Editing Shafa'a (section)

==In Popular Piety==
Although the Throne Verse (sura II, 155) asks, "Who could intercede with Him except by His permission?" many Muslims believed that the Prophet was granted this permission, as XVII, 79 speaks of his "special rank." Another Quranic verse that seems to allow intercession was XL, 7, where "those who carry the divine throne" are mentioned as constantly asking divine forgiveness. Thus, the belief developed that even pious acts could serve as intercessors: the Quran will intercede for those who have studied and recited it devoutly, and this hope is often expressed in prayers written at the end manuscripts of it. Other religious works could be imagined as interceding, such as the profession of faith; even mosques were thought to be transformed into white camels or boats to carry to Paradise those who had regularly performed their prayers in them, just as Friday might appear as a beautiful youth to intercede for people who had honoured him by attending the Friday worship. It was also believed that martyrs could intercede on behalf of family and friends and that children who had died in infancy would intercede for their parents to have them brought to Paradise because otherwise, they would feel lonely.

But the most important intercessor is Muhammad, and the numerous people in the Muslim world who are called “Muhammad Shafiʿ” bear witness to this belief, which is based on the legend that at Doomsday, all prophets (including the sinless Jesus) will call out nafsi nafsi “I myself [want to be saved]” while Muhammad calls out ummati ummati "my community, my community [should be saved]." Innumerable folk-songs and high-flown poetical descriptions tell how he will lead his community to Paradise carrying the green "banner of praise" (liwaʾ al-hamd), for his Shafa’a is meant is believed, for the grave sinners of his community.

Many prayers contain the request that God may grant His Prophet the position of honor in which he can intercede for his community; typical is the prayer in al-Jazuli’s Dalaʾil al-khayrat, “O God, appoint our lord Muhammad as the most trusted of speakers and the most prevailing of requesters and the first of intercessors and the most favored of those whose intercession is acceptable ... etc.” Poetry in which hope for Shafa’a is expressed is found abundantly in all the languages of the Islamic world, whether one turns to a scholar like Ibn Khaldun in North Africa or a folk poet in the Khowar language, the Karakorum. The Urdu poet Mir Muhammad Taqi Mir (d.1223/1810 [q.v.]) claims: “Why do you worry, O Mir, thinking of your black book?

The person of the Seal of Prophets is a guarantee for your salvation!”

and the Mamluk Sultan Qayitbay of Egypt was as convinced of the Prophet’s intercession as were poets in Sind, who loved to enumerate dozens of countries over which the Prophet’s Shafa’a stretches (mostly in alliterating groups of names). All of them claimed that their “hand was on his skirt” to implore his help, and some, like the Urdu poet Muhsin Kakorawi (d. 1905), expressed the hope that the poetry written in his praise might be recited at Doomsday to make the Prophet intercede on his behalf (although the Hadith emphasizes the umma, not an individual, as the recipient of intercession.) Even Hindu poets wrote poetry in the hope of the Prophet's intercession, and the believers' fear of the terrible Day of Judgment was more and more tempered by adding the element of hope, represented by the Prophet’s loving care for his community.