The Shi’a and the Sunnis agree in cursing this group of and...

The Shi’a and the Sunnis agree in cursing this group of and have nothing to do with them. There was a special group of who distinguished themselves from the others by being relatives of the Prophet (saw), in addition to having possessed ethical and spiritual virtues and personal distinctions from Allah and His Messenger that no one else was honored with.

These were (the Prophet's Family) whom Allah cleansed and purified, and ordered us to pray for them in the same way as he ordered us to pray for His Messenger. He made it obligatory for us to pay them one fifth of our income, and that every Muslim must love them as a reward for the Muhammadan Message.

They are our leaders and we must obey them; and they are people firmly rooted in knowledge who know the interpretation of the Holy Qur'an and they know the decisive verses of it, as well as those verses which are allegorical. They are the people of al-Dhikr whom the Messenger of Allah equated with the Holy Qur'an in his saying "the two weighty things" (al-Thaqalayn), and ordered us to adhere to them[^1], He equated them to Noah's Ark: whoever joined it was saved, and whoever left it drowned[^2].

The knew the position of and revered them and respected them. The Shi’a follow them and put them above any of the , and to support that they have many clear texts as proofs. The Sunnis respect and revere the but do not accept the above classification and do not believe that some of the were hypocrites; rather, they see the as being the best people after the Messenger of Allah. If they classify the then it would be according to their seniority and their merits and their services to Islam.

They put the Rightly Guided Caliphs in the first class, then the first six of the ten who were promised with heaven, according to them. Therefore when they pray for the Prophet (saw) and his household they attach with them all the without exception. This is what I know from the Sunni scholars, and that is what I heard from the Shi’i scholars regarding the classification of the ; and that is what made me start my detailed study with the issue of the .