Another faction went to extremes in denying intercession, such as the Muʿtazilah and the Khawārij. They rejected the idea that intercession will benefit those guilty of major sins, thereby opposing the uninterrupted proofs in the Qur’an and Sunnah that firmly establish its reality.

Ahl al-Sunnah wa-l-Jamāʿah steered a middle course: they affirmed intercession exactly as Allah and His Messenger have described it, believing in it without excess and without neglect.

Linguistically, the word shafāʿah (intercession) comes from shafʿ, the opposite of witr. Witr denotes the single, odd number, whereas shafʿ refers to anything beyond one—two, four, six—what we call the even numbers.

Legally (in Sharīʿah), it means mediation to fulfill needs: assuming the role of go-between for someone who has a need and the one who can meet that need. This mediation is of two kinds: intercession before Allah and intercession before created beings.

Intercession with created beings is itself of two types:

1. A good intercession—permissible, beneficial, commendable matters in which one approaches a person who has the ability to satisfy people’s needs so that he will meet them. Allah says, “Whoever intercedes for a good cause shall have a share in it” (An-Nisāʾ 4:85). The Prophet ﷺ said, “Intercede and you will be rewarded, and Allah decrees through the tongue of …”