11. Is prostrating before humans allowed in Islam?

God created the first human Adam and commanded the celestial beings to honor him by prostrating is seen in the following verses. (2:34, 7:11, 15:29-31, 17:61, 18:50, 20:116, 38:72) Citing these verses some conclude that prostrating before aged persons and sages is allowed. This is a misconceived thought.

In a society molded by Prophet Muhammad there was never a practice of prostration before humans. We need to understand this thoroughly. 

Let’s look into the meaning of the word ‘Sajdah’. 

The Arabic words ‘Salah’ ‘Sawm’ and ‘Zakat’ meaning worship, fasting, and religious alms giving, respectively were in vogue among Arabs before the time of Prophet Muhammad albeit not in the sense as we use now.

The word ‘Salah’ is used by us at present to denote the form of Muslim worship, but its original meaning is prayer. In Islam the word ‘Salah’ is used to denote certain actions performed during worship of God. 

The word ‘Sawm’ is being used even today to mean fasting. But during the time of Prophet Muhammad the same word ‘Sawm’ was used to mean ‘limiting oneself’ 

Islam did not invent new words to denote acts of worship but picked appropriate words that were in vogue and named accordingly. 

Similarly, the word ‘Sajdah’ was in practice before the time of Prophet Muhammad. 

The placing of the forehead, nose, both the palms, both knees, the toes of both legs on the floor in prostration is described by Prophet Muhammad as ‘Sajdah’ in Muslim worship. 

Before Prophet Muhammad it meant ‘obeying fully’, and any act of obedience was termed as ‘Sajdah’. 

The meaning to this word denoting ‘full obedience’ is not only found in the dictionary, but also in the Quran in the same context. 

The Quran verses 2:58, 4:154, 7:161 say `You enter this town through its gates performing ‘Sajdah’. We can only attribute the meaning ‘‘full obedience’ to the word ‘Sajdah’ in these verses and not the ‘an act in the Muslim worship’, because one cannot perform sajdah and enter through the gates simultaneously. 

In verse 22:18 we find that apart from humans, the sun, the moon, the stars, the trees, the creepers also perform sajdah to Allah. 

All these creations do not have an appropriately placed face, or nose, or hands, legs with knees, and neither do they possess a back to bend suggesting a posture that could be termed as prostration. The mountains, trees, cannot even move from their place, and still, we find a verse in the Quran stating their prostration towards Him. 

The sun, the moon, the stars, move in their regulated paths as designed by the Al-Mighty. This is called their sajdah towards Him. The trees give out flowers and fruits in their specified periods in their sajdah towards Him. 

The mountains hold on to the earth in the path as designed by Allah, this is the sajdah of the mountains towards Him. 

To summarize, all creations by Allah submit meekly to Him accepting their inferiority and praising His superiority is what is termed as ‘Sajdah’.

We can clearly understand that in verses 12:4, 13:15, 16:48,49 of the Quran the word ‘sajdah’ is used to mean ‘obeying absolutely’.

The celestials performing sajdah to Adam as quoted in the above verses should be understood in the same manner. To strengthen this point of view we can put forward many reasons. 

Celestial beings are not like humans. They do not possess definite shapes. The archangel ‘Jibreel’ has appeared a few times in human form to attend to Prophet Muhammad. By this disclosure we cannot conclude that it is the only form he took. Because we are also given to understand that ‘Jibreel’ appeared in front of Prophet Muhammad as occupying the entire expanse between the skies and the earth.

Hadith Book: Bukhari 4. 

The Quran 35:1 says the celestial beings possessed wings. 

We cannot consider celestial beings equal to humans, and hence conclude that they had expressed their ‘full obedience’ in their own way. Even otherwise they prostrated before Adam, we cannot follow suit because they were ordered by Al-Mighty to do so.

Neither Allah nor His prophet commanded us to prostrate before sages and aged persons, on the contrary we find it discouraged. 

The night, the day, the sun, the moon are His signs. Do not submit to the sun or the moon, if you are the one who wishes to submit yourself, owe your allegiance to the creator of those. Al-Quran 41:37. 

Bowing down to the creator and not to creations is the commandment to us.

 When Muãd (RA) and Salman (RA) attempted to prostrate before him, Prophet Muhammad disallowed them, and declared that a human is not to be prostrated. 

Hadith Books Tirmidhee: 1079, Ibn Maaja:1843, Ahmad: 12153, 18591, 20983, 23331 

And hence when there is clear cut guidance prohibiting prostration by men in front of men, a commandment addressing the celestials cannot be honored by humans. Behaving in a meek and respectable manner towards elders is quite different from, prostrating and falling at their feet was never allowed in Islam. 

Everyone is equal by birth and differs only by their conduct leading to greatness and fraternity can be seen in the following verses of the Quran.