Ahl al-Bayt

Meaning

Etymology

In the Qur'an

Interpretation

"There are several views among the scholars... concerning the definition of Ahl al-Bayt.

• Some said that the members of the Prophet’s family are his wives, his children, Banu Haashim, Banu al-Muttalib and their freed slaves.
• Some said that his wives were not part of the Ahl al-Bayt.
• Some said that the Ahl al-Bayt are Quraysh;

With regard to the wives of the Prophet, the most correct view is that they are included among the members of the family of the Prophet, because Allaah says, after commanding the wives of the Prophet to observe hijaab :
“Allaah wishes only to remove Ar-Rijs from you, O members of the family, and to purify you with a thorough purification” and ansar. According to Sunni doctrine, the term includes the wives and dependants of Muhammad, as it addresses them in the preceding verse – an interpretation which is attributed to 'Abd Allah ibn 'Abbas and Ikrimah ibn Abi-Jahl, both of whom were companions of Muhammad. This is supported by various traditions attributed to Muhammad wherein he addresses each of his wives as Ahl al-Bayt. Further members of the household, according to the Sunni perspective, include Ali, Fatimah,Hasan and Husayn, who are mentioned in the tradition of the mantle. Some versions of this tradition recognise Umm Salamah, a wife of Muhammad, as a part of the household. Thus, according to the Encyclopaedia of Islam, "the current orthodox view is based on a harmonizing opinion, according to which the term ahl al-bayt includes the ahl al-ʿabāʾ, i.e. the Prophet, ʿAlī, Fāṭima, al-Ḥasan and al-Ḥussain, together with the wives of the Prophet." According to Laura Veccia Vaglieri in Encyclopaedia of Islam "there is a story narrated in many traditions according to which Muḥammad sheltered under his cloak, in varying circumstances including the Mubahala, his grandchildren Ḥasan and Hussein, his daughter Fatimah and his son/cousin-in-law Ali; and therefore it is these five who are given the title Ahl al-Kisa or "People of the Mantle". Some have attempted to add Muḥammad's wives to the list; however, the number of the privileged is limited to these five."
Other interpretations include the family of Ali, as well as the families of Muhammad's relatives such as Aqeel, Ja'far, and al-Abbas. Early Islamic jurists Malik ibn Anas and Abū Ḥanīfa included the clan of Banu Hashim within the definition, while al-Shafi'i included the whole of Banu Muttalib.
In Shia thought, the household is limited to Muhammad, Fatimah, Ali, Hasan, Husayn, and their descendants ; as per their deduction from the tradition of the mantle. They interpret the change in pronoun in the Qur'anic verse as showing that only the aforementioned members constitute Ahl al-Bayt. Madelung writes that "this change of gender has inevitably contributed to the birth of various accounts of a legendary character, attaching the latter part of the verse to the five People of the Mantle." Shias view these individuals as infallible and sinless Imams and regard devotion to them as an essential part of the religion.
Shia Muslims also support this claim with a hadith mentioned in the Sunni Ṣaḥīḥ collection. Many Sunni scholars remark that the Verse of Purification was revealed concerning five people: Muhammad, Ali, Fatimah, Hasan and Husayn.
The tradition about this hadith goes from different sources to Fatimah, the daughter of Muhammad. She narrated that once her father visited her home, he had fever and was not feeling well, he asked for a Yemeni cloak which Fatimah brought to him and folded it around him. Later he was joined in that Yemeni cloak by his grandsons Hasan and Hussein, who were followed by their father Ali ibn Abi Talib, who was cousin and son-in-law of Muhammad. Finally Fatimah asked the permission to enter that cloak. When all five of them joined together under the cloak, Muhammad narrated the Qur'anic verse 33:33 to those under the cloak that all five of them are chosen ones, and he further stated that he wants God to keep all impurities out of reach and away from all of us. Muhammad then prayed to God to declare all five of them as his Ahlul Bayt and keep away the Najasat. God, at that request immediately sent Gabriel to reveal to Muhammad that all the five under the cloak are dearest and closest to God and they are Taher without any traces of impurities.
The Twelver and Ismaili branches of Shia Islam differ in regards to the line of Imamate. While the Twelver believe in a lineage known as the Twelve Imams, the Ismaili believe that the descendants of Isma'il ibn Jafar, rather than his brother Musa al-Kadhim, were the inheritors of the Imamate instead.
According to Anas ibn Malik, Muhammad, for six months straight used to pass by the door of Fatimah whenever he left for fajr prayers and said, "it is time for salat, of family of the house ! 'Surely Allah desires to remove all imperfection from you, of family of the house, and purify you completely. From surah Al Ahzab 33, verse 33, Sunan al-Tirmidhi- Vol. 2 sahih 902
Most, but not all Shi'a believe that these A'immah to be the divinely chosen leaders of the Muslim community. This is based on the hadith, "People of the Cloak", where the Prophet referred to only Fatimah, Ali, Hasan, Hussain and Himself, a hadith which many Sunni Muslims believe in. Collectively Muhammad, Fatimah and the Twelve Imams are known as The Fourteen Infallibles.
In Kitab al-Kafi, Imam Muhammad al-Baqir has narrated that there will be twelve Imams from the family of Muhammad, nine from the family of Husayn ibn Ali, the last being Al-Qa'im, and they will be spoken to by angels.

Significance

Muslims accord Muhammad's household a special status and venerate it. This is derived from verses in the Qur'an and hadith which stipulate love towards Muhammad's relatives – though in some cases interpretations differ, an example being: "Say: "No reward do I ask of you for this except the love of those near of kin". According to classical exegete al-Tabarani the verse most likely refers to Muslim believers related by blood ties. Another interpretation adopted by Shia applies the verse to the ahl al-bayt; while another view interprets the verse as commanding love for relatives in general. The latter view is favored by contemporary academic scholar Madelung.
Sharia prohibits the administration of sadaqah or zakat to Muhammad's kin, as Muhammad forbade this income for himself and his family. The explanation given by jurists is that these alms are considered the defilements of the people, who offer them to purify themselves from sin, hence it would be unbecoming of the kin to handle or use them. Instead, they are accorded part of the spoils of war. Muslims in their daily prayers invoke blessings upon them by saying: "O God, bless Muhammad and his family." In many Muslim communities, high social status is attributed to people claiming to be blood-descendants of Muhammad's household, and are labelled sayyids or sharifs.
Most Sunni Sufi circles trace their spiritual chain back to Muhammad through Ali. In Shia thought, Muhammad's household is central to the religion. In one version of Muhammad's farewell sermon, he is represented as saying that God has given believers two safeguards: the Qur'an and his family; in other versions the two safeguards are the Qur'an and his Sunnah. Popular Shia belief ascribes cosmological importance to the family in various texts, wherein it is said that God would not have created Jannah and earth, paradise, Adam and Eve, or anything else were it not for them. The majority of Shia regard the heads of the family as divinely chosen Imams who are infallible and sinless.

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