not the petitioner who asks someone else to intercede for him, for he is not the one who has interceded. Muhammad, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, is the intercessor whose intercession is accepted, not the accepted intercessor whose intercession is sought.

For this reason, he says in his supplication:

“O Lord, accept my intercession.”

Allah then accepts his intercession. Thus, he asks Allah, glorified be He, to accept his own intercession, not that of those seeking his intercession. How, then, could he say, “Seek his intercession, and Allah will accept your intercession”?

Furthermore, asking him to intercede, supplicate, or seek forgiveness after his death and at his grave is not prescribed according to any of the imams of the Muslims. Nor did any of the four imams or their early disciples mention this. Only some later scholars mentioned it: they related an account from al-Utbī in which he saw a Bedouin come to the Prophet’s grave and recite this verse, and then saw in a dream that Allah had forgiven the man.

None of the authoritative jurists qualified to exercise independent legal reasoning within the schools of law—those whose opinions form the basis of fatwas issued to people—mentioned this. Those who related the account provided no evidence from the revealed law to support it. It is well known that, had asking him to supplicate, intercede, and seek forgiveness at his grave been prescribed, the Companions and those who followed them faithfully would have known this better than others and would have been the first to practise it. The imams of the Muslims would also have mentioned it. How fitting are Mālik’s words:

“Nothing will set right the latter generations of this community except what set right its earliest generations.”

He said, “No report has reached me that the earliest generations and pioneers of this community used to do this.”

How, then, could an imam such as this prescribe a religious practice that has not been transmitted from any of the early generations, and instruct the community to ask the prophets and the righteous, after their deaths and at their graves, to supplicate, intercede, and seek forgiveness—something none of the early generations of this community ever did?