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salamu `alaykum

"It is narrated through the narrators of the Sahihayn by Ibn Abi Shayba
in his Musannaf (1:106=2:150 §7545) and Ibn Sa`d in the Tabaqat al-Kubra
(1:73), both of them from Nafi`, that news reached `Umar ibn al-Khattab
[whom Nafi` never met] that people were coming to the tree under which
the Prophet (Allah bless and greet him) had received the bay`a [in Ibn
Sa`d: "the tree of Ridwan"], whereupon he ordered that it be cut down
[in Ibn Sa`d: "he rebuked them and ordered that it be cut down"].

Supposing the above is authentic, the fact that this tree was not the
actual tree of the bay`a is illustrated by the following evidence:

- The tree of the bay`a was no longer known to the Companions as
narrated from Ibn al-Musayyab, from his father in al-Bukhari and Muslim
as well as Ibn Sa`d. Al-Musayyab was among those that gave bay`a under
the tree as stated in Ibn Hajar's Isaba after al-`Askari.

- Ibn al-Musayyib also narrated from his father: "We tried to find it
more than once and could not." Al-Hakim cited it in his Ma`rifat `Ulum
al-Hadith (p. 162, type 7) after stating that it was said the tree had
been taken away by a flood.

- Not even was its exact location known, as narrated from `Abd Allah ibn
`Umar in al-Bukhari's Sahih.

- Ibn Sa`d narrated from the centenarian superlative historian Abu
al-Hasan `Ali ibn Muh.ammad al-Mada'ini [Yahya ibn Ma`in described him
as thiqa thiqa thiqa cf. Siyar A`lam al-Nubala' (Dar al-Fikr ed.
9:127)], from Juwayriyya ibn Asma' [one of the narrators of the
Sahihayn], from Nafi`: "A group of the Companions of the Messenger of
Allah (Allah bless and greet him) went out years after that [the bay`a]
but none of them was able to pinpoint the tree and they differed over
it. Ibn `Umar said: 'It [the tree] was a mercy from Allah.'" Narrated by
Ibn Sa`d (2:81=2:105) and this is a stronger chain for Sira reports than
that of the tree-cutting even if the latter did not have a missing link
between Nafi` and our liege-lord `Umar.

- Our liege-lord Ibn `Umar even used to water a certain tree under which
the Prophet (Allah bless and greet him) had prayed so that it would not
die, as narrated by Imam al-Bayhaqi in his Sunan (5:245 §10049). If the
tree-cutting related from his father were true of the actual tree of the
bay`a, he would have desisted from such a concern.

Hence, at best, the tree `Umar ordered cut, supposing the report to this
effect is authentic, was only a tree *claimed* to be that under which
the bay`a took place, and Allah Most High knows best.

Al-Habib `Ali al-Jafri opened my eyes to this aspect of the
Companion-Sira in our first blessed face-to-face meeting in Beirut the
year 2004 when he said: "The scholars said the report that `Umar cut
down the tree of the bay`a is inauthentic." Allah bless and keep him.

gibril"