Categories of people in respect to the loyalty (al-walāʾ) and disavowal (al-barāʾ) that are owed to them

Mankind, in this regard, is divided into three groups:

First group: those who must be loved with pure, undiluted love, untainted by any hostility. They are the true believers—the prophets, the Siddiqs (steadfast affirmers of the truth), the martyrs, and the righteous.

Foremost among them is the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, for loving him is more obligatory than loving one’s own self, one’s father, one’s child, and all people combined.

Then come his wives—the Mothers of the Believers—his blessed household, and his noble Companions, especially the rightly guided caliphs, the remaining members of the Ten promised Paradise, the Emigrants, the Helpers, the warriors of Badr, the pledgers at the Tree of Ridwan, and thereafter the rest of the Companions—may Allah be pleased with them all.