86 Preface وَلا يَملِكُ الَّذينَ يَدعونَ مِن دونِهِ الشَّفاعَةَ إِلّا مَن شَهِدَ بِالحَقِّ وَهُم يَعلَمونَYusuf AliAnd those whom they invoke besides God have no power of intercession;- only he1 who bears witness to the Truth, and they know (him).The classical Commentators construe this clause differently. According to their construction, the clause would be translated, “except those who bear witness to the Truth, and with full knowledge.” “Truth” they would construe to be the Gospel of Unity. According to them, while idols and false gods have no power of intercession, persons like Jesus, who is falsely worshipped by his misguided followers, but who himself preached the Gospel of Unity with full understanding, will have the power of intercession. This implies that we construe the singular man shahida to refer to the same person or persons as the plural hum ya'lamun. This difficulty is removed if we construe as I have translated it. In that case “he who bears witness to the Truth” is the Prophet, who came to renew the Gospel of Unity, and “they know (him)” would refer to the Quraish, amongst whom he was brought up and among whom he earned the reputation of being a man of probity (Amin).