The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 1) — Page 126
CH. 2 AL-BAQARAH freedom by paying a ransom. With regard to this the Quran says, nor shall ransom be taken from it. Finally, when a criminal sees that all other means of escape have failed, he thinks of using force and getting his release by violence. With regard to this, the Quran says: nor shall they be helped, i. e. they shall find no helpers against God. The Quran mentions these things not by way of threat but to make the Jews realize that they should not entertain false hopes. The only way open to them was to accept the Holy Prophet whom God had raised for their own good. Here arises a very important question. What is the teaching of Islam about acle (intercession)? Does Islam hold it to be quite useless and unlawful, as would appear from the verse under comment, or does it hold certain forms of acle to be useful and lawful and others to be useless and unlawful? From the teachings of the Quran and the Hadīth it appears that the latter view is correct and we proceed to discuss it accordingly. It should be stated at once that the word "intercession" is a very imperfect rendering of the word acle. It conveys only a part of the meaning of acles and that too very imperfectly. As explained under Important Words, the root meaning of the word acle is to attach or connect or join a thing, or, for that matter, to connect or join oneself with another thing or person so as to form a pair or a couple on the basis of similarity. The Quran uses the different derivations of this 126 PT. 1 word in no less than 29 different places and in all of them the root meaning of the word is retained in one form or another. The word is used in the sense of "intercession" because the person who intercedes for somebody must have a twofold connection: Firstly, he must have a special connection with the being or person with whom he wishes to intercede, for without such connection none dare intercede nor can intercession be fruitful. Secondly, he must also have a special connection with the person for whom he intercedes, because none can think of interceding for a person unless he is specially connected with the latter and is akin or similar to him. In religious terminology ace means intercession with God by a holy man for a sinful person. Here too the twofold connection referred to above is essential. The holy person who intercedes with God must have a special connection with Him, enjoying His special favour and being very near and dear to Him. On the other hand, he should also have real connection with the person on whose behalf he wishes to intercede; for without such connection he cannot be properly moved to intercede nor can his intercession carry much weight with God. In fact, the intercessor, on the essential basis of the aforementioned double connection, approaches God saying, as it were, "My God, I come to Thee with a special request, knowing that Thou art well pleased with me and that I enjoy Thy special favour. Here