The Shaykh’s warning against falling into exaggeration and excessive praise, and an explanation of the hadiths regarding this matter.

The Shaykh : And remember with us that it is the nature of man 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 man, except for the people who obey the commands of Allah (Mighty and Majestic) and do not transgress, or who always and forever remember, for example, His saying (Blessed and Exalted is He) . If Allah (Mighty and Majestic) has chosen Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) as a Prophet, then before that He made him a sound human being; He did not make him an angel created from light, as they claim, but rather he is a human being. He himself confirmed the text of the Noble Qur'an to the end of the verse. He himself affirmed 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 should 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) that he is the servant of Allah and His Messenger, we have elevated him and placed him in the rank that Allah (Mighty and Majestic) placed him in; we have not lowered him from it, nor 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 and with them) walk. 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 Sham, 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 Sham as long as he remained for trade, it seems. And when he returned to Madinah, when 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 (peace and blessings be upon him) said to him: Wait, O Mu'adh. What is this? He said: O Messenger of Allah, I came to Sham and saw the Christians prostrating to their priests and their great ones, and I saw that you are more worthy of my prostration than they are. So he (peace and blessings be upon him) said: . And this hadith came in many occasions; 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, which was prostration 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. It is exactly the opposite. It was 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 here 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, people today would be living in the previous age of ignorance and multiples thereof. Therefore, it is not strange at all, 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 in their minds and ingrained in their nature that [he is human], wanted to prove practically that he is a human being and that this prostration is not fitting except for the Lord of humans. And he says: . 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 was alive or dead. Why? To magnify him, because the intention is to magnify him, and the intention is not to worship him (peace be upon him). But if we are sincere in our love for him (may Allah’s prayers and peace be upon him), we must obey his command and refrain from what he forbids, and not throw his command and prohibition to the winds, claiming that we do so out of love for the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him). This is not the case. First, this is a reversal of the Qur'anic text, and then a reversal of 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 verse:
"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 *** For the lover of one he loves obeys him"
There is an example below this, and yet the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) raised his Companions upon it. That is that people in the age of ignorance used to live according to the customs of ignorance and an additional set of Persian, non-Arabic customs. Among these was that some of them would stand up for others, just as we do today, exactly because we do not follow the Messenger (peace be upon him) and do not apply ourselves in our actions to show that we love him (may Allah’s prayers and peace be upon him), but only in our words. That is, people used to stand up for one another. But 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-Arabic reverence at all. And we understand this explicitly from the hadith of 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), 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, namely their love for him, and this which we are discussing, 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: Truly, no person was more beloved to them than the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him). This is a fact with no dispute. 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? In obedience to him, to realize the previous verse: . So following the Messenger is the proof of loving Allah with a correct love. They did not surrender to their emotions.