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Question:
What does 'ahl al-bidat' mean?

Answer:

Praise be to Allah.

The term in simple terms means "The people who have innovated in there belief" This term is often used to discribe perticular people. This is what Imam Ahmad Raza wrote:

If the cause of an innovator's dissent from Ahl as-Sunnat is his belief in the superiority of 'Ali over Abu Bakr and 'Umar (radi-Allahu 'anhum), he is of ahl al-bidat as it is written in Hulasa, Hindiyya and many other invaluable books. The one who does not believe in the khilafat (caliphate) of one or both of the latter two caliphs was said to be a kafir by the 'ulama' of fiqh and to be a man of bidat by the 'ulama' of kalam. For the sake of precaution, the term 'man of bidat' should be used for them. One absolutely becomes a kafir if says that Allahu ta'ala is a creature, or that the present Qur'an al-karim is deficient and contains alterations of as-Sahabat al-kiram and of later times, or that 'Ali (radi-Allahu 'anh) or one of the Twelve Imams is superior to prophets. It is written in Hindiyya, Zahiriyya, Al-Hadiqat an-nadiyya and in fiqh books that he will be treated as a murtad. There is detailed information on this subject in the book Makalat al-mufassira an ahkami 'l-bidati 'l-mukaffira

(Hazrat Imam Ahmad Rida Khan Barelvi, Fatawa al Haramayn)

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