Intercession

"The intercession He has stored for them is true, as related in the reports" ¹ — in the context of his saying that the Basin by which God honoured His prophet, to succour his umma, is true ¹.

"The people of major sins of Muhammad's umma are not in the Fire forever if they died as monotheists, even unrepentant, after meeting God knowing and believing" ². They are under His will and judgement: if He wills He forgives them by pardon and favour; if He wills He punishes them in the Fire by His justice, then brings them out of it "by His mercy and the intercession of the intercessors among the people of His obedience, then sends them to His Paradise" ³.

Ibn Qudama says: "Our prophet intercedes for those of his umma's people of major sins who entered the Fire, and they come out by his intercession after they have burned and become embers and cinders"; "the rest of the prophets, the believers and the angels have intercessions"; he cites His word that they intercede only for whom He approves, and "the intercession of the intercessors avails the unbeliever nothing" ⁴.

Ibn Taymiyya says the Prophet has three intercessions: the first, "he intercedes for the people of the Standing until judgement is passed among them"; the second, "he intercedes for the people of Paradise to enter Paradise — and these two intercessions are his alone"; the third, "he intercedes for those who deserve the Fire" — his and the rest of the prophets', the siddiqs' and others': interceding that the deserving not enter it and that entrants be brought out ⁵. "And God brings people out of the Fire without intercession — by His favour and mercy" ⁵.

In "the account of the sum of the saying of the people of hadith and sunna" in Maqalat al-Islamiyyin, Abu al-Hasan al-Ash'ari presents what the people of hadith and sunna hold, ending: "And in all we have mentioned of their saying we speak, and to it we go" ⁶. He relates there that they "affirm the Messenger of God's intercession, and that it is for the people of major sins of his umma" ⁷; and they believe "that God brings out of the Fire a people of the monotheists, as the reports from the Messenger of God have come" ⁷.

This entry presents the positions of the 'Aqida al-Tahawiyya, Ibn Qudama's Lum'at al-I'tiqad, Ibn Taymiyya's al-Wasitiyya, and what al-Ash'ari related in Maqalat al-Islamiyyin of the people of hadith and sunna and declared his own — each attributed to its book. The sayings of the Maturidis and the remaining Sunni and non-Sunni schools from their own books have not yet been added; the entry needs specialist review before promotion.