Warning against falling into exaggeration and overpraise, and explaining the hadiths that have come regarding this.

The Shaykh : And remember with us that it is the nature of a person to exaggerate in his estimation of the person he loves; especially if that person has no like in the entire world, namely the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him). It is the nature of people to exaggerate in magnifying this human being, except for the people who obey the commands of Allah (Mighty and Majestic) and do not transgress, or who always and forever remember, such as His saying (Blessed and Exalted is He): . If Allah (Mighty and Majestic) has taken Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) as a Prophet, then before that He made him an ordinary human being; He did not make him an angel created from light, as they claim. Rather, he is a human being. And this is itself a confirmation of the text of the Noble Qur'an: to the end of the verse. He himself confirmed this on more than one occasion, saying: , and He said to them once: . Therefore, it came in the authentic hadith in al-Bukhari and Muslim from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) that he said: . This hadith is an explanation of the previous hadith: . So he is saying: Do not praise me as the Christians praised Jesus, the son of Mary. As if someone were to say: How do we say, O Messenger of Allah? How do we praise you? He said: .
And when we say of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him): "The servant of Allah and His Messenger," we have raised him and placed him in the rank that Allah (Mighty and Majestic) placed him in. We have not lowered him from it, nor have we raised him above it. This is what the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) wants from us.
... Then we find the Prophet (may Allah's prayers and peace be upon him) applying these rules and making them a life by which his Companions (may Allah's prayers and peace be upon him) walk with him. I have mentioned to you more than once the story of Mu'adh ibn Jabal (may Allah be pleased with him) when he came to the Levant, which at that time was part of the lands of the Romans, the lands of the Christians who worship the priests and monks. He remained in the Levant as long as he remained for trade, it seems. And when he returned to Madinah, as soon as his eyes fell upon the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), he was about to prostrate. To whom was he about to prostrate? To the master of people. So he said to him (may the prayers and peace of Allah be upon him): What is this? He said: O Messenger of Allah, I came to the Levant and saw the Christians prostrating to their priests and their great ones, and I saw that you are more deserving of prostration than they are. So he said (may the prayers and peace of Allah be upon him): .
And this hadith came in many occasions, and I do not want to digress into them. It is sufficient for us here to draw attention to what Mu'adh ibn Jabal intended to do of prostrating to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). What drove him to this prostration? Was it his hatred of the Messenger (peace be upon him)? Of course not; rather, it is the exact opposite. It is his love for the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) who saved him from the Fire. Were it not for him, it would be said that the intermediary is not denied; were it not for the Messenger (peace be upon him), whom Allah sent to the people of the entire world, the people today would be living in the previous pre-Islamic age of ignorance and multiples thereof. Therefore, it is never strange, especially since the legislation had not yet been completed and perfected, that Mu'adh ibn Jabal was about to prostrate to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) as a display of his reverence, respect, and magnification of him. But the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), who had established this in their minds and imprinted it upon them, wanted to prove practically that he is a human being, and that this prostration is not fitting except for the Lord of human beings. And he said: . In some narrations of the hadith: .
So if we were to surrender to our emotions, we would prostrate to our Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), whether he is alive or dead. Why? To magnify him, because the intention is to magnify him, not to worship him (peace be upon him). But if we are sincere in our love for him (may the prayers and peace of Allah be upon him), it is obligatory for us to obey his command and to stop at his prohibition, and not to throw the command and prohibition to the winds under the claim that we do so out of love for the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him). How is this? This is first of all contrary to the Qur'anic text, and then contrary to the logic of sound reason. Our Lord (Mighty and Majestic) says: . So following the Messenger (peace be upon him) is the true, sincere proof, and there is no proof other than it, that the one who follows the Messenger (peace be upon him) is the one who loves Allah and His Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him). And from here, the poet said his famous words:
"You disobey Allah while you display your love for Him *** This, by my life, is a marvel in reasoning
If your love were sincere, you would have obeyed Him *** Indeed, the lover of whom he loves is obedient"
There is an example lower than this, and yet the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) raised his Companions upon it. That is because the people in the pre-Islamic age of ignorance lived according to the customs of the pre-Islamic age of ignorance, and additionally, Persian non-Arab customs. Among these was that some of them would stand up for others, exactly as we do today, because we do not follow the Messenger (peace be upon him) and do not apply ourselves with our actions that we love him (may the prayers and peace of Allah be upon him), but only with our words. That is because the people used to stand up for one another, whereas the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) had his Companions with him as if he were one of them; no one displayed to him any of that pagan, Persian, non-Arab reverence at all. And we understand this explicitly from the hadith of Anas ibn Malik (may Allah be pleased with him), who said: "No one was more beloved to them than the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), and they did not stand up for him because of what they knew of his dislike of that."
Look at this noble Companion whom Allah favored by granting him the service of His Prophet for ten years, Anas ibn Malik. How does he combine in this hadith the factual reality between him (peace be upon him) and his Companions of their love for him, and this which we keep repeating, that this love must be restricted by following, and that it must not yield, and that its owner must not submit to desire. "And your love for a thing blinds and deafens." So he says truthfully: "No one was more beloved to them than the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him)." This is a fact with no dispute in it. But he adds to that and says: "And they did not stand up for him because of what they knew of his dislike of that." So why did the Companions of the Messenger (peace be upon him) not stand up for him? Following him, implementing the previous verse: . So following the Messenger is the proof of loving Allah with a true love. They did not surrender to their emotions.