What is the ruling on standing up for a guest, and the ruling on standing up for someone who wants to greet?

The questioner : Praise be to Allah, and may peace and blessings be upon the Messenger of Allah.
His EminenceThe Shaykh : What is the ruling on one who stands up for a guest when he greets? And what is the ruling on a seated person standing up for one who comes to greet, knowing that some people get angry if no one stands up for them? I ask for clarification.

The Shaykh : Here there are two matters: standing up to the guest and standing up for the guest. This is a known linguistic distinction in the language. Standing up to the guest is prescribed and is part of the Sunnah of receiving a guest. Standing up for the guest is not part of the Sunnah in any way.
Often, one of these two matters is confused with the other. It was reported in Sunan Abu Dawud and others: "That the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), when he entered upon Fatimah, the daughter of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), she would stand up to him and kiss him, and seat him in her place." And she, in turn, "when she entered upon the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), he would stand up to her and kiss her, and seat her in his place." This is from honoring the guest: that the host, the owner of the house, stands up to the guest, not for the guest, to stand up to him and receive him and seat him in the house or in a suitable place for him. As came in a hadith—there is disagreement among hadith scholars regarding its authenticity, and it is worded as follows: ; however, although this hadith has that weakness in its chain, its meaning was supported—I say—its meaning was supported by the practical Sunnah of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him).
Similarly, another hadith of this kind came; namely, his saying (peace and blessings be upon him) when Sa'd ibn Mu'adh came, and the Jews of Banu Qurayzah had accepted him as a judge between them and the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). Sa'd ibn Mu'adh came on his mount, wounded in his ankle, in a vein in his arm. So he (peace and blessings be upon him) said to the Ansar around him, whose leader was the arriving Sa'd ibn Mu'adh. He (peace and blessings be upon him) said: . This is how the hadith is in Sahih al-Bukhari. And many people, on such an occasion, distort the hadith from its correct wording and narrate it with the wording: "Stand up for your master"!! And they use it as evidence for the second meaning I will speak about, which is standing up for the guest as an honor, and not for going to him and receiving him.
So if you know that the wording of the hadith in Sahih al-Bukhari is , and there is a great difference in Arabic between "Stand up to so-and-so" and "Stand up for so-and-so." "Stand up to so-and-so" means: go to him. And "Stand up for so-and-so" means: as an honor, reverence, and exaltation. Therefore, when the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said to the Ansar: , he only intended "Stand up to your master and help him," because he was sick and wounded in his ankle, as I mentioned earlier.
This is how the hadith came in Sahih al-Bukhari from the hadith of Abu Sa'id al-Khudri (may Allah be pleased with him). And this meaning was affirmed and explicitly stated, with no explicit statement greater than it, in the hadith of Aishah in Musnad Imam Ahmad (may Allah have mercy on him). She narrated this story in the way Abu Sa'id al-Khudri narrated it; but she (may Allah be pleased with her) preserved an addition in this text that is considered today—as they say in the terminology of the present age—as putting the dots on the letters. Meaning that, for example, they used to write without diacritical points by omission, writing "Yazid," for example, without two dots below, and without a dot on the ra, so it could be read as "Yazid" or it could be read as "Burayd." When they agreed on placing the dots, they said in the present age that this diacritical pointing clarifies and removes the ambiguity. The narration of Lady Aishah (may Allah be pleased with her) was of this nature, putting the dots on the letters. Because the hadith of Abu Sa'id al-Khudri, although it came in Sahih al-Bukhari with the first wording: , was distorted for many people, especially those who do not refer to the original sources of the books of Sunnah to take the hadiths from them as they are. It was distorted—as you heard—to "Stand up for your master." As for the hadith of Aishah, it does not accept such distortion; although she agreed with Abu Sa'id al-Khudri with the wording: "to your master," but she added and narrated the hadith with the following wording: . If a narrator had made a mistake and narrated the hadith: "Stand up for your master and seat him," this addition would clarify the intended meaning of this hadith, and it would not be possible then for anyone's understanding to deviate from the narration: "Stand up to your master" meaning "for your master," because the addition of prevents such interpretation.
This hadith is like the hadith of the standing up of the Messenger (peace be upon him) for Fatimah and her standing up for her father. That is only from the category of seating in the suitable place, and not standing up and sitting down like this, which is standing up for honor. This standing up for honor, meaning "Stand up for so-and-so," is contrary to the established Sunnah from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). Imam al-Bukhari narrated in his book Al-Adab al-Mufrad, which is a book, as it was described, distinct from the book Al-Mufrad, which is a book from the books of Sahih al-Bukhari. Sahih al-Bukhari is composed of ninety-seven books: the book of purity, ablution, ghusl, prayer, zakah, and the like; ninety-seven books. Among these books, in the last volume of the Sahih, is the book of Adab. And since Imam al-Bukhari committed himself in his book Al-Sahih to conditions that, by the consensus of scholars, are the strictest conditions for authenticity, he came and separated a special book from this book which is in the Sahih, and named it, to distinguish between them, the book Al-Mufrad as "Al-Adab al-Mufrad." Al-Bukhari narrated in this book of his, Al-Adab al-Mufrad, with a sound chain according to the condition of Muslim, and not according to the condition of al-Bukhari in the Sahih, from Anas ibn Malik (may Allah be pleased with him), who said: "No person was more beloved to them than the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him)." Ahmad added in a narration: "in sight." "No person was more beloved to them than the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) in sight, and when he entered upon them and they saw him, they did not stand up for him." Pay attention now how this hadith came; Anas—and he was the servant of the Messenger—did not say: they did not stand up to him, but rather said: "they did not stand up for him; because of what they knew of his dislike of that." "No person was more beloved to them than the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) in sight, and when they saw him, they did not stand up for him; because of what they knew of his dislike of that." So this hadith distinguishes between standing up for the one entering as an honor, exaltation, and respect; this is contrary to the Sunnah. As for standing up to the guest and receiving him; that is from the manners of the host. It must be distinguished, then, between these two standings.
The dislike mentioned in this last hadith, the hadith of Anas ibn Malik (may Allah be pleased with him), may be of the type of disapproval (tanzihi) because it contradicts the practical Sunnah followed by his Companions (peace and blessings be upon him and his family). It may also be a prohibition (tahrimi) if it is accompanied by something extra to standing up, namely standing up in this manner. It was reported from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) in Sunan Abu Dawud and elsewhere that he (peace and blessings be upon him) said: . In this hadith, there is a severe warning for the guest who enters and loves deep in his heart for people to stand up for him in honor. This is a great sin because the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) warns him by saying: . Although the severe warning mentioned in this hadith is explicitly directed at the one who enters and loves for the seated people to stand up for him, the seated people may share in the sin of that standing because they assist him in it. For this reason, when the noble Companion (may Allah be pleased with him), Mu'awiyah ibn Abi Sufyan, narrated this hadith, and he entered a gathering where there were two men, one of whom was Abdullah ibn al-Zubayr and the other was Abdullah ibn 'Amir, Abdullah ibn al-Zubayr did not stand up, but Abdullah ibn 'Amir stood up for Mu'awiyah. In this situation, Mu'awiyah should have refuted this one who stood up for him with the previous hadith of Anas, but due to his jurisprudence (may Allah be pleased with him), he refuted him with the last hadith: . What is the jurisprudence of this hadith? What is the basis of Mu'awiyah's refutation of Abdullah ibn 'Amir who stood up for Mu'awiyah? Mu'awiyah did not love this standing, rather he forbade it and said to him: Do not stand up. Because the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: . So what is the basis of Mu'awiyah's argument against Abdullah ibn 'Amir and his disapproval of his standing up for him with this hadith? It is as if he is saying to him: O Abdullah, if you continue with this standing, you may cause me to fall into it, and perhaps one day my soul will desire this standing and I will fall into the warning of this hadith, and you and those like you will be the cause of my falling into loving the standing. This is the basis of Mu'awiyah's (may Allah be pleased with him) argument against the one who stood up for him.
Once we understand these matters, we know that humility from those who enter the gathering is that they do not have the love of standing up in their minds, and consequently, that the seated people do not stand up for the one who enters, especially if the entrants are many. Every time one or two enter, the seated people stand up, then others enter and they stand up, and so on. Here appears the phenomenon of imitating the disbelievers, which is still a prevalent phenomenon in many countries.
We see that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) disapproved of some of his Companions standing up in a way that did not occur to any of them that they were standing up to honor the Messenger (peace be upon him). This is because they were behind him in prayer and he was their imam. Imam Muslim narrated in his Sahih from the hadith of Jabir ibn 'Abdullah al-Ansari (may Allah be pleased with him) that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) was thrown to the ground by his mount one day and was injured in his shoulder. The time for prayer came, and it was the midday prayer (Zuhr). The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) prayed with his Companions while sitting. They stood up behind him as is the custom, indeed as is the obligation. They stood up praying behind him (peace and blessings be upon him). When the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) saw them like this, he gestured to them to sit down. He gestured to them while they were standing up praying behind him, and the Messenger of Allah was sitting, to sit down. So they sat down, and he (peace and blessings be upon him) prayed with them while sitting, and they were praying sitting down with their sitting. When the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) finished the prayer, he turned to them and said to them: .
The point of this hadith is that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) removed from the praying people behind him—and all of them were healthy in their bodies—the pillar of standing. Why? So that the image resembling the standing of the great ones of Kisra behind the king would not appear. There is a great difference between this image and the image of the Companions of the Messenger (peace be upon him) standing behind him in prayer. They stood up for Allah, obedient, and the Messenger of Allah sat down in humility, compelled by the Lord of the Worlds. There was absolutely nothing from the standing ones or the sitting ones of the love of imitation. Nevertheless, he ordered them to sit down and said to them: You were on the verge of doing the image resembling the Persians with their great ones standing on the heads of their kings, the king sitting and the people around him standing up in honor of him. He (peace be upon him) did not want this phenomenon, nor did he love it, because it is a polytheistic phenomenon. So what do we say if people stand up—and they are not in prayer—and they are standing up for the slave who enters in honor? This standing must be reserved for Allah, the Lord of the Worlds.
For this reason, some of the Salaf were extremely careful about people standing up for them. Among the foremost of these was a man from the distinguished scholars of hadith and Hanbali jurisprudence, namely Abu 'Abdullah ibn Battah. He disliked this standing with a prohibition (tahrimi). It happened that one day he went out with a companion of his who was a poet to the market. He passed by one of the people of knowledge and virtue, and this noble scholar stood up for Ibn Battah when he passed by. But this noble scholar knew Ibn Battah's dislike of this standing, so he excused himself to him with two verses of poetry that were very beautiful. But the response was more beautiful and stronger. He said, excusing himself:
"Do not blame me for standing, for my right *** When you appear is that I not tire of standing.
You are the most noble of creation to me *** And it is the truth that I honor the noble ones."
So Ibn Battah said to his companion the poet, and most scholars do not compose poetry, but his companion was a poet and well-versed in the jurisprudence of Ibn Battah. He said to him: Answer him for me. He said to him on the spur of the moment:
"If you were not, I would not lack you *** To guard my right and show honor.
You have the merit in precedence and knowledge *** And we do not want from you reserve.
So pardon me now from this standing of yours *** And I will reward you with standing for standing.
And I hate that greatly *** For in it is flattery and sin.
Do not burden your brother to receive *** What by which he makes the forbidden lawful.
-And here is the profound wisdom-
And if our souls are sound *** We are content with not tiring the bodies.
We are all confident in the affection of his brother *** So why our distress and for what?"
This is the pinnacle of wisdom, and this is the fruit of following the Sunnah. And we ask Allah (Mighty and Majestic) to make us from the people of the Sunnah.
Yes.