The Crying Tree Trunk
Even the wood of a date palm could not bear the distance from the Beloved of Allah ﷺ.
In the earliest days of the Prophet’s Mosque in Madinah, there was no pulpit. When the Messenger of Allah ﷺ delivered his sermons, he would stand beside the trunk of a date palm that had been planted within the mosque. He would lean upon it as he taught, as he reminded, as he consoled. That silent trunk stood witness to the most luminous words ever spoken upon the earth.
As the community of believers grew, the companions requested that a small pulpit be built so that everyone gathered could see and hear him clearly. The Prophet ﷺ agreed. A modest minbar of three steps was crafted, and on the following Friday, he ascended it for the first time.
Then something extraordinary occurred.
From the corner of the mosque, where the old date-palm trunk stood, there came a sound of weeping. It was not the cry of a child, nor the sob of a grieving man. It was the trunk itself—moaning like a she-camel separated from her calf. The companions froze. Some began to weep. The sound of that lifeless piece of wood filled the mosque, longing for the nearness it had lost.
The Messenger of Allah ﷺ stepped down from the pulpit. He walked to the trunk. He placed his blessed hand upon it and embraced it gently, as one comforts a child. Slowly, the weeping softened, and then it stilled.
The companions who witnessed this miracle relate that had the Prophet ﷺ not embraced it, the trunk would have continued to weep until the Day of Judgement.
This incident is recorded in the most authentic collections of hadith—narrated by Jābir, Anas, Ibn ʿUmar, and others رضي الله عنهم. It is one of the clearest signs of the Prophet’s ﷺ station before Allah, and one of the most tender testimonies of what it means to love him.
The believers of Ahl al-Sunnah reflect upon this often. If a piece of wood, without soul or intellect, could not bear the separation of a single sermon from the Beloved of Allah ﷺ—what then of the human heart? What is the state of a heart that has been created with intellect, with love, with the very capacity to know him, yet feels no longing at all?
Al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī رحمه الله is reported to have wept whenever he recalled this incident, saying:
“The wood cried for him out of longing. So the believers are more deserving of longing than the wood.”
Allah, the Exalted, says:
“There is not a thing but that it glorifies His praise, but you do not understand their glorification.”
(Qur’an 17:44)
Trees, stones, birds, and mountains — all of creation recognises its Lord and honours His Beloved. The tree trunk did not weep for a place lost. It wept for a presence lost.
May Allah grant our hearts what that trunk possessed — a love that cannot bear a single step of distance from His Messenger ﷺ.
ṣallā Allāhu ʿalayhi wa-ālihī wa-sallam.