such as certain righteous men. They claim that once the petitioner for intercession becomes connected to the exalted being he venerates, whatever overflows upon that being from the Lord will then overflow upon the petitioner through his intercessor.

They illustrate their idea with the sun: when it shines upon a mirror, a ray is reflected from the mirror onto another spot and illuminates it. The ray reaches the second spot only because the mirror faced the sun, and it reached the mirror only because the sun faced it.

Likewise, they say, when the supplicant turns toward his intercessor, the benefit sought through intercession shines upon him from the intercessor, while the intercessor himself is illumined from the direction of the Truth—that is, God.

For this reason they deem it proper to call upon the dead, whether at their graves or elsewhere, to face them in supplication, and to seek their aid. They maintain: “When our souls turn toward the soul of the one buried in the grave, they come into contact with it, and our aims overflow upon us from him.”

Many of them—and other ignorant folk as well—consider prayer and supplication at the graves of the prophets and the righteous, whether from the Prophet’s family or others, superior to the five obligatory prayers and to supplication in the mosques, and even superior to pilgrimage to the Ancient House.

It is evident that the unbelief of these people, in what they say about intercessors, is graver than the unbelief of the pagan Arabs in what they said about theirs. Both groups worship, besides God, beings that can neither harm nor benefit them, and both say, “These are our intercessors with God.” Yet the Arabs acknowledged that God knows them, has power over them, and creates by His will and might; they said that the intercessors profit them by praying for them.

By contrast, the polytheist philosophers—as reported by Ibn Sīnā and those who followed him—assert that the being whose intercession is sought never prays to God for us at all. According to them, God does not know our supplication or his, does not hear our call or his, is in fact unaware of us altogether. We cannot perceive Him, nor can He be known through that intercessor. For we, they say, belong to the realm of particulars, and in their doctrine God does not know particulars, is incapable of altering anything in the universe, and does not act by His own will.