It is also established in an authentic hadith that he said to Abū Dharr, may Allah be pleased with him:

“There is some pre-Islamic ignorance in you.”

Yet Abū Dharr, may Allah be pleased with him, was among the most sincere people in faith. He also said in an authentic hadith:

“Four practices in my community belong to the ways of pre-Islamic ignorance: boasting of ancestral distinction, disparaging people’s lineage, wailing over the dead, and seeking rain through the stars.”

He said in another authentic hadith:

“You will surely follow the ways of those before you, matching them as precisely as one arrow feather matches another, until, even if they entered a lizard’s hole, you would enter it.”

They asked, “The Jews and Christians?” He replied, “Who else?”

He also said in an authentic hadith:

“My community will surely follow the course taken by the nations before it, handspan for handspan and cubit for cubit.”

They asked, “Persia and Rome?” He replied, “Who else among the nations could it be?”

Ibn Abī Mulaykah said: “I met thirty of the Companions of Muhammad, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, all of whom feared hypocrisy for themselves.”

It is reported from ʿAlī—or Hudhayfah, may Allah be pleased with them both—that he said:

Hearts are of “four kinds”: a bare heart with a lamp shining within it—that is the believer’s heart; a covered heart—that is the disbeliever’s heart; an overturned heart—that is the hypocrite’s heart; and a heart with two sources of nourishment, one nourishing it with faith and the other with hypocrisy. Such people have mixed righteous deeds with evil ones.

Once this is understood, it becomes clear that every servant benefits from what Allah has said concerning faith, praising the branches of faith and condemning the branches of disbelief. This is like what some people say concerning His words:

“Guide us to the straight path.”

They say: “The believer has already been guided to the straight path, so what