thus the intercession that he has stored up for them is a confirmed reality, as the reports have indicated.

It is the Prophet’s Cistern, and it is therefore obligatory to believe in it, to hold it as part of one’s creed, and to cling to the Sunnah so that one may reach that Cistern and not be turned away from it on the Day of Judgment.

Intercession is likewise among the major questions of doctrine (1), for people have gone astray over its affirmation: some denied it altogether, others went to excess in affirming it, while a third group steered a middle course.

With regard to intercession on the Day of Resurrection, people fall into three categories:

1. Those who have exaggerated in affirming it to the point that they seek it from the dead, from graves, from idols, trees, and stones: “They worship besides Allah that which neither harms them nor benefits them, and they say, ‘These are our intercessors with Allah.’” (Yunus 10:18); and, “We worship them only that they may bring us nearer to Allah.” (Az-Zumar 39:3).