Abū Nasr and Adam except Allah Most High.” He then cited the aforementioned hadith and said: “Even if Abū Nasr al-Tammār had narrated it from the master of Adam’s descendants—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—I would not have accepted his report, because there is a break in its chain of transmission between him and the Messenger of Allah—may Allah bless him and grant him peace. How much less, then, can his narration of it from Adam be accepted?”
A group of people have supposed that praise expressed in these words is the most perfect praise with which Allah has ever been praised, the best of it, and the most comprehensive of all forms of praise. On this basis, they formulated a legal ruling. They said: “If a person swears that he will praise Allah with the most comprehensive and sublime forms of praise, he can fulfill his oath by saying: ‘All praise is due to Allah with praise that matches His blessings and equals His further bounty.’” They explained that “matches His blessings” means that the praise meets those blessings, so that the blessings coincide with it; and that “equals”—the Arabic verb contains a hamza—means that it is equal to His further blessings. In other words, it duly gives thanks for the added blessings and beneficence.
Ibn al-Qayyim—may Allah have mercy on him—said: “The established forms of praise with which Allah praised Himself, with which His Messenger—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—praised Him, and with which the foremost of those in his ummah who truly knew how to praise Him did so contain none of this wording whatsoever.” He then cited some of the formulas of praise found in the Quran and said: “This is Allah’s praise of Himself, which He revealed in His Book, taught to His servants, and reported as the praise uttered by the inhabitants of His Paradise. It is more emphatic, excellent, and perfect than every other praise. How, then, could a person fulfill his oath by turning instead to wording with which Allah did not praise Himself and which has not been authentically reported from the Messenger of Allah—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—or from the foremost of those in his ummah who truly knew how to praise Him? Whenever the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—praised Allah on occasions when praise was especially called for, he never used this formula at all: not in the opening praise of a sermon, nor in the praise with which undertakings are begun, nor in the profession of faith recited on an occasion of need, nor in the praise recited after eating and drinking, upon dressing, and upon leaving the lavatory, nor in the praise uttered upon seeing what pleased him or what displeased him.…”