We hold—and we worship Allah upon this conviction—that our Prophet Muhammad is indeed our master, in fact the master of every human being whether they accept it or not, as he said: “I am the master of the children of Adam on the Day of Resurrection, the first for whom the earth will split open, the first intercessor, and the first whose intercession is accepted.” Muslim (7/59), Abu Dawud (2/268) and Ahmad (2/540) transmitted it from Abu Hurayra, and similar reports exist from Abu Sa id al-Khudri and others. What actually requires examination is whether it is lawful to insert this expression in the formulas of the tashahhud and in the Ibrahimic prayers that the Messenger prescribed for his community in various versions; none of those versions, as you have seen, contain the word “our master.” Therefore we are certain that the correct view is with those who forbid the addition, for we believe that had this word been a means of drawing nearer to Allah, the Messenger would have commanded it and would not have omitted it. He declared: “I have left nothing that brings you closer to Allah without commanding you to do it …” (reported by Tabarani with a sound chain, as noted in Al-Ibda). He also said: “There was never a prophet before me but that it was incumbent upon him to guide his nation to the best he knew for them and to warn them against the worst he knew for them …” (Muslim 6/18; Ahmad 2/191, from Ibn Amr). Ibn Hazm cited this in Al-Ihkam fi Usul al-Ahkam (1/90) with the wording: “It is incumbent upon every prophet to direct his nation to the best he knows for them.” Since the Prophet did not instruct us to describe him as “our master” within the prayer, this shows that seeking nearness to Allah by that means is impermissible. Whoever does so is, in effect, correcting the Prophet and imputing deficiency to him—as Ibn al-Arabi noted earlier—and it is clear that such a stance entails disbelief and deviation.