Yasar – Umm Salamah...

Yasar – Umm Salamah: In my house, it was revealed {Allah intends but only to keep impurity away all from you, O , and to purify you absolutely}. Then, the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, sent for ‘Ali , Faṭimah , al-Hasan and al-Husayn and said: “ O Allah! These are my .”[^10] Al-Hakim says: هذا حديث صحيح على شرط البخاري This hadith is sahih upon the standard of al-Bukhari. ^11 Imam al-Dhahabi (d. 748 H) agrees with him: على شرط البخاري Upon the standard of al-Bukhari.

^12 It is clear that the statement was revealed as an independent “verse” in the house of Umm Salamah. We also see that the “” in it are only those of Muhammad, according to his own tafsir . The Prophet equally went ahead to physically identify his “” as ‘Ali, Faṭimah, al-Hasan and al-Husayn, ‘alaihim al-salam . Our righteous mother, Umm Salamah, radhiyallahu ‘anha , understood from his declaration “O Allah! These are my ” that he was excluding everyone else alive.

‘Ali, Faṭimah, al-Hasan and al-Husayn alone were being identified as the “” in the ayah . So, she asked, to clarify: وأنا معهم يا نبي الله ؟ Am I with them, O Prophet of Allah? In the literal sense, the word “” customarily includes the wives of the master of the house. This obviously was Umm Salamah’s understanding too, until when she saw that the Messenger of Allah was giving the term – as used in the verse - a special, restricted meaning.

Her blessed husband gave her a beautiful reply: أنت على مكانك وأنت على خير You are upon your place and you are upon a good thing. She was right there and then standing upon her own place outside the cloak , and her place too was good. However, she did not belong under the cloak with those covered with it. Their place was under the cloak of the Messenger, and her place was outside of it. So, she was not with them, and they were the [^13].

Even after the descent of the ayah in the room of our blessed mother, Umm Salamah, the Prophet, on some other occasions, made sure to publicly display that the phrase “O ” in it referred to none but ‘Ali, his wife and his sons. Imam Muslim (d.