Combining Allah and the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) in a single pronoun.

The questioner : The Muslim ruler in cases of rebellion against him; these cases, in their entirety, have been—along with many others related to matters—answered in previous sessions, such as covering the face, for example, the face being an awrah (the part of the body that must be covered), and what relates to placing the hands. All these matters have been answered in previous meetings. Therefore, if Allah wills, we have omitted the repeated material, and we attempt, if Allah wills, in this session as well, to ask His EminenceThe Shaykh : questions that were not asked in previous meetings.
The first of these questions is one that asks: Is it permissible to combine Allah and the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) in a single pronoun?

The Shaykh : As for us, it is not permissible, even though the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) did so. This is an example sent to you by Allah to confirm what we mentioned earlier regarding the obligation of studying the principles of jurisprudence (usul al-fiqh) so that some hadiths do not appear contradictory to others for the Muslim. It was reported in a hadith in Muslim that a preacher gave a sermon in front of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) and said in his sermon: Then he (peace and blessings be upon him) said, "You are a bad preacher. Say: , do not say 'and whoever disobeys them has gone astray.'" Meanwhile, it is established in more than one hadith that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) did this very thing that he forbade in this hadith. In the hadith in the "Sahihayn" (the two authentic collections) from the narration of Anas ibn Malik (may Allah be pleased with him), he said: The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said: ; meaning: this Messenger combined Allah and the Messenger in a single pronoun. The one whom the preacher was forbidden from doing is the same thing the Messenger (peace be upon him) did himself; he said: , in the manner of teaching that preacher. He should have said: "Whoever loves Allah and His Messenger more than anyone other than Allah and the Messenger." Whoever is other than Allah and the Messenger does not combine them in a single pronoun. So how is the reconciliation? Is there a contradiction? Here comes in that science to which we drew your attention regarding the necessity of studying it, to help you understand the Book of Allah and the hadith of His Prophet, reconciling by a rule, or more than one rule of usul al-fiqh. Al-Hafiz Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani (may Allah have mercy on him) says in his valuable book "Sharh Nukhbat al-Fikr" (this is in the terminology of hadith, and it is one of the best books written in this science, for its small size and abundance of knowledge): "When two hadiths from the category of acceptable ones contradict each other, what is the action?" He said: "It is obligatory to reconcile them by one of the modes of reconciliation." He summarizes it because his book, as we said, is very condensed, but the detailed books of terminology and jurisprudence mention that there are more than one hundred modes by which two acceptable hadiths, meaning established ones, can be reconciled by one of those modes or more. To the end of his statement, and I am not currently addressing that, but he first said that it is obligatory to reconcile the two contradictory hadiths. Now, here, by what do we reconcile? We return to the rules of usul al-fiqh, and we find them saying: When two texts contradict each other, one being permissive and the other prohibitive (meaning forbidding and preventing), in that case, the prohibitive is given precedence over the permissive. The preventing text is given precedence over the permissive text. Now, the preventing text here is this address that the Messenger (peace be upon him) directed to the preacher and said to him: , and he said to him: how he should separate and make explicit the two implied ones by their names, and not combine them under a single pronoun, so he said to him: , while in the hadith: , the Messenger (peace be upon him) combined them in this combination. What does this indicate? It indicates permissibility. If the hadith of the preacher had not come, and we had this hadith in which the Messenger (peace be upon him) combined Allah and His Messenger, we would have said that it is permissible, because the Messenger did so. But since there is a contradiction to it in terms of ruling, the hadith in which the Messenger acted is permissive, meaning: allowing this action naturally, but the other hadith is prohibitive and preventing; so the prohibitive is given precedence over the permissive. This is a stylistic rule. Take this and you will see that you will be at ease with many hundreds of hadiths that may be confusing to some of you.
Likewise, there is another rule: when an action from the Messenger (peace be upon him) comes, and a saying that contradicts his action, in that case, we leave the action for him and take his saying. Why? Because his saying is legislation for the Ummah, general legislation for the Ummah, whereas his action may be a specificity for him. And in reality, the matter is so in this example, for the prohibition of the Messenger (peace be upon him) of that preacher from saying: "And whoever disobeys Allah, and whoever disobeys them has gone astray," is out of fear that he intends to exalt the Messenger (peace be upon him) whom he combined with Allah in a single pronoun, and that would be a means to exaggeration (ghuluww), which the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) forbade, as our Lord forbade it in the Qur'an, and he himself (peace and blessings be upon him) in more than one hadith. If this is the reason for his (peace be upon him) prohibition of his Ummah from that, as for him...