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1. To cite this:
Virani, Shafique N. “Ahl al-Bayt.” In Encyclopedia of Religion. Edited by Lindsay Jones. 2nd ed. Vol. 1. 198-199. New York:
Macmillan, 2005.
www.academia.edu/37219447/Ahl_al-Bayt
www.shafiquevirani.org

2. 198 HL AL-BAf
Txs, byond the Tts, edited by Michael Witzel,
pp. 207-234 (Cambridge 1997). Details on the Jain point
of viw and elaboration of he ahiisi concept are included
in the chapters ofPadmnabh S.Jaini's hefainaPath ofPu­
iiaion (Berkeley, Calif., 1979). The reader will ind many
relections in Gandhi's autobiography: in Gujarati, Mohan­
das Karamcand Gandhi's ayanipyo ahaa amakathi,
2 vols. (hmedabad, 1927-1928); in English, An Auobiog­
phy, or he oy ofMy peimens with Tuth, translated
by Mahadev Desai and Pyarelal Nair (1927-1929; 2d ed.,
Ahmedabad, 1940).
COEIE IUAT (1987 ND 2005)
HL-BAT. The conception ofthe ahlal-bayt, "peo­
ple of the house," "family," or "household" of the prophet
M.ammad pls a vital role in Islamic thought and piety.
In the tshahhud portion of the ritual prayers, Muslims of
all persuasions supplicate daily, "O God! Bless M.ammad
and his family (i), as you blessed Abraham and his family."
Qur'anic prophetology is pregnant with the notion of
a hallowed lineage. God's chosen messengers among the Isra­
elites are believed to he been descended rom one another,
as the ur'an states: "Truly, God chose Adam, Noah, the
family of braham, and the family of 'Imran above all
the worlds, ofspring, one ater the oher" (IIl:33-34). The
ur'an portrys the chosen among the families and descen­
dants (i, ah, qub, and dhurya) of the prophets as sup­
portive ofthe messengers during their missions and included
in God's merciul protection. Thy are oten the prophets'
material and spiritul legatees, heirs with respect to kingship
(mu), rule (Jukm), wisdom (Jikm), the book (kiti) and
the imamate (N:54, l:84-91, X:27, VIl:76-77,
Lll:26).
As with the families of the previous prophets,
M.ammad's family is accorded a special status in the
ur'an, the prophetic tradition (J), and the schools of
religious law. At the outset ofM.ammad's mission, God
commands him: "Warn your nearest kin (al-aqabfn), and
lower your wing to the faithul who ollow you" l:21-
215). The Qur'an lso makes certain monetary consider­
ations or the Prophet's relations (hi'l-qurb) VIIl:41,
LC:7), and on account of the sanctiied status of the pro­
phetic family, Muslim legal practice dictates that
Mu)ammad and his clan not touch the alms ofthe commu­
nity, lest such deilements (awsi) pollute them. The purity
ofthe family is most fmously attested to in the verse known
as athr (puriication): "God desires only to remove impuri­
y rom you, 0 People ofthe House (ahl al-bayt), and to pu­
riy you completely" (XIIl:33).
Muslim tradition, in accordance with the widely report­
ed /dith al-ksi' or al- 'abi', enerally identiies
M.ammad himself; his daughter, Fatima; her husband and
the cousin ofthe Prophet, 'Ali; and the Prophet's two grand­
sons by this marriage, al-Hasan and l-lusayn, as the nude-
us of the "house." Shiism also allows or the imis and, in
a looser sense, other righteous progeny descended rom 'Ali
and Fatima to be accounted as part ofthe family, while some
SunnI reports expand the term to include the Prophet's
wives or the collateral branches of his relations, such as, the
'Abbasids or even the Umayyads.Al-NabhnI provides a sur­
vey ofreports on who is included among the ahl al-bayt (al­
Shaf al-mu'abbad i-il uJamm, Cairo, 1381/1961,
pp. 10-34). It is, howver, in light of the /dith al-ksl or
al-'abi', the "tradition of the mantle," that both ShI'I and
SunnI commentators ovewhelminly intepret the verse of
ahr. According to this account, the Prophet wrapped him­
selfand the other our members of his family in his mantle,
solemnly declaring, "O God, these are the People of my
House (ahlbayt)!" He then recited the Qur'anic verse ofpu­
riication. Frequentlythis incident is connected with the epi­
sode ofmubihaa (mutul imprecation), which relates to the
visit of a delegation of Christians rom Najran in the year
631632. The accounts relate hat here was a dispute re­
garding Christology and it was decided toresort to the ritual
of "mutual imprecation" to decide which party was in the
right, thatofM.ammad or that ofthe Christian delegation.
Thus M.ammad is commanded in the ur'an III:61: "If
anyone dispute with you in this matter [concening Jesus]
ater the knowledge that has come to you, sy: Come, let us
call our sons and your sons, our women and your women,
ourselves and yourselves, then let us swear an oath and place
the curse of God on those who lie." Accordingly, the ive
members ofthe ahl al-bayt gathered or the ritual. However,
the mubihaa is said to he been averted when the Christian
side reached a conciliation with the Prophet.
In traditions recorded in both ShI'I and SunnI sources,
the Prophet likens his family to Noah's ark, sying: "Among
you, my ahl al-bayt is like the Ark ofNoah. Whoso embarks
therein is saved and whoso lags behind is drowned." In the
well-known reportknown as the /adith al-thqaayn (the tra­
dition of the wo weighty things), likewise ound in both
ShI'I and SunnI sources, he is reported to he said: "Verily,
I am leaving with you two weihty hings, the Book ofGod
and my progeny, my ahlal-bay. So long as you cling to these
wo, you will never go astray. Truly, thy will not be parted
rom each other until thy join me at the ountain [in
paradise]."
In the Qur'an Lil:23, M.ammad is commanded to
address his disciples as ollows, "Say: I do not ask you or any
recompense or this [the apostleship] save love or the kins­
olk (al-qurb)." Here, "kinsolk" is largely understood to be
the Prophet's kinsolk, thouh divergent interpretations exist
as well. The general attitude is well represented in a state­
ment of l-Shi'I (d. 820), the eponmous ounder of one
of the our predominant SunnI schools of jurisprudence,
who is quoted as saying: "O members of the House of the
Prophet, love or you is a duty to God hat He has revealed
in the Qur'an. ith respect to your great magniicence, it
suices to say thatanyone who does not invoke blessins or
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION, SECOND EDITION

3. you has not performed the daily pryer" (al-NabhanI,
p. 184). long the same lines, Ja'far al-Sadiq (d. 765), a de­
scendnt of the Prophet and one of the ShI'I iis, de­
clares: "Everything has a oundation, and the oundation of
Islam is loving us, the Prophet's family" (imad b.
Mubammad al-BarqI, itab al-maJsin, Najf, 1964,
p. 113). Certainly primarily ShI'I, traditions also ssign a nu­
minous role to the family.The ive family members are envi­
sioned s beings of light, existing in pre-creation, whose
names are derived rom God's most beautiul names (see, or
example, Furat b. Ibrhim b. Furat al-KuI, Tair uat
al-Kul, Najaf: al-Marba'a al-iaidaria, n.d., p. 11). Such
reports provided ecund material or mystical speculation. In
his Gujarati composition Muman Chiveii, or example, the
ourteenth-century Ismaili sage Pir Sadr al-Din interprets
this idea by describing how the Almighy placed the pole star
(qu), luminous by the light of the ive holy ones, in the ir­
mament at the time of creation. Its brilliance was so over­
whelming, howver, that the hevens begn to tremble un­
controllably. Only when the name 'lI was written on the
coners of the universe was stabiliy restored ( o munar
moti, Mumbai: DhI Khoja SindhI Chhapkhanul, 1905,
p. 3).
A number of designations, rougly synonymous with
the term ahl al-bay, became popular in the Muslim world.
In the more restrictive sense, terms such as ahl(or a4 al-ksa
(or al- 'aba1, "the people of the mantle," or in Persian­
speaking and Persian-inluenced ares, paj an-i pak, "the
ive pure ones," are prevalent, while in the more general sense
of thedescendants of the Prophet,epithets such s alal-nabi,
al al-rsul or alysin are widespread.
Throughout Islamic history, the descendants of the
Prophet, oten styled as saysor hari, hve been the ocus
of particular respect. ShI'I imas, along with many SufI
shaykhs, SunnI politicl leaders and Muslim religious schol­
ars of various persuasions, hve oten drwn tremendous le­
gitimacy and authoriy rom heir illustrious descent rom
the Prophet. In modern times one my cite he iim of the
lsmailis, Prince Karim Aga Khan, and the ruling families of
Morocco and Jordan as cases in point. he descendants of
the ahl al-bayt he requently ormed a distinct social clss
in Muslim societies, sometimes even recognizable by distin­
guishing orms of dress, the green turban being particularly
notworthy. At the same time, a conception exists of a spiri­
tual ahl al-bayt, sometimes referred to as the bayt al-waJy,
"the house of prophecy," into which the devotees of the pro­
phetic family my be initiated,hile unrihteous blood rela­
tions my be xcluded.Thus one has the Prophet's celebrat­
ed dictum about his Persian disciple: "Salman is one of us,
the ahl al-bayt."
The theme of devotion to the members of the mily has
touched many aspects of Islamic piey, literature, architec­
ture, iconograpy, and mystical thought hrough the ages.
For xample, he great poet 'bd al-.man Jami
(d. 1492), an initiate of the Naqshbandi SufI order, declares
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION, SECOND EDITION
HL AL-BAT 199
that praise of the ahl al-bayt ennobles the encomiast
(Mahnawha-yi Hat Awang, Tehran, 1351 S/1972,
p. 145), while Sana'I (d. 1121), in a section of his fdiqa,
pleads or divine pardon in the name of his love or the
Prophet's kinsolk (fdiqat /-Jaqa wa shari'at al-ariq,
ed. Mudarris Ralawi,Tehran, 1329 S/1950, pp. 642-643).
Remrkably, domestic architecture in parts ofTajikistan and
injiang is centered on ive columns, interpreted by the in­
habitants as representative of the ive puriied ones of the
Prophet's amily. In the early tweny-irst centuy the mem­
bers of the Prophet's household continue to be celebrated in
songs and invoked in pryers and are even the subjects of nu­
merous web pages on the internet.
BIBIOGPY
Scholarly research on the concept of the ahl al-bayt has over­
whelmingly concentrated on the political implications of this
term in the early Muslim community. In this connection see
Moshe Sharon's Back Bannersrom the Est (Leiden, 1983);
"Ahlal-bay-People of the House,"esaem Sdies inAa­
bic andIsam8, no. 2 (1986): 169-184; and "The Umayads
as ahl al-bayt," esaem Sdies in Aabic and sam 14
(1991): 115-152. n rlier but widely quoted study by
udi Parer sugested that the term ahlal-yt in the Qur'an
referred to he adherents ofthe cult of the House, that is, the
Ka'bah. Seehis "Der Plan einer neuen, leicht kommentierten
Koranibersetzung," in Oienalssche Sudien Enno Lit­
mann zu seinem 60. ebuag, edited by R. Parer (Leiden,
1935). Wilord Madelung provides a meticulous and in­
depth examination of previous opinion and articulates his
own conclusions in he ucsion o MuJammad (Cam­
bridge, U.K., 1997). rly Shi'I traditions, including of
course those related to the ahl al-bay, are examined in Mo­
hammad li mir-Moezzi, Le Gue Divin Dam Lehi'sme
Oiinei translated as The Divine Guie in Eary Shi'sm (Al­
bany, N.Y., 1994); ynda G. Clarke, "Early Doctrine of the
Shi'ah, According to the Shi'i Sources" (Ph.D. diss., McGill
Uniersiy, 1994); Meir M. Bar-Asher, Scipure andss
in ary Iami Shism (Leiden, 1999); and S. Husain M.
]ri, Oiis andary Deveopment o/hi'a Isam (London,
1979). The incident of the mubihaa is dealt ith in Louis
Massignon, "La Mubahala de Medine et l'hperdulie de
Fatima," reproduced in Opera Minor, Tome I,
pp. 550-572 (Beirut, Lebanon, 1963); bdelmadjid Mez­
iane, "Le sense de la mubahala d'apres la tradition is­
lamique," samo-hsana 2 (1976): 5967; and udolph
Strothman, "Die Mubhala in Tradition und Liturgic,"
sam 33 (1957): 5-29. Massinon's article "Salman Pak et
!es premices spirituelles de l'Islam Iranien," reproduced in
Opea inor, Tome I, pp. 443483 (Beirut, Lebanon,
1963), discusses the role of Salman's initiation in Islamic
piety. The appearance of the ahl al-bayt in Persian iconogra­
phy is daborated in Maria ittoria Fontana, "lconograia
dell'Ahl al-Bat: immagini di arte persiana dal XII al X se­
colo" (Naples, Italy, 1994) (Supplemento n. 78 ali Annali
vol. 54 [1994], uc. 1). Reerence ro he most important pri­
mary source materials may be ound in the above-cited txts,
and in the articles in this encyclopedia on 'Ali, Iusayn, and
Fatima.
SFIQUE N. INI (2005)