or deliver him from an affliction, as stated by al-Hasan, Mujāhid, Qatāda and Ibn Zayd. Good intercession is thus assistance in something good that Allah and His Messenger love: benefiting someone who deserves that benefit, or averting harm from someone who deserves to be protected from it. “Evil intercession” is helping someone in something that Allah and His Messenger dislike, such as intercession that wrongs someone or deprives him of kindness to which he is entitled.

Good intercession has also been explained as supplicating for the believers, and evil intercession as supplicating against them. Good intercession has likewise been explained as reconciling two people. All these explanations are correct. The intercessor thus forms a pair with the person for whom he intercedes, since the created being to whom the intercession is addressed either assists him in righteousness and piety or assists him in sin and transgression.

Whenever someone came to the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, with a request, he would say to his Companions:

“Intercede, and you will be rewarded; Allah will decree through the tongue of His Prophet whatever He wills.”

The rest of the passage makes clear that, although the verse includes the wrongdoer whose wrongdoing consists in disbelief, it also includes wrongdoing less grave than that, even though it contains the words, “and what they used to worship.” It is authentically reported in the Sahīh that the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said:

“May the slave of the dinar perish! May the slave of the dirham perish! May the slave of plush fabric perish! May the slave of the patterned cloak perish! May he perish and fall headlong! If he is pricked by a thorn, may he be unable to remove it!”

It is also authentically reported from him in the Sahīh that he said:

“No one possesses hoarded treasure without that treasure being made into a bald-headed serpent for him on the Day of Resurrection. It seizes him by the jaw, saying: ‘I am your wealth! I am your treasure!’”

In another wording:

“Without it being made to appear to him on the Day of Resurrection as a bald-headed serpent. He flees from it, but it pursues him until it coils around his neck.”

The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, then recited this verse:

“They will have what they withheld out of greed hung around their necks on the Day of Resurrection.”

In another hadith:

“It is made to appear to him on the Day of Resurrection as a bald-headed serpent, which follows its owner wherever he goes while he flees from it: ‘This is your wealth, which you used to withhold out of greed.