They further affirm that Quraysh are the noblest of the Arabs; that Banū Hāshim are the noblest of Quraysh; and that the Messenger of Allah—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—is the noblest of Banū Hāshim. Thus, he is the most excellent of all creation in person and the most exalted in lineage.

The superiority of the Arabs, followed by Quraysh and then Banū Hāshim, is not merely because the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—came from them, although that too is a virtue. Rather, they are intrinsically superior, and by that very fact it is established that the Messenger of Allah is unsurpassed both in person and in ancestry; otherwise the reasoning would be circular.

For this reason Abū Muḥammad Ḥarb ibn Ismāʿīl al-Kirmānī, a close companion of Imām Aḥmad, said in his description of the Sunnah:

“This is the doctrine of the leading scholars and the transmitters of ḥadīth, the People of the Sunnah who are known for it and taken as exemplars in it. I met the scholars I met in Iraq, the Ḥijāz, Syria, and elsewhere who all held to it. Whoever opposes any of these doctrines, disparages them, or maligns their exponents is an innovator who has left the Community, departed from the path of the Sunnah, and strayed from the way of truth. It is also the doctrine of Aḥmad, Isḥāq ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Mukhallad, ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Zubayr al-Humaydī, Saʿīd ibn Manṣūr, and others with whom we sat and from whom we took knowledge. Part of their creed was that faith is composed of word, deed, and intention.”

He went on at length … until he said:

“We acknowledge the Arabs’ due right, their merit, and their precedence, and we love them, for the Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—said: ‘Love for the Arabs is an act of faith, and hatred for them is hypocrisy.’”