Šafā‘a. La cohesión de una sociedad

Abstract

The doctrine of shafā‘a, that is to say, the eschatological intercession of the Prophet for his community, is presented in this work from the perspective of the new bonds of social cohesion of the religious society created by Islam that replaced the aṣabiyya tribal, being the shafā‘a the colophon and the final touch of these new links. After studying this doctrine the security of the final salvation that it offers, a most valuable element of social cohesion, is confirmed, and the exclusivity of the shafā‘a for only the Muslims is highlighted through the comparison of The dispute between the animals and the man of the Ijwān al-Ṣafā’ with Turmeda Dispute of the donkey and through the true cause of the death of al-Ḥallāj according to al-Rūmī. There is, however, an exception to this exclusivity since there are Muslims who are excluded from the shafā‘a. These are the heretics who, with the disclosure of their new doctrines, endanger the unity and cohesion of the community. It ends by suggesting the possible influence of this Islamic doctrine in the devotion to the intercession of the Virgin, since the Marian devotion that with such force bursts into the Christian West from the twelfth century and that is reflected in the Alfonso X the Wise Cantigas and in the Berceo Miracles of Our Lady is a phenomenon still in discussion.