A thorn-prick or more: a rank or a sin

الشوكة فما فوقها: درجة أو خطيئة

Nothing afflicts the believer, a thorn-prick or more, without God raising him a rank by it or shedding a sin from him by it, in A'isha's narration in Muslim Sahih Muslim 6562 — ranks raised; bad deeds erased and sins shed, and in al-Bukhari, in Ibn Mas'ud's narration, God remits his bad deeds by it as a tree sheds its leaves Sahih al-Bukhari 5648 — bad deeds erased and sins shed. The account is not limited to what a person does; what befalls him enters it too, and the smallest unit the text names is a thorn.