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﴿ فَاسْأَلُوا أَهْلَ الذِّكْرِ إِن كُنتُمْ لَا تَعْلَمُونَ ﴾

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Clarification of the authentic hadiths regarding the Lordship of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) and its correct meaning.

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The Shaykh : We request a detailed clarification regarding the ruling on using the word "Sidd" (Lord/Master), for example, "Our Lord Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him and his family)." This is with regard to the hadith "The Lord is Allah." The hadith "The Lord is Allah" is, without a doubt, an authentic hadith.
Likewise, there are authentic hadiths in which the Messenger (peace be upon him) applied the title "Sidd" to himself rightfully. He said in Sahih Muslim:
I will be the 'Leader' of the people on the Day of Resurrection. Do you know why that is? أنا سيد الناس يوم القيامة أتدرون مما ذاك ؟
Jami` at-Tirmidhi 2434Sahih (Darussalam)
Then he mentioned the hadith of intercession, which is a very long hadith. He also said, may Allah's prayers and peace be upon him:
I am the Lord of the children of Adam on the Day of Resurrection, and there is no boasting. Adam and those below him will be under my banner on the Day of Resurrection. أنا سيد ولد آدم يوم القيامة ولا فخر آدم فمن دونه تحت لوائي يوم القيامة
So, there are two types of lordship: a lordship that is not fitting for anyone but Allah (Mighty and Majestic), and that is what the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) intended in the first hadith when he said:
Al-Sayyid is Allah. السيد الله
The absolute lordship is what the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) intended by his saying:
Al-Sayyid is Allah. السيد الله
The context in which this hadith was mentioned supports this. People came to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) and said to him, "You are our Lord and the son of our Lord, and you are such and such." They also mentioned other descriptions. He said in this hadith:
Al-Sayyid is Allah. السيد الله
And in another hadith, he said to them:
Say what you have to say, or part of what you have to say, and do not let the devil make you his agents. قولوا قولكم هذا أو ببعض قولكم ولا يستجرينكم الشيطان
Sunan Abi Dawud 4806Sahih (Al-Albani)
So, if we understand from the combination of these two narrations that his saying, peace be upon him:
Al-Sayyid is Allah. السيد الله
is a warning that true lordship belongs only to Allah (Mighty and Majestic). He feared, may Allah's prayers and peace be upon him, that their exaggeration in describing him would lead them to associate the Messenger (peace be upon him) with Allah, even if only in wording. This is because it is part of the understanding of tawhid (the oneness of Allah) that is hidden from many scholars, let alone others, that shirk (associating partners with Allah) has many categories. The classification specified now is the following: shirk of belief and shirk of wording. So, when the Messenger (peace be upon him) prohibited them and said to them:
Al-Sayyid is Allah. السيد الله
he feared that they would fall into shirk of wording, meaning that they would say a word that could be applied to the Messenger (peace be upon him), but its true meaning belongs only to Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He). To clarify this reality, he said:
Al-Sayyid is Allah. السيد الله
And to clarify the lordship fitting for him, may Allah's prayers and peace be upon him, which is naturally far, far... millions of times far below the true lordship of Allah. This is the lordship about which he said:
I am the Lord of the people on the Day of Resurrection. I am the Lord of the children of Adam. أنا سيد الناس يوم القيامة أنا سيد ولد آدم
... If a Muslim sometimes says "Our Lord, the Messenger of Allah," and he only means the lordship fitting for him as a chosen, created Prophet, then this is permissible, indeed, without doubt, because he is truly a Lord. But if he says "Our Lord" and includes in this word a meaning above the level of humans, then at that time it is said to him: "The Lord is Allah." True lordship belongs to Allah (Mighty and Majestic).
We find that the Companions (may Allah be pleased with them) rarely used this word "Sidd" (Lord/Master). That is because the common practice among them was to say, "The Messenger of Allah said," "The Messenger of Allah said." It only came in a mawquf hadith (a report stopping at a Companion) in Sunan Ibn Majah from Ibn Mas'ud that he mentioned the Messenger (peace be upon him) with the phrase: "The Lord of the Messengers" And even then, there is weakness in the chain. If a Muslim sometimes says "Our Lord, the Messenger of Allah" in order to clarify that the Messenger (peace be upon him) has this lordship over all humans, as you heard just now, this is true. But the common practice is to say, "The Messenger of Allah said," "May Allah's prayers and peace be upon him," as was the practice of the righteous Salaf. Then, in the acts of worship, the regular recitations, and the dhikr (remembrance of Allah) that came to us from the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) as his teaching, it is not permissible for us to insert the word "Sidd" into any of those recitations. This is clear, because the Prophetic teaching for Muslims is not lacking, so that one of us would come and add to it what is missing. When Allah (Mighty and Majestic) revealed His saying:
Indeed, Allah confers blessing upon the Prophet, and His angels [ask Him to do so]. O you who have believed, ask [Allah to confer] blessing upon him and ask [Allah to grant him] peace. إن الله وملائكته يصلون على النبي يا أيها الذين آمنوا صلوا عليه وسلموا تسليما
[Al-Ahzab 33:56]
they said, "O Messenger of Allah, we know this peace for you, but how do we send prayers upon you?" He said, may Allah's prayers and peace be upon him:
Say: (Allahumma salli ala Muhammadin Wa Ala ali Muhammadin kama sallaita Ala Ibrahim قولوا اللهم صل على محمد وعلى آل محمد كما صليت على إبراهيم ...
Jami` at-Tirmidhi 483Sahih (Darussalam)
and so on. He did not tell them to say, "O Allah, send prayers upon our Lord." Here I mention a common misconception to point out its error. Some people, unfortunately, among the scholars... people say, "Say 'Our Lord,' he is the Messenger of Allah, he is humble, and it is not befitting his humility to order people to make him a Lord. Rather, say: "O Allah, send prayers upon our Lord" This is a negligence similar to the negligence of those who permit photography on the excuse that "the Messenger, what does he know? What will happen afterwards?!" Such talk:
Everyone who makes representations of things will go to hell كل مصوّر في النار
Mishkat al-Masabih 4498
is not from him, but it is from Allah. Similarly, the saying of the Messenger:
and say: Alahumma salli 'ala Muhammad قولوا اللهم صل على محمد
Sunan an-Nasa'i 1292Hasan (Darussalam)
is not from him, but it is revelation from the sky. It is Allah who ordered the Lord of the people to order his Companions, originally, and the rest of the people, secondarily, to say, "O Allah, send prayers upon Muhammad." If Allah (Mighty and Majestic) had intended to legislate for people to make the Messenger a Lord in the Ibrahimi prayer, He would have had the Messenger tell people, "Say, 'O Allah, send prayers upon our Lord Muhammad.'" This is similar to when the Messenger (peace be upon him) taught us the tahiyyat (testification) and said:
When one of you sits in the tashahhud, let him say, “The greetings are for Allah.” إذا جلس أحدكم في التشهد فليقل التحيات لله
Is this glorification of himself or glorification of his Lord? Without a doubt, it is glorification of his Lord. Is it permissible for us to say, "The tahiyyat are for Allah the Exalted," "The tahiyyat are for Allah (Mighty and Majestic)"? All of this is glorification of Allah (Mighty and Majestic). It is not permissible. Why? Because this teaching is established first, and then it is from Allah who ordered us to glorify and honor Him with these words:
At-tahiyyatu lillahi was-salawatu wat-tayyibat التحيات لله والصلوات والطيبات
Sunan an-Nasa'i 1171Sahih (Darussalam)
If Allah had wanted to increase the honor for Him, He would have added these words and taught them to the Messenger (peace be upon him). This is like that. And just as it is not permissible for the one praying to say, "The tahiyyat are for Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He), the prayers and the good things, peace be upon you, O Prophet, and the mercy of Allah and His blessings, and His tahiyyat and His salams," and so on, so it is not permissible to say, "O Allah, send prayers upon our Lord Muhammad," and so on. The secret in this is that dhikr is taqdiri (based on divine legislation), meaning teaching from Allah to the Messenger, and the Messenger in turn to the Ummah. Therefore, it is not permissible for us to say that the Messenger, out of humility, did not say, "Say, 'O Allah, send prayers upon our Lord,'" because we say that if Allah revealed to him the word "our Lord," the Messenger of Allah would not have concealed the revelation from the sky on the excuse of humility. And if Allah had not revealed it to him, then it is even more so that it is not permissible for us to add anything that was not revealed to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) from the sky. This is the answer regarding lordship with respect to the Messenger (peace be upon him). He has his fitting lordship by which he was preferred over all people. But we sometimes say "Our Lord, the Messenger of Allah" to affirm this lordship, but we do not add this word to the recitations that the Messenger (may Allah's prayers and peace be upon him) taught us.
Source alathar.net

The Arabic text is copied verbatim from the original source, without any edits.

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