آل البيت
Āl al-Bayt
Group
The household of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), whom Muslims honour and include in their blessings on him.
What it means
Āl means family and bayt means house, so the name is “the family of the house”, the household of Muhammad (peace be upon him). The Quran addresses his household in surah 33, where God wishes to remove impurity from them and purify them (33:33). In the prayer of blessing on the Prophet, which Muslims say in every ritual prayer, they ask God to bless him and his family (āl). Scholars differ on the exact limits of the household, but all include his wives, his children and his close kin. Muslims of every school honour them for their closeness to the Prophet.
Often misunderstood as
The household is sometimes treated as the concern of one sect, yet all Muslims honour it and bless it in prayer.
Term and Arabic as listed in Ismail al Faruqi, Toward Islamic English (International Institute of Islamic Thought, 1995), p. 25, listed as ĀL AL BAYT. The definition is restated here.