Do Muslims worship Muhammad? 7 points from the sources

The Prophet is told to say: “I am only a man like you, to whom it is revealed that your god is one God” (18:110). He is also told to say that he has no power over benefit or harm for himself except what God wills (7:188). The Quran puts a similar limit on his status in 3:144: “Muhammad is only a messenger; messengers have passed away before him.”^[1]

The statement of faith repeats the point. A Muslim says that there is no god but God and that Muhammad is His servant (abd) and messenger, and the word servant comes first.

The Quran tells the believers to send blessings upon him (33:56) and to lower their voices in his presence (49:2). It makes obedience to him part of obedience to God (4:80) and ties love of God to following him (3:31).^[2] Muslim reverence for the Prophet therefore rests on a command of God and does not originate in a human tradition.

The same book that tells them to honour him also tells him to call himself a man. The two instructions have to be read together, and the early Muslims did read them together.

Umar reports from the pulpit that he heard the Prophet say: “Do not exaggerate in praising me as the Christians exaggerated about the son of Mary. I am only His servant, so say servant of God and His messenger.”^[3]

Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani explains itra as praise that goes beyond the truth, and says that the comparison refers to the Christian claim of divinity for Jesus.^[4] The Prophet named the boundary and told his community where it lay.

When the Prophet’s son Ibrahim died, the sun was eclipsed, and some people said that the eclipse had come because of the death. According to al-Mughira ibn Shuba, the Prophet answered that the sun and moon do not eclipse for anyone’s death or birth, and he told the people to pray and to call on God.^[5]

A man who wanted to be worshipped had every reason to accept the claim. He rejected it on the day of his own bereavement.

Aisha and Ibn Abbas report that near the end of his life the Prophet kept pulling a cloth over his face. When he felt short of breath he uncovered it and said that God had cursed the Jews and the Christians for making the graves of their prophets places of worship. They add that he was warning his community against what they had done.^[6]

The warning concerned his own grave, at a time when he knew he was dying.

When the Prophet died, Umar stood and declared that he had not died. Abu Bakr arrived from al-Sunh, uncovered the Prophet’s face and kissed it, and then addressed the crowd: whoever worshipped Muhammad should know that Muhammad is dead, and whoever worships God should know that God is living and never dies. He then recited the verse of Al Imran, “Muhammad is only a messenger” (3:144).^[7]

Umar sat down when Abu Bakr spoke. The community then chose a successor to a man it had just confirmed to be mortal.

Abu Hurayra reports that the Prophet said he would be the master of the children of Adam on the Day of Resurrection, the first to rise from the grave, the first to intercede and the first whose intercession is accepted.^[8] The same Abu Hurayra reports in al-Bukhari that he said no one should say that he is better than Yunus ibn Matta.^[9]

The first report describes a rank that God gave. The second stops a believer from using that rank to belittle another prophet. Honour for Muhammad in Islam sits inside honour for all the messengers.