The 365 · Sunnah · Day 297 · Cleanliness
Removing Harm from the Path
The hadith
«الْإِيمَانُ بِضْعٌ وَسَبْعُونَ شُعْبَةً، فَأَفْضَلُهَا قَوْلُ لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ، وَأَدْنَاهَا إِمَاطَةُ الْأَذَى عَنِ الطَّرِيقِ، وَالْحَيَاءُ شُعْبَةٌ مِنَ الْإِيمَانِ». وَقَالَ ﷺ: «مَرَّ رَجُلٌ بِغُصْنِ شَجَرَةٍ عَلَى ظَهْرِ طَرِيقٍ، فَقَالَ: وَاللَّهِ لَأُنَحِّيَنَّ هَذَا عَنِ الْمُسْلِمِينَ لَا يُؤْذِيهِمْ، فَأُدْخِلَ الْجَنَّةَ».
The Prophet ﷺ said: 'Faith has seventy-something branches. The highest is the word There is no god but Allah, and the lowest is removing harm from the road; and modesty is a branch of faith.' And he ﷺ said: 'A man passed a tree-branch on the road and said: By Allah, I will move this away from the Muslims so it does not harm them, and he was admitted into Paradise.'
Svenska: Profeten ﷺ sade: 'Tron har sjuttio-något grenar. Den högsta är ordet Det finns ingen gud utom Allah, och den lägsta är att avlägsna skada från vägen; och blygsamhet är en gren av tron.' Och han ﷺ sade: 'En man gick förbi en trädgren på vägen och sade: Vid Allah, jag ska flytta denna från muslimerna så att den inte skadar dem, och han fördes in i Paradiset.'
Bukhari 9; Muslim 35; Bukhari 652; Muslim 1914
The story
Abū Hurayrah narrates that the Prophet ﷺ said: 'While a man was walking on a road, he found a thorn-branch on the road, so he removed it. Allah appreciated this from him and forgave him' (Bukhari 652; Muslim 1914). One thorn. One forgiveness. The whole road of life is full of such opportunities, and most of us walk past them with our eyes elsewhere. In another narration, the Prophet ﷺ said: 'I saw a man enjoying himself in Paradise because of a tree he cut from the road that used to harm the Muslims' (Muslim 1914).
Why it's here
Cleanliness is not only what you wash from yourself; it is what you remove from the world for others. A thorn lifted from the road can lift a soul into Paradise. Faith branches outward into the public space.
Try it today
When you walk a corridor, a sidewalk, a masjid carpet, a kitchen floor, train your eyes to scan for what could hurt the next person: a shard, a spill, a wire, a wet step. Move it, mop it, warn about it. Make this a daily reflex, not a single dramatic act. Even closing a cabinet door someone could hit their head on counts.
In your day
In our cities, harm on the path has expanded: cigarette butts, broken glass, loud noise that hurts ears, online posts that harm reputations. The principle extends. To remove digital harm (a damaging rumor, a misleading link, a hurtful comment about a Muslim) is a modern branch of īmān. The Prophet ﷺ named the lowest branch only by rank, not by significance; a small act sustained over a lifetime can outweigh great acts performed once.
A reflection to carry
We tend to imagine paradise opened by spectacular acts. The Sunnah keeps showing it opened by ordinary ones: lifting a branch, smiling, moving a stone. The man in the hadith did not see paradise coming; he saw a hazard and moved it. The reward was Allah's alone to give.
Read the longer reflection
There is a deep moral architecture to this hadith. Faith is not a private affair locked between you and Allah, with the streets and lobbies and shared paths irrelevant. Faith branches out, and one of its branches reaches into the public road. Your hand, when it picks up a piece of glass nobody else picked up, is participating in the same continuum as your tongue declaring lā ilāha illā Allāh. The Prophet ﷺ taught that nothing is too small for īmān to inhabit. So look down as you walk. Look for what could harm someone tomorrow. That, too, is wudu.
Sources: Sahih Bukhari, Sahih Muslim. The Qur'an and its translation are verified; the scholarship is retold faithfully in our own words and credited to its sources, never reproduced verbatim.
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