Mainstream Muslims worship Muhammad as an equal of God. They aggressively reject this notion and claim that they do not worship Muhammad but instead revere, respect, honor, and show love and devotion to him.

Worship:

to honor or show reverence for as a divine being or supernatural power.

to regard with great or extravagant respect, honor, or devotion

Merriam-Webster Dictionary

Mainstream Muslims’ religion is only partially based on the word of God, the Quran. Most of it is based on Muhammad’s personal words and actions, the hadeeth. Therefore, we can say that Mainstream Muslims follow Muhammad’s followers’ hearsay about Muhammad’s words and actions as much as the Quran.

Many sing praises to Muhammad and mention his name as much as they mention God’s in their prayers and songs. They decorate mosques with calligraphy, often placing “Allah” (God) and “Muhammad” next to each other.

In Shafafi Islam, Muhammad is viewed as the messenger of God who brought the Message of God, the Quran, to humanity. Muhammad simply did not have the authority to create divine scripture himself. Shafafi Islam considers Muhammad to be Islam’s first Imam. Therefore, he did have the authority to create rules and guidelines for his own people, for his own era, based on his own interpretation of the Quran. However, to hold those (hadith) as unchanging divine scripture would be attaching attributes of divinity to Muhammad, elevating him to the same rank as God. This is why Shafafi Islam does not consider the hadith to be a part of divine scripture and instead considers them to be interpretations of Muslims from many years ago in and around the middle east. Hadith are interpretations that were specific to Muhammad’s own era and context.

Hadith contradict their own existence:

It was narrated from Abu Sa’eed al-Khudri that the Messenger of Allah said: “Do not write anything from me; whoever has written anything from me other than the Quran, let him erase it.”

Narrated by Muslim, al-Zuhd wa’l-Raqaa’iq, 5326

The best guidance that Muslims have today are the rulings from Imam Shafafi, which are based directly upon interpretations of the Quran in today’s context.