Saturday (1). Both were founded on piety. Likewise, his wives, Alī, Fātimah, al-Hasan, and al-Husayn (2) are all members of the Household. Yet Alī, Fātimah, al-Hasan, and al-Husayn (3) have a more particular claim to that status than his wives; hence he singled them out in his supplication.

People have differed over who constitutes the family of Muhammad.

It has been said that they are (4) his community. This is the view of a group of Mālik’s and Ahmad’s followers, as well as others (5).

It has also been said that they are the pious members of his community. They narrated the hadith:

“The family of Muhammad comprises every pious believer.”

Al-Khallāl and Tammām narrated it in the latter’s al-Fawā’id. A group of Ahmad’s followers and others cited it as evidence, but it is a fabricated hadith (6). On (7) that basis, a group of Sufis held that the family of Muhammad consists of the elite among Allah’s righteous allies, as al-Hakīm al-Tirmidhī mentioned. The correct view is that the family of Muhammad consists of the members of his Household. This is the position reported from al-Shāfiī and Ahmad, and it was also the view preferred by al-Sharīf Abū Jafar and others. But are his wives among the members of his