Writing 'sallallaahu alayhi wa sallam' after the Prophet's name in academic essays
27-11-2005 | IslamWeb
Question:
I am a 8th Grade student and I had written the biography of Muhammad, sallallaahu alayhi wa sallam, as one of my class project. In the project wherever I had written the name of our beloved Prophet, sallallaahu alayhi wa sallam, I had written PBUH in parenthesis. My teacher objected to this and said we cannot write PBUH on academic work. Please kindly advise what is the ruling in regards to writing PBUH in school work.
Answer:
All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad is His slave and Messenger. We ask Allaah to exalt his mention as well as that of his family and all his companions.
The ancient and contemporary scholars
stated the etiquettes of writing and clarified that one should write the exaltation of the Prophet 
whenever his name is mentioned. Ibn As-Salah
wrote in his book 'Al-Muqaddimah': 'One should keep on writing the words of exaltation on the Prophet and should not get tired of repeating them whenever his name is mentioned. Whoever neglects to mention the exaltations on the Prophet when his name is mentioned, he fails to achieve huge benefits.' The scholars disliked writing the initials for the expression of exaltation instead of writing the expression in full, like writing[for peace be upon him,], so what about not writing the exaltation at all. Therefore, your teacher is wrong in preventing you from writing the exaltations of the Prophet whenever his name is mentioned; even if the work or study is academic, the exaltations still have to be written. However, it should be noted that writing the exaltations of the Prophet when mentioning his name is not an obligation but it is desirable to do so. One of the Maaliki books reads: 'It is desirable to exalt the Prophet in many places, like when hearing or writing his name. Among other places on which the entire Muslim nation agreed and did not deny, is mentioning his exaltations when writing letters.'
Therefore, the objection of your teacher on writing the exaltation of the Prophet whenever his name is mentioned in the study, is an unacceptable and invalid objection.
Allaah knows best.