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As for bowing when greeting someone, it is forbidden, as reported in al-Tirmidhī:

“They asked the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, about a man who meets his brother: ‘Should he bow to him?’ He replied: ‘No.’”

This is because bowing and prostration may be performed only for Allah, the Almighty and Majestic, even though they were used as greetings under a revealed law other than ours, as in the account of Joseph:

“And they fell down before him in prostration. He said, ‘O my father, this is the fulfilment of my earlier dream.’”

Under our revealed law, however, prostration is permissible only to Allah. Indeed, the Prophet’s prohibition against standing as the non-Arabs do for one another has already been mentioned. How much more, then, does this apply to bowing and prostration? Likewise, even a partial bow falls within this prohibition.