Question: As salamu alaykum, please could you give the Ahlus Sunnah interpretation of this hadith jazakallah khair.: I heard the Prophet saying, “There will be twelve Muslim rulers (who will rule all the Islamic world).” He then said a sentence which I did not hear. My father said, “All of them (those rulers) will be from Quraish.”Sahih Al-Bukhari No. 6756 – Narrated by Jabir bin Samura
Answer: wa `alaykum as-Salam. According to Qadi Iyad in Sharh Sahih Muslim and Ibn Hajar in Fath al-Bari these twelve are the strongest caliphs politically and those that mustered the Ummah’s general agreement even if there was dissent in the process, and Ibn Hajar listed them as:
1-4: The Rightly Guided Caliphs (Allah be well-pleased with them)
5: Muawiya (Allah be well-pleased with him)
6: his son, Yazid
7:Abd al-Malik b. Marwan
8-11: his four sons, Walid, Sulayman, Yazid, Hisham
12: al-Walid b. Yazid b. `Abd al-Malik
May Allah have mercy on them and unite the Ummah under a just Caliph in our time. Hajj Gibril Haddad http://www.eshaykh.com/hadith/12-imams/
Shaykh ul-Islam Dr. Tahir ul-Qadri: “Yazid and his supporters including those who regard him as an Imam, and say ‘may Allah be pleased with him’ are cursed“