 Ladies and gentlemen, and all welcome to the late night talk with me your host Ahmad Ali in another episode where we commemorate the mother of Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam by shedding lights on some of the aspects revolving around the character of Prophet Muhammad yesterday. We talked about how the Prophet and then we cleared up some of the misconceptions about how the Prophet propagated and spread Islam. And one of the misconceptions was about spreading Islam by the sword. And that was discussed with my honorable guest, Sheikh Osama Al-Atar. How are you? Alhamdulillah, very good to see you once again in Karbala. May Allah always unite us in these holy places. Insha Allah, insha Allah. Now, when it comes to intercession today's topic as well, there's a lot of misconceptions revolving around this topic, intercession. We find that Ahlul Bayt, Alaihi Wasallam, emphasize on this idea. Also, we see other schools of thought within Sunni traditions also emphasizing on this. However, there's one that the minorities that say that if you believe in this, you're a non-believer, a non-Muslim. However, many Quranic verses also play emphasis on intercession. To begin it off, what is intercession and why is it important? The word Shafa'a comes from the root word Shafa'a. Shafa'a means to add something to another. To add? Add. That's why, for example, there is a Salat in the middle of the night, part of Salatul-Layl, the night prayer, the midnight prayer, and it is called Salatul-Shafa'a. It's Satturak al-Salat. Yes. And then there's Salatul-Watar. What means one? Shafa'a means two. You've added one Raka'a to another Raka'a, and now Salatul-Shafa'a. So, Shafa'a literally means adding something to something else. So, why not call that Salatul-Shafa'a as well? It was given Salatul-Fajr, because it's a specific time of Fajr. Okay. Therefore, it's not to confuse it with other Salat. It was given. However, it is also two Raka'a, Raka'atun, Tashfa'u, and another Raka'a. So, and then it was also used to add something weaker to something stronger. For example, if a person wants heat and he's cold, he ignites fire. As-al-naaru, Tashfa'u bil-harara l-insan. The fire provides, adds the human being heat with heat, because the human being has the weakness of need of heat. He cannot provide internal heat. He needs to get that heat externally. What provides him with heat in this case? Fire. Fire. So, the fire, Tashfa'u, Tashfa'u, for heat. So, that's the literal meaning of the word. Literally, it's adding something to something else. Also used as adding something weaker to something stronger. So that, or something stronger to something weaker, I apologize. So that it provides it with some of this strength. Whether it is, for example, the strength could be physical strength, could be heat, etc., etc. So, that's the literal meaning of the word. Now, we then look at it from the Quranic perspective, and that is providing the help of Rasulullah, sallallahu alayhi wa alayhi, and his Divine Family, the Imams, alayhi mus-salam, providing help and assistance to the rest of the creation on the Day of Judgment. On the Day of Judgment, the people are weak, they are being judged, they are in need of the strength of the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa alayhi, and his Faith and his Holy Family, he's be upon them all. So, they provide the strength to lift up the people into Jannah, insha'Allah. So, that is the essence of it. Now, if we take a look at Shafa'ah from the Quranic perspective, the verses may fall under three categories. One category suggests there is no Shafa'ah. Second category suggests that there is Shafa'ah, but only Allah SWT. Third category says there is Shafa'ah, and some individuals or humans or creation of Allah have the ability to perform this Shafa'ah. Isn't that contradictory though? Isn't that beautiful? Exactly. So, now we need to really understand the essence of these three contexts. And that's something important we'd like to highlight. We cannot take one verse of the Quran and isolate it. Treat it as an in-isolation. Quran is to be taken as a whole. So, we take one verse, we have to look at another verse and combine it all together to come up with a conclusion. People who reject Shafa'ah in Islam, they say there is no Shafa'ah. They've taken a look at only the first group of verses. People who say there is Shafa'ah, but only Allah has the one. They've only looked at the second group of verses. People who say there is Shafa'ah, and there are people whom Allah SWT has given them to do Shafa'ah, they've looked at the three verses. But they don't do Shafa'ah to everybody to select a group of people. Now, let's take a look at these three categories of verses very briefly, very quickly. In Surah Al-Baqarah, Allah SWT says in verse 48 There is no self with sufis for another self at all, nor will intercession be accepted from it. No intercession. There is no intercession there. Allah says it's done. In another ayah, Allah says In Surah Al-Mudadfir, That the intercession of those who want to intercede will not help them at all. So, there are a group of people whom the Shafa'ah will not help. However, those people who do not have a group of Shafa'ah interceding help them. Let's take a look at who they are. Allah SWT says in Surah Al-Mudadfir, A group of people who will be in paradise will be asking the people who are being punished in the Hellfire. And I said, What ended you up in the Hellfire? Why did you guys end up in the Hellfire? So, there's a communication, apparently, among the people of Jannah and the people of Jannah. But it's a one-way communication. It can be established by the people of Jannah, not the people of Jannah. They cannot communicate or start the communication with the people of Jannah. So, it's a one-way, but they can reply back with the people of Jannah, interestingly. So, that kind of gives us a very interesting way about Jannah and the Hellfire on the Day of Judgment. We believe in them as separate places. They're far away from one another, but apparently somehow there's a connection, maybe through technology of the iPad or some wireless technology that Allah SWT has developed. Anyways, they said, What ended you up in Jannah? They replied, We did not. We never prayed. We did not used to pray. We did not feed the hungry. We did not care about people. We used to be lied to the Day of Judgment. We never prayed. We used to be lied to the Day of Judgment. We never prayed. We used to be lied to the Day of Judgment. We never prayed. We never fasted. We never did any good deed in our life, and we be lied to the Day of Judgment. We believe that there's nothing in there. Those people will not achieve any Shafa'a, nor will any Shafa'a help them. So, there's a group of people, those who deny the existence, the creation of Allah, they deny everything, the existence of Allah while recognizing understanding there is a Creator. But they just wanted to deny. They were in denial, denial, denial. Such people unfortunately will not achieve any Shafa'a because of their own denial. So, that's one group. That's one group. The second group of Ayat, Allah SWT says to the believers that Allah SWT has all the Shafa'a. Allah SWT has all the Shafa'a. Now, some people say, see, no one else does Shafa'a. Only Allah. We say, okay, absolutely. Allah SWT has the ultimate Shafa'a, the whole power of Shafa'a. But Allah SWT can delegate that power to certain individuals of His creation. This is not shirk association because we say Allah delegates. Allah provides the ability to do Shafa'a. People of His creation do not intrinsically have that ability. Allah instills it. Allah puts it. You feel the Allah. Allah gives it to them. That's a difference. When you say someone independently of Allah, God forbid, has the power of Shafa'a, that is shirk. When you say someone has been given the power of Shafa'a by Allah. That's different. That's not shirk. Allah gives it. Allah does whatever. So, there's no shirk here. So, this is the big difference between the two things. And that's why Allah SWT says, for example, many people have it memorized. Who will do the Shafa'a but with the permission of Allah. So, there are people. And then interesting, Allah says in the ayah of SWT, So, there are people who do intercession. But those people will not benefit from their intercession. They will not do Shafa'a except with whom Allah is pleased. Or accepts the Shafa'a to be performed for them. So, basically, if we put all these verses together, we say Allah SWT has the ultimate power of Shafa'a. Absolutely. The ultimate supreme power, independent power of Shafa'a. On the day of judgment, Allah SWT gives that power. In fact, not only even in Dunya but we'll come to that later. Allah gives that ability out of His mercy, out of His power to a certain selected group of His creation. This group, by the will of Allah SWT, by the permission of Allah SWT they have the ability to perform Shafa'a intercede on some people's behalf. These group of people, they will intercede on the behalf of those who believe in Allah but have committed some sins, committed some crimes. Those, however, who never believed in Allah SWT, they chose to reject the message of Allah willingly, knowingly, deliberately such people will not achieve or deserve the Shafa'a of the Prophet and his family. So that's what we find in these verses. Perfect. Now, who are those who, Allah SWT, grants them the ability of intercession because we find the narrations that Allah SWT gave the prophets and gave the Imams only the ability of intercession. Yet, we find other narrations of Imam Al-Baqir, Imam Al-Sadaq, saying that the ones who visit Karbala, they also get the ability of intercession. Now, is that given by Allah to those people or are these narrations contradicting the actual ayahs because someone who has the ability of intercession has to be sinless, has to know what that person is actually going through and, masha'Allah, we get to touch upon also knowing and the knowledge of the unseen but that's probably later on in the episode. But how is this possible? Allah has full ability of intercession. He gives it certain individuals. Now, those individuals give it to other individuals. Do they have that ability? They have that ability, yes, absolutely, with the permission of Allah SWT, with the permission. Just like Allah. How would a sinful person have the ability of intercession? Well, at the time when they start performing the Shafa'a, they would not be sinful anymore. They would have had their Shafa'a by Rasulullah, to purify them, to cleanse themselves. And now that they've achieved the state where they've been cleansed of all their sins and now they're ready to go to Jannah, some of those individuals will then ask Rasulullah, ask Allah SWT to give them the permission to intercede on behalf of, let's say, a sibling, a parent, a child, a spouse, etc., or a friend. So they will choose some people whom they will try to select. And because they've now been purified, now they're all sinless, they're pure, they're ready to go to Jannah, Allah SWT will give them the ability to do such intercession. Now, a lot of misconceptions are revolving around this because many have the claim that if God gives the prophet the ability of intercession and then they have narration saying that whoever is in love with Ahl al-Bait and follows Ahl al-Bait, automatically he'll be, Shafa'a will reach him. Then what's the problem with having a couple of sins in this world because we know that the prophet is going to do Shafa'a for us. But we'll get to answer that after the short break, if you will, insha'Allah. So, respect the viewers, do stay tuned for we'll be back very shortly and we'll continue the topic about the misconceptions revolving around Shafa'a. That's after the break, so do stay tuned. Respect the viewers, welcome back. Hope insha'Allah I enjoyed that short report. But before the break, we were having a discussion with our very special guest, Sheikh Usama Al-Atar and we have been discussing and clearing up some of the misconceptions revolving around intercession, Shafa'a. Welcome back. Thank you very much. Before the break, we asked a question. This is going around the world, this idea that someone is loving Ahl al-Bait. He does all the rituals, he does everything. Sometimes misses some stuff. But a lot of people say that you don't need to pray, you don't need to do anything because if you love Al-Muqalib, if you love Ahl al-Bait, you're going to go straight into Jannah. The intercession will reach them, ultimately. No shia can go to hell. All of them have to go to heaven. Now is that true? We read the ayah of the Qur'an clearly, just as I mentioned before the break. I said, Those who end up in the Hellfire, they said we did not pray, we did not feed the hungry. We used to kind of engage in very talk. We used to deny the day of judgment. And hence they end up in Jannah. And Allah says, And wall upon those who pray but take their Salat lightly. They don't respect their Salat. So it's clear from the ayat, that one has to perform the obligations of Allah SWT. Has to pray, has to fast, has to perform all these deeds. Raining from the sins, because there are consequences to sins. Now, some people, if they have performed their amaa, their deeds, everything, but their deeds is not 100%. I mean, look at our Salat. How much in our Salat do we actually concentrate? 10%, 20%, 50%? As soon as we say Allah Akbar, we go somewhere else. I mean, that's our Salat. Look at our Siyam. So although we're doing acts of obedience, they're not acts of disobedience, they're not good. They're not in their perfect state. We need the Prophet's Shafa'ah to make them 100%. To boost them up a little bit. So now, when we commit a sin though, there will be a consequence. Some consequences will be in dunya. You might see the effect, the consequence of your sins. Allahumma gharliya ad-dunnuba la ki tunzulu al-bala. Dunub tu ghayru al-na'a. Tunzulu al-niqa. And so as we read in the Al-Qumayah, some of the sins that might send calamities upon me that would prevent my dua'a from being accepted, etc. So there are some consequences here in dunya. There are some consequences in the Qabur where Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala might make a person endure some punishment in the grave. And if a person then gets purified in the grave as a consequence of his sins, then on the Day of Judgment, he'll be pure and Allah will grant him the shafa'a of the Prophet and he can go to jannah. However, there's still some leftover of his disobedience. He may end up in jahannam for some time. Now, he might stay there forever or by the permission of Allah, stay there temporarily and then be transferred over to jannah after Allah's forgiveness bestows upon him. So there is that concept where you can do whatever you want and then Allah will forgive us or the Prophet will just have intercession for us and let's see that some people try to propagate and promote just so that they can justify some of the ways of life. Yes. Now, Sheikh, a very brief answer so I can get to the same question. Does Allah or is Allah selective when it comes to prophets and their intercession or do all the prophets have the ability of intercession? Imam Al-Sadiq, alaihi salam, says the prophet, our prophet. There is no one according to the hadith. No one on the Day of Judgment but will be in need of the Shafa'ah of Muhammad, sallallahu alaihi wa alihi wa sallam. Everyone on the Day of Judgment will be in need of the intercession of Rasulullah. Perfect. Everyone. It means who? Even the prophets. Even the prophets will need that Shafa'ah. How about the Imams? No, the Imam Muhammad and Ali Muhammad. They are the same because there is no one on the Day of Judgment. Beautiful. Now, the thing is, do the prophets have the ability of intercession or do they not other than Prophet Muhammad? They may have the ability to intercede on behalf of their nations, their communities, their people who believe in them. Perfect. Now, in chapter 11 verse 46, Allah SWT when Nuh tried to intercede on behalf of his son Allah told him, stop. He's not from your family anymore. Correct. But what did we say? Who are the people who don't qualify for Shafa'ah? The people who didn't pray, but this is the Prophet's son. Doesn't matter. He belied the Day of Judgment. He belied the command of Allah. He belied his father. So even if his your son too bad, he doesn't qualify. The Prophet tried to intercede? In dunya. Not in Akhira. But he was told in dunya that he does not qualify for your intercession. So let go of him. And he would never ever do that. He would never intercede for him on the Day of Judgment. Now we see that also Allah SWT even during the battles of Prophet Muhammad as soon as someone would convert to Islam right away his even if it's in war and your about to strike him and he becomes Muslim you cannot strike him anymore. He's on a safe side now. But so technically that's intercession. His conversion to Islam was a sort of intercession him from death if you will. That's different. No. We might call it as intercession. Islam interceded for him. However, Islam forgives everything beforehand. So the person becomes a Muslim let's say at the age of 50. For example, at the age of 50 he finds the truth and he becomes a follower of this beautiful religion. Then he says, well, for the past 50 years I've never prayed. I may even have drank alcohol. I've committed some sins. We say that's fine because you were not a follower of Islam. Now that you've accepted and embraced the religion of Islam all your past deeds have been forgiven. So now you need to move on forward. Perfect. Now we see Pharaoh also when he's about to die he says, now I believe in the God of Moses. So why did intercession not reach him? Because it was when he saw death. When you see death, then too late. Time is over. So you're telling me no one during the time of the prophet converted out of fear? They did. They did not see the death literally the angel of death coming to them, taking their soul away. Pharaoh saw the angel of death coming to take his soul away. At that moment he said, I believe now. But that was the moment when he saw the angel of death too late now because now he's coming to take your soul away. At that point, it's too late. Anytime before that point, before you see the angel of death even if it's five minutes, I'm in the bore like you say the example, people in the battle they see the Muslims beginning victorious. True, but they don't still see the angel of death. So maybe to protect their lives, they said the Shahada. Islam says you have to take it by the literal word because you don't see what's in the heart of people. So you cannot make assumption. Anyone who says the Shahada is a Muslim and this is something that is agreed upon by all Muslims. That's why it's very, very important to realize and this is just as a side note very important to realize that whatever those so-called Muslims, in fact these terrorist groups are doing under the name of Islam by killing Muslims contradicts everything about religion and therefore these people do not even belong to the religion of Islam. Because Islam clearly states anyone who even utters He's a Muslim and you cannot touch him or harass him. And what those people are doing is completely against the religion of Sharia. Now, Shaykhna, what also is equally important as an intercession or in terms of misconceptions, if you will, is the aspect of we have about five minutes till the end of the show. I know we don't have a lot of time to talk about this but it's also controversial as well in the terms that Allah says I am the one that has knowledge of the unseen and He says I choose who to give it to and then no one knows the knowledge of the unseen so it's similar to intercession. Now, what's the issue with the knowledge of the unseen? Again, same thing, it's very same. Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala has the knowledge of the unseen independently. Allah does not need anyone to gain the knowledge of the unseen from. He is independently on His essence and His essence is capable of knowing everything. However, He chooses to bestow some of this knowledge to select the group of His creation. Isa, A.S. according to the Qur'an tells the people I can tell you of what you keep in food in your houses, of food in your houses. I can tell you. I can tell you what will happen later on. How does He know that? Allah gave Him the ability to know. He can tell people what to do and what not to do. And so on and so forth. So the Prophets were given this power by Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala to know the knowledge of the unseen. Now, Shahan, does knowledge vary of the unseen? Yes, it does. From people? How? Yes. Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala gives the degrees of the knowledge of the unseen. He has the ultimate knowledge. And then one degree less than His ultimate knowledge is the knowledge of Muhammad and Ali Muhammad and then, excuse me, the Prophets then vary in that range. Ibrahim had a high ranking of the knowledge. Other Prophets were to follow. Yes. Now, perfectly mentioned that after Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala Muhammad comes to the people of the house who have knowledge of the unseen. Now, Sheikhna, what is knowledge of the unseen? It's knowledge of things that will happen in the future. In the future. And no, not just in the future. Anything that has happened where the Prophet physically was not present, he knows. Perfect. So in a situation, the Imam is able to know what this person is about to do. Perfect. Now, how did the Imam go into their death? Was it not suicide in this term? No, it's not suicide at all. For a couple of reasons. First of all, when it is a matter of saving the religion, all Muslims say it is permissible to give up your life, sacrifice your life for the sake of saving religion. Just like, for example, we read in the battle of Tabuk, Ghazwat Tabuk, and what happened... Sorry, Mu'ta, my apologies. Mu'ta, the battle of Mu'ta. Ja'far Al-Tayyar, and Abdullah ibn Gawah, the leaders of the camp of the Muslims, when they saw that the enemies are getting victorious, getting victory, they said, let's go for the Shahada, that Allah has promised the reward of those who get martyred in the way of Allah. So they went and they got killed. The Prophet did not say they committed suicide. You know, they could have just ran away. Perfect. Defending the religion of Islam, defending religion, sacrificing your life for the sake of religion, is accepted by all Muslims. Our Imam sacrificed their lives to keep the religion of Islam alive. Perfect. That's one. Second, when Allah orders you to do something, then you do it, regardless of what it is. This is what's called Taslim, and the Gawah, that submission and being pleased with whatever he dictates. Allah orders the Imam to eat that poisoned food at that point. There's an order. And there is a matter of submission now. Sheikhna, when someone, and for example, when you mentioned Ja'far al-Tayyar and the battle of Mu'tah and him dying, perfectly, he was defending Islam. Imam al-Husayn, knowing he was going to die, but he was defending Islam. He did it defending Islam. But when we see the Imams drinking poison, when Mahmoun gave the poison to Imam Raza, Imam Raza drank it like he knows that that's poison. According to knowledge of the unseen in the Quran, he knows. Sheikhna, isn't that committing suicide? And for example, you know, I'm putting poison in a glass in front of you, and I give it to you. You're going to drink it? Well, if Allah orders me to drink it, then I will drink it. If the command comes from Allah, only from Allah, or from a divine person like Qasrullah, Sallallahu alayhi wa ala, or the Imam al-Masrul. Why would Allah tell someone to drink poison? To test their submission. Test their submission. How much can they submit? That's why they were in the pinnacle of the submission to Allah. Allah orders them. Didn't Allah order Ibrahim to slain his son? Why did Ibrahim do it? Isn't this out of the norm, out of the ordinary? Isn't this something that people say he's killing his own son? Yeah. Well, because Allah orders and Ibrahim submits. Even if it's killing yourself or killing your son. When Allah orders, you say, yes, master, I will do so. Allah orders Ahlul Bayt al-Aliyya Muslim at that point to drink this poison. So they submit to the will of Allah, with pleasure, with happiness. And their death. Their death is a means of defending the religion of Islam because it exposes in one context, exposes the tyrants. The death of Imam Ghurba al-Islam, exposed al-Ma'moon al-Abbasi. The death of Imam Al-Kawam al-Islam, exposed Harun al-Rashid. But couldn't they expose him in a different way? For example, if I wanted to expose someone, I would make a plan, make a scheme to expose him. But, you know, is it not going... Imam al-Hussein al-Islam spoke against Yazid ibn Muawiyah. Imam al-Hussein tried to wake people up using lectures, sermons. He went to Mecca and he used Hajj as a means to propagate the message of Islam. But there was no way but to sacrifice himself for the sake of Allah to protect the religion of Islam. Not only that, in addition to that, he had to take the women and the children with him so that they would be taken as prisoners so that this message can remain alive of Imam al-Hussein. So this is all submission to Allah. When Allah orders, this is the way they submit to Allah in following that way. Now, Sheikh Nader, the final question for tonight. Is it possible for someone, and I mentioned that a bit earlier as well, for someone ordinary to have knowledge of the unseen, a lot of people claim that, you know, when you're watching YouTube, when you're watching TV, the mind readers and those psychiatrists will tell you that, you know what? You're feeling this, you're not feeling this. Or someone that claims, and sometimes it becomes true, is that also given by God or is that something taught? We have to differentiate between the medical perspective versus those who do not have the medical background. You talk about psychiatry, that's a medical perspective. So they might really analyze how you're feeling or psychologists, for example, they've kind of analyzed your feeling and then they might give you some suggestions as to why you're feeling this way, et cetera. The consequences of some of the actions you may be doing from the medical perspective. So this is the knowledge based on some scientific evidence or some data that they collect. So that's one thing. This is different from those who, like you said, the palm readers or the mind readers, et cetera, et cetera. Those people, we reject what they claim. But sometimes it's true. You know, even if they get something right, but that may not necessarily mean that they have been given the knowledge of the unseen through the divine purposes. So they learned it. They've learned it and could be through the jinn, because the jinn have the ability to go across time or distance. So for example, some people, this is getting into witchcraft and all this, which is all forbidden and haram in Islam, but it is there. It does exist. There is the word, the word, comes in the Quran, this magic, the black magic, where some people associate with the power of the jinn, which is not a divine power. This power is what is an unhealthy power, evil power. And they can ask the jinn, go and find out what is so-and-so doing, let's say, in the other part of the world. Then they'll immediately come back and say, well, you are going to be, or you just did this and when you were over there, like how did you know? I was like all the way, because they had that connection with the jinn. So some people do have that power. The way to protect ourselves is reciting the four goals of the Quran, Ayatul Kursi on a regular basis, saying Salawat Alaa Muhammad Wa Ali Muhammad, saying Bismillah Al Rahman Al Raheem, I seek refuge with Allah from those who hear the teachings of the Shiites, and I seek refuge with Allah from those who worship them. Some of these Ayat and some of those Adhkar that Ahlul Bayt have taught us, to protect ourselves from this. So people don't have, now, some people, because of their submission to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, because of their submission, Allah gives them some of this power. But this is different because these people do not use it in an evil way. They use it in a positive way. So some mu'mineen, people who follow the path, they pray, they fast, they pray in Salatul Layl, read the Quran, don't disobey Allah. Then Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala may give them some power, some ability to see of what is going on and what is happening in the future, in the near future. But this is very limited. Unlike Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam and his family who have in the worldly creation sense an unlimited power given to them by Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. But the ultimate supreme knowledge of the unseen is within Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. And he has some knowledge that only he knows of. No one of his creation is aware of. So that is the ultimate knowledge of Allah. So we have these different states or ranks. Allah the ultimate knows everything intrinsically, independently. And then you have him spreading this knowledge unto people with different degrees. Ahlul Bayt have the pinnacle of that knowledge and then the people after them it varies in their ranks. InshaAllah, thank you very much for the beautiful discussion today. And we beautifully cleared up some of the most important and crucial misconceptions that are going around the societies and the communities today. Thank you very much for joining us tonight. Hopefully we can continue the discussion after a different time. Thank you very much once again respective viewers. Thank you very much for tuning in tonight. Hopefully we can understand what Islam is all about and how can we clear up some of the misconceptions revolving around topics such as this. Hopefully you have benefited from this. Once again, thank you very much. Wassalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.