they prayed standing, so he instructed them to sit. And he said: ‘Do not exalt me as the non-Arabs exalt one another.’”] (*)
He forbade them to stand in prayer while he was seated, so as not to resemble the non-Arabs who stand before their dignitaries while the latter remain seated. The sound approach underlying all of this is to follow the customs and conduct of the early Muslims and strive to do so as far as possible.
If someone has not adopted this practice and does not know that it is the customary way, and withholding the respect he is accustomed to receiving from people would cause a greater harm, then the greater of the two harms is averted by accepting the lesser, just as one must secure the greater of two benefits at the expense of the lesser.
(*) Shaykh Nāsir ibn Hamad al-Fahd said (p. 18):
This hadith does not appear in Muslim with this wording. Muslim’s wording, narrated from Jābir (may Allah be pleased with him) and attributed to the Prophet, is: “You nearly did just now what the Persians and Romans do: they stand before their kings while the latter are seated. Do not do this.” The wording quoted here was narrated by Ahmad from Abū Umāma (may Allah be pleased with him), with a chain of transmission that is open to question. It therefore appears that the shaykh (may Allah have mercy on him) intended the attribution “It is established in Sahīh Muslim” to extend only as far as “he instructed them to sit,” after which he cited another hadith: “And he said: ‘Do not exalt me as the non-Arabs exalt one another.’” Thus, the wāw (“and”) introduces a new statement rather than joining it to the preceding one. However, a difficulty remains: this recurs at 27/93, where he said, “It is established in the Sahīh,” and cited this hadith. And Allah knows best.