the believer is that of a tender shoot among the crops: the winds toss it to and fro (1), setting it upright at times and bending it at others. The hypocrite is like a cedar tree, which remains firmly rooted until it is uprooted all at once.” (2).
This meaning is established by recurrent transmission from the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—[in many hadiths] (3). The Companions—may Allah be pleased with them—were tried by afflictions that befell them individually, and they were also tried by collective afflictions, such as those that occurred during the civil strife. Even if nothing else had happened beyond the fact that many of them were killed, while the survivors suffered losses among their families and relatives—one losing his wealth, another suffering wounds, and another losing his authority and honor,
(1) H reads: *tasfīhan* (apparently, “blowing it about”).
(2) *Injiʿāfuhā* means “its being uprooted.” The hadith is narrated with differing wordings from Abū Hurayra and Kaʿb ibn Mālik—may Allah be pleased with them both—in *al-Bukhārī*, 9:137–38 (Book of *Tawhīd* [Divine Unity], chapter “Divine Will and Volition”); Muslim, 4:2163–64, in five places in the Book of the Attributes of the Hypocrites and the Rulings Concerning Them, chapter “The Believer Is Like a Plant, and the Disbeliever Is Like a Cedar Tree”; *Sunan al-Dārimī*, 2:310 (Book of Heart-Softening Traditions, chapter “The Believer Is Like a Plant”); and *al-Musnad*, al-Maʿārif ed., 12:178 and 14:221. A hadith conveying the same meaning is narrated from Jābir ibn ʿAbd Allāh—may Allah be pleased with him—in *al-Musnad*, al-Halabī ed., 3:349, and from Kaʿb ibn Mālik in *al-Musnad*, al-Halabī ed., 6:386.
(3) The words “in many hadiths” are omitted from N and M.