Explanation of the hadith of Abu Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him): (He said: What a good man Abu Bakr is! What a good man 'Umar is! What a good man Abu 'Ubaydah is! What a good man Usayd ibn Hudayr is.)

The Shaykh : Then the author preceded us with his authentic chain of narration. From Abu Hurayrah, that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: . This is the ultimate in praise. . He meant the Messenger (peace be upon him) when he said: " until he counted seven." So we see in this authentic hadith that the Messenger (peace be upon him) praised several of his Muslim Companions, saying: And this is similar to that praise, indeed that is the pinnacle of praise, when he (peace be upon him) said: until he counted the full ten who were given glad tidings of Paradise. And from this hadith, the preachers took their practice when they express satisfaction with the ten who were given glad tidings of Paradise. Who gave them glad tidings of Paradise? It is the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) in this authentic hadith. until he completed the number of ten. There is no doubt that in this report, indeed in this glad tidings from the Messenger (may the prayers and peace of Allah be upon him) to these Companions that they are among the people of Paradise, lies the ultimate in praise and commendation. How is this, when it was mentioned to us in the previous lesson that he (peace be upon him) said: And he said to the one who praised his brother to his face: The answer is what the author al-Bukhari (may Allah have mercy on him) indicated in the chapter when he said: "Whoever praises his companion, if he is safe from him." So the praise of the Messenger (peace be upon him) for these individuals mentioned in this hadith, and for the ten who were given glad tidings of Paradise whose mention came in the hadith I quoted part of earlier, is a confirmation of this exception indicated by the author in the chapter. So if we combine this chapter with the previous chapter, we arrive at a result different from the one we took in the previous lesson. In the previous lesson, we took the result that it is not permissible to praise a man to his face absolutely. Now we take a result different from this, or rather, we take a result that qualifies the previous result. The summary of that is that it is not permissible to praise a man to his face except in the case where the praiser is safe from causing fitnah or harm to the one he is praising to his face. And this, of course, is not achieved except with people who are at the peak of Islamic character. And this Islamic character usually does not manifest in a person unless he has reached a certain age. As for if he is young and righteous, it is not permissible to praise him absolutely, because he is now in a stage mixed with [vulnerability] and in a stage of upbringing. So if he is praised, it is feared that Shaytan will corrupt his heart and take him off the straight path which he is walking on.
So it is obligatory for us to reduce our praise and commendation of others, and this is the principle. And if it is necessary to praise another, it is obligatory for us to look at this other person: is he one of those it is feared that he will harm himself, or not? If it is predominant in our opinion that the man is satiated with praise, satiated with commendation, and all of that does not affect, for example, his starting point in his life, and he is upright on his path to his Lord, then at that time it is permissible to praise for the characteristics of... And the hadiths are very numerous regarding the praise of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) of many of the Companions, like this praise here and other than what I mentioned. For example, he (peace and blessings be upon him) said: , so this is an example of praise as we said: Why did the Messenger (peace be upon him) praise them? For two reasons that were present and gathered: the first is that they deserve this praise, because the Messenger does not speak except by revelation from the sky, and the second is that the Messenger (peace be upon him) does not fear fitnah from these Companions because they believed in Allah and His Messenger truly. Sometimes the Messenger (peace be upon him) praises while drawing attention to the shortcoming of the one praised. So he said once: Ibn 'Umar, meaning 'Abdullah ibn 'Umar ibn al-Khattab, , so he did not leave the night prayer after that. So he praised him from one side and pointed out the deficiency in him, even if it was in a voluntary prayer, from another side, so he encouraged him to a matter that increased his righteousness and piety.