it is necessary to love all of them; to love them is to love our Sayyid, the Prophet. He stated in a hadîth: “He who loves them does so because he loves me.” We should utterly avoid disliking them or, especially, feeling hostility towards one of them, since enmity towards them means enmity towards our Prophet. He said in a hadîth: “He who is their enemy is so because he is my enemy.” To revere, to respect those great people would be to revere and to respect the Best of Mankind. To belittle them would mean to belittle him. For respecting the company of the Best of Mankind and the words of the Best of Mankind, it is necessary to respect and esteem all the Ashâb-i kirâm. Hadrat Abû Bakr-i Shiblî ‘quddisa sirruh’, one of the greater ones of the Awliyâ, says: “A person who does not respect or esteem the Ashâb-i kirâm ‘radiyAllâhu ta’âlâ ’anhum ajma’în’ has denied Rasûlullah ‘sall-Allâhu ’alaihi wa sallam’.”
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