Most Sunni authors reject the Shia view and offer various alternatives, chief among them that this verse enjoins love for kinsfolk in general.
[2] In this vein, the Shi'a-leaning historian ibn Ishaq (d. 767) narrates that Muhammad specified al-qurba to be his daughter Fatima, her husband 'Ali, and their two sons, Hasan and Husayn.
[3] Among others, the Sunni historian al-Baladhuri (d. 892) quotes Hasan in his Genealogies of the Nobles as referring to the verse of the mawadda in his inaugural speech as the caliph after the assassination of his father in 661.
[4]The Isma'ili jurist al-Qadi al-Nu'man (d. 974) writes that the Sunni scholar Hasan al-Basri (d. 728) had once reported on the authority of the early exegete ibn Abbas (d. c. 687) that Muhammad considered Ali, Fatima, and their sons as the al-qurba in this verse.
The Sufi scholar Ahmad ibn Ajiba (d. 1809) counters that the present ending (mawaddat fi al-qurba) creates a more emphatic injunction to love Muhammad's kin.
[1] For instance, al-Tabari lists four different proposals and the one he prefers is that the verse of the mawadda instructs Muslims to love Muhammad because of their blood relations to him.
[5] Yet another proposal listed by al-Tabari is that the verse of the mawadda asks Muslims to love God in approaching him through their deeds,[11] a view also propounded by Hasan al-Basri.