The Refutation of al-Busiri’s Exaggeration in Praising the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him)

Al-Halabi : Our Shaykh, during the discussion, a hadith was mentioned and you stated that this is from the unseen and is one of the signs of his prophethood (peace and blessings be upon him and his family); so what is your opinion, in light of this statement, regarding al-Busiri’s words in the Burdah:
"And from your generosity are the world and its twin *** And from your knowledge is the knowledge of the Tablet and the Pen"
Many people, I mean, praise the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) with this and mention other things?

The Shaykh : By Allah, this is correct. From his perfection (peace and blessings be upon him) and his servitude to Allah, Lord of all mankind, is that he feared for the Ummah of Islam that they would exaggerate in his regard, just as the Christians exaggerated in the regard of Isa (Jesus) (peace and blessings be upon them both). This is what he explicitly stated in the hadith of al-Bukhari and Muslim, which is agreed upon as authentic, where he said (peace and blessings be upon him and his family): This, in reality, indicates that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) was a slave to Allah, sincere in his sincerity to the extent that he forbade his Ummah from elevating him above the status in which Allah (Mighty and Majestic) placed him. Therefore, it came in some hadiths that when something was brought to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) that they preferred for themselves over all those present, he said (peace be upon him): He wanted to be one of the individuals of his Ummah (peace be upon him). So he said, "Do not lower me below the status in which Allah (Mighty and Majestic) placed me." And what status is that? He was given the Praiseworthy Station on the Day of Resurrection, the day when distress becomes severe for people, as also came in the hadith agreed upon by al-Bukhari and Muslim: people will gather on the Day of Resurrection on a single plain, and the sun will draw near to the heads of people, and the sweat will become severe for those who are on that single plain. Despite that, their vision will be dimmed, their distress will become severe, and their sweat will increase according to their deeds. Some of them will have sweat reaching their feet, some to their knees, some to their waists, and some will almost be choked by the sweat, some will almost drown in the sweat from the horror of that day. So the people of the gathering will exchange words with one another: "O people, let us go to Adam (peace be upon him) and seek intercession through him with Allah, and seek nearness to Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) through him, perhaps he will call upon Allah (Mighty and Majestic) to relieve us of this distress." So they go to Adam and say to him: "You are Adam, whom Allah created with His hand and breathed into you of His spirit and settled you in Paradise. Do you not see what we are in? Will you not intercede for us with Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He)?" He says, "Myself, myself. I was forbidden from eating from the tree, so I ate. Myself, myself. Go to Nuh (Noah) (peace be upon him), for he is the first messenger sent to the people of the earth." They come to Nuh (peace be upon him) and say the same words without lengthening and repeating, and they say to him: "You are the first messenger sent to the people of the earth. Do you not see what we are in? Will you not intercede for us with Allah?" He says, "Myself, myself. I called a call Go to Ibrahim (Abraham), for he is the Intimate Friend of the Merciful." They go to the Intimate Friend of the Merciful, and he gives the same answer: "Myself, myself. I told three lies." Allah is the Greatest. If all the lies of all humans were to gather together, they would not equal the three lies of Ibrahim (peace be upon him). The first lie was when they invited him to their festival and gathering around their idols other than Allah, he said, "What? I am ill." And the lie This is also known in the Qur'an. The third lie was when he said about his wife to Pharaoh, "This is my sister." And all these words...
Al-Halabi : The second lie, "Did not their chief do this?"

The Shaykh : Yes, this is in some narrations, of course. He said about his wife, "My sister," and this has a story. The point is, he said, "Myself, myself. Go to Isa (Jesus) (peace be upon him), for he is the Spirit of Allah." They go to him and say the same words. He says, "Myself, myself." Our Prophet (may the prayers and peace of Allah be upon him), in the completion of the story, because that was by revelation from his Lord, does not mention a sin. Isa (Jesus) does not mention a sin, but he says: "Go to Muhammad, for he is a man to whom Allah has forgiven what came before of his sin and what came after." They come to me, says the Messenger (peace be upon him), and they say to him what they said to the prophets before. He says (peace be upon him): "I am the one for it. I am the one for it." He said: "So I will go and prostrate under the Throne and praise Him (Blessed and Exalted is He) with praises I do not mention now, meaning in this world, but they are from the revelation of that hour there in the gathering." Then Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) calls out to him: "O Muhammad, raise your head and intercede, and you will be granted intercession, and ask, and you will be given." That is the Praiseworthy Station which we always seek after every adhan, when we say: And the Messenger says: A concise word, an interjected phrase. This is one of the beliefs of the Wahhabis, they claimed. This hadith is famous among those who are called, or labeled, the Wahhabis. So you see the reverence for the Messenger and his exaltation, but the difference between them and the others who do not follow the guidance of the Messenger (peace be upon him) and his Sunnah, as came in the previous research, is that the people of the Sunnah stand and do not exceed; they do not elevate him (peace be upon him) above the status in which Allah placed him, while the others address him with what you heard.
"For from Your generosity are the world and its twin, *** And from Your knowledge is the knowledge of the Tablet and the Pen."
Allah is the Greatest. The Messenger of Allah says: As if a speaker is saying, and he is answering him (peace be upon him) with his wisdom before the question comes, as if a speaker is saying: "Then what do we say, O Messenger of Allah? You forbid us from praising you, so what do we say?" Or in other words, what is the safeguard so that we do not fall into what the Christians fell into? Say, "Slave of Allah and His Messenger." So the meaning of this is that we do not imitate the Christians. But here, it may occur to the minds of some people, as we have heard that repeatedly and often, that the Christians said, "Isa is the son of Allah," and they disbelieved and lied. And the Muslims, praise be to Allah, do not say, "Muhammad is the son of Allah." Praise be to Allah also that the Muslims did not fall exactly as the Christians fell. But they may have fallen into what resembles what the Christians fell into, and it is not necessary that their error be one hundred percent like the error of the Christians. This is from one aspect. And from another aspect, it is known by the reality of experience and life that the greatest evil usually does not come except through the path of the lesser evil. And this is from the whispers of Shaytan to the children of Adam: that he does not take them out of their religion in one blow, but he plots against them and makes them take a step after a step. And from here, Shaytan is able to mislead the children of Adam. So the safeguard is that the Muslim stands at what Allah (Mighty and Majestic) commanded him, including that he believes in the Messenger what Allah (Mighty and Majestic) described him with, such as His saying, for example: And that he stands in praising the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) at what he mentioned about himself, and we mentioned to you just now that Allah said: And this is the Praiseworthy Station where he intercedes for all of humanity, while those before him from the prophets and messengers excuse themselves from this intercession. So he stands at these limits which contain the exaltation of the Messenger and does not exaggerate. So when the believing Muslim, with all this truth that we say and which is said about it: "Two do not differ in it, and two camels do not butt heads in it," when one is like that, how does he address the Messenger and say:
"And from your generosity in the world and its twin *** And from your knowledge is the knowledge of the Tablet and the Pen"
This means we have equated him with the Lord of the Worlds. Correct, what we said, and praise be to Allah. Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab, as the Christians said about their prophet; but we said that it does not equal that or exceed it, where this speaker said, may Allah forgive us and him: "For from Your generosity is the world and its co-wife..." Let us pause a moment on this meaning in the poetry. What is the meaning of "For from Your generosity is the world"? It was mentioned in the hadith that the mountains were offered to him to be turned into gold by our Lord, Mighty and Majestic, but he refused. And Jibril (peace be upon him) said to him: "Be a servant, a prophet and a messenger, and do not be an angel." He accepted that and did not accept that Allah, Mighty and Majestic, would turn the mountains into gold for him. This is sound speech: "For from Your generosity is the world." But what is the meaning of the conjunction mentioned: "For from Your generosity is the world and its co-wife"? What is the co-wife of the world? Without a doubt, it is the Hereafter. Did the Messenger (peace be upon him) be generous with the Hereafter? Is it conceivable that he would be generous with the Hereafter and turn away from it as he turned away from the world? This is impossible, because Allah, Mighty and Majestic, says in the Noble Qur'an: for those who do good is the best, meaning Paradise, and the addition of seeing Allah in the Hereafter. This is the greatest bliss when the believers see their Lord on the Day of Resurrection; they forget all the bliss of Paradise. That is the most desirable thing for them in the Hereafter. How can it be said that the Messenger turned away from the world and its co-wife, was generous with it, and turned away from it? If we stop at the world, the speech is reasonable—and may Allah have mercy on you—but to conjoin the Hereafter with it, this is a very, very serious matter. But unfortunately, this is the style of poets. The style of poets is that some of them exaggerate and do not notice that this exaggeration may lead to something contrary to the Shari'ah. Likewise, the one who said to some of the rulers: "What you will, not what the destinies will *** So judge, for you are the One, the Subduer." What does this mean? That he is the highest king in the world, but he described him with the attributes of Allah, Mighty and Majestic.
"What you will, not what the destinies will *** So judge, for you are the One, the Subduer." He describes the Messenger by saying: "For from Your generosity is the world and its co-wife." O people, let us understand from his generosity of the world, point by point, as I sometimes say. How is the hadith point made? The scholars of hadith, when they wrote a complete sentence, would draw a circle at the end and leave its interior empty. This is a very beautiful thing that we do not know today. If this sentence is not collated with the original, meaning in the way of correcting experiments today that are printed, the point is placed in the circle. That is, anyone who sees this sentence with a circle at the end, and there is no point in it, it is not collated, not correct; there may be an error. But if the circle has a point in it, it is collated and correct. So we say now: "For from Your generosity is the world," a circle with a point in the middle. We believe and submit. But its co-wife? It is absolutely not permissible for us to say about the Messenger that he was generous with the Hereafter as he was generous with the world, because it means that he never thinks to see Allah in the Hereafter. How is it correct to describe the Messenger (peace be upon him) with such a quality? God forbid that from him! But did the poet stop at this exaggeration where he conjoined the Hereafter with the world? No, he said: "And from Your knowledge is the knowledge of the Tablet and the Pen." Allahu Akbar. He did not say "For from Your knowledge is..." because the meter of the poetry would be disrupted. The poetry must be metered, so he had to say what? "From Your knowledge." But this is very serious. It is not excusable in poetry to say what the one who composes poetry commits, things that are not permissible even in the Arabic language. This is for the necessity of achieving poetry, yes. But they did not stop at these things even in the meanings... from Your knowledge. If the Messenger (peace be upon him) has knowledge, knowledge other than what? The knowledge of the Tablet and the Pen. What is the knowledge of the Tablet and the Pen? Everything, and everything in the Noble Qur'an is what? And everything is recorded. Meaning, recorded means everything.

The questioner :

The Shaykh: You have done well, may Allah reward you with good. May Allah reward you with good. And the Messenger (peace be upon him) clarified this reality that everything is recorded in the Preserved Tablet. He said in the authentic, famous hadith that Abu Dawud narrated in his Sunan and Imam Ahmad in his Musnad with a sound chain: So how is the Messenger (peace be upon him) described as knowing what is recorded until the Day of Resurrection? And this is not all; rather, that is only some of his knowledge.
"For from Your generosity is the world and its co-wife *** And from Your knowledge is the Tablet and the Pen." This is an exaggeration that the Messenger (peace be upon him) does not approve of, who said in the previous hadith: . When the Messenger (peace be upon him) was mentioned in the Qur'an, he was rarely mentioned by his name, but when he was praised with that miracle by which Allah, Mighty and Majestic, chose him over all the prophets, namely the miracle of the Mi'raj or the Night Journey and the Ascension, what did He say about him? Because this word contains an honor beyond honor for Muhammad ibn 'Abd Allah (peace and blessings be upon him). And due to the ignorance of people of this meaning, they do not suffice with it and do not stop there, but they add to it things and things in the way of magnification. So here I say with complete frankness: the intention is good, but the wording is bad. Let the Muslim be on the straight path; his wording and his action must be good like his intention. It is not enough for a person to say a word and it be an error, and then say, "By Allah, I did not intend this. I intended such and such. I intended to magnify the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him)." So we say about these people who recite some verses and poetry to each other, and among that is this poetry, we say that they want to praise the Messenger (peace be upon him) and honor him, but we say: "Sa'd brought it, and Sa'd is wrapped up. It is not like this, O Sa'd, that camels are brought." Do you want to praise the Messenger (peace be upon him)? Praise him to the extent that he set for you: . If we cared about reading the Sunnah, about which the Messenger (may the prayers and perfect peace be upon him) said: . If the Muslims had held fast to the Sunnah of the Master of the Messengers (may the best prayers and most perfect peace be upon him), they would not have divided into many schools and paths, but they would have been on this straight path. If they studied the Sunnah, what would we find in the Sunnah? What is found in the Sunnah is what I mentioned earlier, and in addition to that, one finds in the Musnad of Imam Ahmad the following hadith: . Do not let Satan drag you. Do not let him drag you through this corridor. It is a simple proof. You are our master, he is without a doubt our master, without a doubt. Why? Because he said in the authentic hadith: and so on. So he is the master of people in truth. And in another hadith: Adam and those below him are under my banner on the Day of Resurrection. So he is without a doubt the master of all mankind, as in these two hadiths and others. But despite that, what did he say to them? . And they said to him, "You are our master," which is a true statement. But he said: , meaning it leads you from one word to the last and connects you to that word.
"For from Your generosity are the world and its twin, *** And from Your knowledge is the knowledge of the Tablet and the Pen."
And in another hadith in the Musnad of Imam Ahmad as well, a man said to the Messenger (peace be upon him): . The Master is Allah. Why did he deny it? And he, as we said earlier, is our master in truth. He feared that this person, in his praise of the Messenger (peace be upon him) with the word by which we declare that Allah is our master, would elevate him to what is not permissible to praise the Messenger (peace be upon him) with. So he cut off the path for him and said, "The true Master is Allah, Blessed and Exalted is He." Therefore, we advise the Muslims, of course, we have no speech with the heretics and the atheists; rather, our speech is with the righteous Muslims who fear Allah and hope for the Day of the Hereafter, the day when wealth and children will not benefit except one who comes to Allah with a sound heart. We advise them not to waste their efforts in this worldly life behind ideas, beliefs, and acts of worship that did not come in the Sunnah. You have just heard his saying (peace be upon him) in the story of the group: . This is advice we direct to all our Muslim brothers in the east and west of the earth, perhaps Allah, Blessed and Exalted is He, will benefit with it.