the intercessor or someone else. Otherwise, if his own motivation were complete and he possessed the ability, he would have no need of intercession. Allah Most High is exalted above all of this, as He says in the divine hadith:

“O My servants, you can never confer any benefit upon Me, nor can you inflict any harm upon Me.”

For this reason, the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, would instruct his Companions to intercede with him. When someone came to him seeking something, he would say:

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

Al-Bukhārī and Muslim both recorded this in their Sahīh collections. His purpose was that they should be rewarded for interceding, while he himself would do only what Allah commanded him to do.

Likewise, He says:

“He knows what is before them and what is behind them, and they encompass nothing of His knowledge except what He wills.”

He makes clear that they know nothing of His knowledge except what He has taught them, just as the angels said:

“We have no knowledge except what You have taught us.”

This negation thus affirms that His servants know only what He has taught them. It affirms that He is the One who taught them, and that they acquire knowledge only from Him. For He is:

“the One who created—created man from a clinging substance,”

and who

“taught by the pen—taught man that which he knew not.”

Then He says:

“His Kursī extends over the heavens and the earth, and their preservation does not burden Him.”

That is, it neither troubles Him nor weighs upon Him. This negation implies the perfection of His power: although He preserves the heavens and the earth, doing so does not weigh upon Him as it would upon someone whose strength is deficient.

This is like His saying, Most High:

“We certainly created the heavens and the earth and whatever is between them in six days, and no weariness touched Us.”

He thus declares Himself free from being touched by weariness. The lexicographers say: