Will prophet Muhammad intercede on our behalf?

Peace be upon you brothers and sisters,

This is Said Mirza from willyounotreason.com and in today’s article I wanted to look at the topic of intercession. As you are aware, both Muslims and Christians claim that their respective prophets will intercede on their behalf on the Day of Judgment. In the case of the Muslims, support for the idea that Muhammad will intercede on their behalf is found in the hadith literature. In the case of Christians support for the idea that Jesus will intercede on their behalf is found in the Bible. 

Since we consider the Qur’an to be clear, complete and fully detailed and take it as the sole authority for our doctrine, we are forced to reject any claims which do not find purchase in the Qur’an. God is clear that He alone is the Judge and intercession of any person, no matter what their standing, will not be accepted.

All translations (unless noted otherwise) used in this article are from The Qur’an: A Complete Revelation.

And be in prudent fear of a day no soul will avail a soul anything, nor will intercession be accepted from it, nor will compensation be taken from it; nor will they be helped.

(2:48)

And be in prudent fear of a day no soul will avail a soul anything, nor will compensation be accepted from it, nor will intercession benefit it. And they will not be helped.

(2:123)

O you who heed warning: spend of what We have provided you before there comes a day wherein is neither commerce, nor friendship, nor intercession; and the false claimers of guidance: they are the wrongdoers.

(2:254)

Muslims, however, justify the claim that Muhammad will intercede on their behalf by pointing out verses in the Qur’an which allow for ‘limited’ intercession. However, there is no place in the Qur’an that states that the messenger or messengers of God will intercede on behalf of their ummah i.e. community. The closest thing to an intercession is Jesus’ response to God which we shall look into later. There are some verses in the Qur’an that allude to an idea of a ‘limited’ intercession but it is made clear that this will only happen by permission of God; His will is supreme i.e. no one can intercede on someone’s behalf unless they are given leave by God – and they will only testify to the truth.

They will have no power of intercession save he who has taken a covenant with the Almighty.

(19:87)

That day no intercession will avail save one whom the Almighty has given leave and with whose word He is pleased.

(20:109)

And intercession avails not with Him save him whom He gives leave. When terror has been lifted from their hearts, they will say: “What said your Lord?” They will say: “The truth”; and He is the Exalted, the Great.

(34:23)

And how many an angel is there in the heavens! Their intercession avails nothing save after that God gives leave to whom He wills and is pleased.

(53:26)

This is a plain reading of the verses in question. To claim that Muhammad or Jesus will intercede on our behalf based on these limited verses is to deny clear and explicit verses that no intercession will be accepted by God.  The Qur’an brings us back, again and again, to the same conclusion that no one can save us from God’s punishment – only God is our ally and protector. There is no refuge from His punishment.

“Shall I take gods besides Him? If the Almighty intends me harm, their intercession will avail me nothing, nor can they rescue me;

(36:23)

Say thou: “Unto God belongs intercession altogether — His is the dominion of the heavens and the earth; then to Him will you be returned.”

(39:44)

And those to whom they call, besides Him, possess no intercession save whoso bore witness to the truth, and they know.

(43:86)

 “What brought you into Saqar?”

They will say: “We were not among the performers of duty,

 “And we fed not the needy.

 “And we discoursed vainly with those who discourse vainly,

 “And denied the Day of Judgment

 “Until the Certainty came to us.”

Then no benefit to them is the intercession of intercessors.

(74:42-48)

The Qur’an already anticipates the claim of Muslims that Muhammad will intercede on their behalf on the Day of Judgment. It also tells us what Jesus will say about those who claim to follow him and claim that he will intercede on their behalf. 

And when God will say: “O Jesus, son of Mary: didst thou say to men: ‘Take me and my mother as two gods, besides God?’” he will say: “Glory be to Thee! It was not for me to say that to which I had no right! If I had said it, then Thou wouldst have known it. Thou knowest what is in my soul, and I know not what is in Thy soul; Thou art the Knower of the Unseen Realms.

 “I said not to them but what Thou commandedst me: ‘Serve God, my Lord and your Lord.’ And I was a witness to them while I was among them; but when Thou tookest me, Thou wast the watcher over them; and Thou art witness to all things.

 “If Thou punish them, they are Thy servants; and if Thou forgive them, Thou art the Exalted in Might, the Wise.”)

God will say: “This is the day in which their truthfulness benefits the truthful.” They have gardens beneath which rivers flow, they abiding eternally therein forever; God is pleased with them, and they pleased with Him; that is the Great Achievement.

To God belongs the dominion of the heavens and the earth and what is in them; and He is over all things powerful.

(5:116-120)

This will be the ‘intercession’ of Jesus for the Christians. He will deny having claimed to be anything but God’s servant who commanded his followers “to serve God alone”. In the case of Muhammad, he will lament that his people abandoned the Qur’an.

 And the day the sky is rent asunder with the clouds, and the angels are sent down in successive descent,

True dominion, that day, belongs to the Almighty; and it will be a difficult day for the false claimers of guidance.

And the day the wrongdoer will bite his hands, he will say: “Would that I had taken with the Messenger a path!

 “Woe is me! Would that I had not taken such-and-such for a friend!

 “He led me astray from the remembrance after it reached me.” And the satan is to man a traitor.

And the Messenger will say: “O my Lord: my people took this Qur’an as a thing abandoned.”

(25:25-30)

In summary, the Qur’an’s own sufficient testimony makes it clear that these two messengers of God will be unable to intercede on behalf of their supposed followers. Jesus will distance himself from the idolaters (those among the Christians who claim that Jesus is the son of God) saying that he never said that he and his mother be taken as gods besides God whereas Muhammad will protest that his people deserted the Qur’an; which is true in the case of the vast majority of Muslims who only pay lip service to following the Qur’an when in reality they are simply blindly following the footsteps of their ancestors. 

O mankind: eat of what is in the earth lawful and good, and follow not the footsteps of the satan; he is to you an open enemy.

He but enjoins upon you evil and sexual immorality, and that you ascribe to God what you know not.

And when it is said to them: “Follow what God has sent down,” they say: “Nay, we will follow that upon which we found our fathers,” — even though their fathers did not reason, nor were they guided?

(2:168-170)

God willing, until the next time. Peace and blessings be upon you.