention of faith—His praise of the branches of faith and His censure of the branches of disbelief. This is like the question some raise concerning His words, “Guide us to the straight path.” They say, “The believer has already been guided to the straight path; what, then, is the benefit of asking for guidance?” Some answer that the intent is: “Keep us firm upon guidance,” just as the Arabs say to a sleeper, “Sleep until I come to you.” Others say it means, “Make our hearts adhere to guidance,” omitting the implied object; yet others say, “Increase us in guidance.”
They only pose this question because they have not properly conceived the straight path to which the servant seeks guidance. What is meant by it is to act upon everything Allah has commanded and to avoid everything He has forbidden in all matters. Even though a person may acknowledge, in general, that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah and that the Qur’an is true, most of what he needs to know—what benefits and harms him, what is commanded and what is forbidden in the detailed particulars of life—he does not know; and much of what he does know, he fails to put into practice.
Even if, hypothetically, every command and prohibition in the Qur’an and the Sunnah were to reach him, those two sources mention only the general, universal matters; they cannot specify the unique circumstances of every single servant. For this reason a person is instructed to ask for guidance to the straight path. Guidance to the straight path embraces all of this: it includes learning in detail what the Messenger brought, learning what falls under his universal commands, and it includes