then his intercession is as though it had never occurred, and he must repent and seek forgiveness for it. As Noah said:

“My Lord, I seek refuge in You from asking You for that of which I have no knowledge. Unless You forgive me and have mercy on me, I will be among the losers.”

Likewise, Allah forbade the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—to offer funeral prayers for the hypocrites. He said to him:

“Never offer the funeral prayer for any of them who dies, nor stand at his grave. They disbelieved in Allah and His Messenger and died defiantly disobedient.”

He also said to him:

“It makes no difference to them whether you ask forgiveness for them or do not ask forgiveness for them: Allah will never forgive them.”

For this reason, He relates the words of the polytheists:

“So we have no intercessors,
nor any close friend.”

The intercession sought is that of someone whose request is heeded and whose intercession is accepted. No one possesses such intercession with Allah except by His permission, both in His decree and under His revealed law. He must permit it, and He must make His servant an intercessor. He is thus both the Creator of the servant’s act and the One who permits it. The same applies to someone who supplicates: Allah is the One who commands him to supplicate, and He is the One who makes him supplicate. Everything therefore belongs to Allah, both in creation and in command. As He says:

“Surely, His is the creation and the command.”

It is related in a hadith mentioned by Ibn Abī Hātim and others that he said:

“Let whoever is confident of possessing it lay claim to it.”

That is, no share in either creation or command remains for anyone else.

Now, since the intercession affirmed is intercession in the full sense—the intended purpose of intercession, namely that which is accepted, as opposed to that which is rejected—for no one desires the latter, neither