“Twelve months is the number of months with God, according to God’s book, since the day when He created the heavens and the earth: of these four are sacred; this is the right usage. But wrong not yourselves therein; attack those who join gods with God in all, as they attack you in all: and know that God is with those who fear Him.
“To carry over a sacred month to another, is only a growth of infidelity. The Infidels are led into error by it. They allow it one year, and forbid it another, that they may make good the number of months which God hath hallowed, and they allow that which God hath prohibited.”
INTERCESSION. Arabic Shafāʿah (شفاعة). There is a general belief amongst Muḥammadans that their Prophet is a living intercessor for them at the throne of God; but the Wahhābīs state that the intercession of their Prophet will only be by the permission (Iẕn) of God at the last day, and that there is no intercession for sins until the Day of Judgment. The teaching of the Qurʾān and the Traditions seems to be in favour of this view.
[Sūrah ii. 256]: “Who is he that can intercede with Him but by His own permission?”
[Sūrah xix. 90]: “None shall meet (in the Day of Judgment) with intercession save he who hath entered into covenant with the God of mercy.”
[Sūrah xx. 108]: “No intercession shall avail on that day, save his whom the Merciful shall allow, and whose words He shall approve.”
[Sūrah xxxiv. 22]: “No intercession shall avail with him but that which He Himself alloweth.”
[Sūrah xxxix. 45]: “Intercession is wholly with God.”
[Sūrah lxxviii. 38]: “On the day whereon the spirit (Rūḥ) and the angels shall stand ranged in order they shall not utter a word, save he whom the God of mercy permits, and who shall say what is right.”
The statements of Muḥammad, as contained in the Traditions, are as follows:—