Quote:Volume 6, Book 60, Number 316:
Narrated Anas:
A banquet of bread and meat was held on the occasion of the marriage of the Prophet to Zainab bint Jahsh. I was sent to invite the people (to the banquet), and so the people started coming (in groups); They would eat and then leave. Another batch would come, eat and leave. So I kept on inviting the people till I found nobody to invite. Then I said, "O Allah's Prophet! I do not find anybody to invite." He said, "Carry away the remaining food." Then a batch of three persons stayed in the house chatting. The Prophet left and went towards the dwelling place of Aisha and said, "Peace and Allah's Mercy be on you, O the people of the house!" She replied, "Peace and the mercy of Allah be on you too. How did you find your wife? May Allah bless you. Then he went to the dwelling places of all his other wives and said to them the same as he said to Aisha and they said to him the same as Aisha had said to him. Then the Prophet returned and found a group of three persons still in the house chatting. The Prophet was a very shy person, so he went out (for the second time) and went towards the dwelling place of 'Aisha. I do not remember whether I informed him that the people have gone away. So he returned and as soon as he entered the gate, he drew the curtain between me and him, and then the Verse of Al-Hijab was revealed.
---فخرج النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم فانطلق إلى حجرة عائشة فقال السلام عليكم أهل البيت---
http://hadith.al-islam.com/Display/Displ...0&Rec=7027
As you can see, the Prophet (pbuh) considers his wives as "ahlul-bayt" as well.
Hadji: I think you should know better than to quote a Shia a hadith narrated by Anas ibn Malik. You might know that we don't hold a very good view of this man. Hence this hadith is unreliable.
Regarding the context of 33:33. It is clear to me that the context itself excludes the wives from AhlulBayt for a few reasons.
1. The tone changes from legislative threats to will of purification.
2. The pronoun gender changes.
3. The reason the sentence "innama....." is placed amongst the Ayats about the wives is clearly to distinguish AhlulBayt from the Prophets wives.
4. The sheer number of Hadiths from sahih muslim, Sunan tirmidhi, al-mustadrak al-Hakim, Musnad Ahmad, Durr alManthoor Suyuti, Tafsir Tabari etc etc.
5. Parenthetical sentences are not uncommon in the Quran e.g. 5:3.
May I pose a question. Does "Innama Yureed Allah......3ankum al-Rijs AhlulBayt wa Yuttahirakum Tatheera" Not mean "purifying of sin"? It is well know that the wives of the Prophet were not sinless. Then it should be clear that the wives of the Prophet are not included in AhlulBayt.