What is the ruling on prostrating to other than Allah?
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question:
He asks: How do we respond to the polytheists who say that prostrating to other than Allah is not always forbidden or shirk (associating partners with Allah), citing the story of Yusuf and the prostration of his parents to him?
Answer:
There is no god but Allah. Prostration of greeting, my brother, is not worship. That is prostration of greeting, and it was permissible in previous nations. The angels prostrated to Adam; it was not prostration of worship, but prostration of greeting. This was permissible, then it was abrogated in Islam. It is not permissible to prostrate to anyone as a greeting, nor to bow to him. This has been abrogated. Yes.
He asks: How do we respond to the polytheists who say that prostrating to other than Allah is not always forbidden or shirk (associating partners with Allah), citing the story of Yusuf and the prostration of his parents to him?
Answer:
There is no god but Allah. Prostration of greeting, my brother, is not worship. That is prostration of greeting, and it was permissible in previous nations. The angels prostrated to Adam; it was not prostration of worship, but prostration of greeting. This was permissible, then it was abrogated in Islam. It is not permissible to prostrate to anyone as a greeting, nor to bow to him. This has been abrogated. Yes.
Source
قناة «العلامة الدكتور صالح الفوزان»، ما حكم السجود لغير الله؟ لمعالي الشيخ صالح الفوزان — youtube.com
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.