Knowing this group that all Muslims are obligated to follow.

The Shaykh : Who are these people that the call of the group, which we are commanded to adhere to, encompasses? This is the crux of my standing here at this characteristic, out of the Muslims' need today to know the group that they must adhere to and not deviate from, so that their righteous call may encompass them.
Many people today imagine that the group of Muslims is their masses, including the common people, and they build on this the idea that anyone who opposes this group is an outlier. Then they build on that by judging him with a fragment of a hadith that is not authentic, namely: . Here, an error is built upon an error. The first error is in his definition of the group, or in his understanding of the group that must be adhered to and from which it is not permissible to depart. Who is the group? It means the majority; the group is the majority. This is the first error. The second error is that he built on this the idea that whoever opposes the majority is an outlier, and whoever is an outlier is in the Fire. Do you see that the meaning of the group in this hadith, and similar hadiths are numerous: , is a sound hadith? And in the hadith of the seventy-three sects, he (peace be upon him) said: . They said: Who are they? He said: . Do you see who this group is that has this Book? This group is whoever the truth is with, as Ibn Mas'ud (may Allah be pleased with him) said: "The group is whoever the truth is with, even if he is one person." This is the group.
And the evidence for this is: First, the reality of every call to which a prophet or messenger calls. Second, the hadiths that came from the Messenger (peace be upon him) that confirm this reality. We know, for example, that the reality of every messenger, when he first calls people, is that he is alone. And we know with certainty that his call is the call of the truth, absolutely. But the people, at least in the beginning of his call, are all in error. Therefore, on this occasion, I am pleased with the meeting of Musa and Khidr, as mentioned in detail in the Qur'an and the Sunnah. When he met him, Musa said to him: Peace be upon you. He said: And upon you be peace. How is peace in your land? There are no people in this land who know this Islamic etiquette. So he identified himself as Musa, until the end of the story. A prophet, any prophet, when he began his call, was alone with no second person. Then one, two, and three believed in him, and so on. But even so, those who believed are always and forever, in relation to the people of the earth, as He (Glorified and Exalted is He) said: . So the believers are always a few. The believers are always and forever a few.
We today, for example, have some Islamic writers who take pride in looking at quantity and not quality. Because the number of Muslims today is eight hundred million Muslims. And yet, without a census and without verification, the number of disbelievers is still greater than the number of Muslims. And if a large portion of them is considered to have an inherited Islam, not a true Islam, and yet this number is less than the number of those who oppose the Muslims. So this is what I meant by the reality: that the reality of the callers to the truth is always and forever that they are a few. It is not strange that a hadith in "Sahih Muslim" informs us that the prophet-caller, when he was calling, often remained alone with no one believing in him and no one following him. He (peace and blessings be upon him) said that the nations were shown to him, and he saw a black mass that filled the horizon. He asked: Who are they? It was said to him: This is Musa and his people. Then he looked at the other side of the horizon and saw a larger and greater black mass. He asked about it. It was said: This is your ummah. Then he (peace and blessings be upon him) said: And I was shown a prophet with a group and two groups—meaning those who believed with him. A group and two groups is nine and descending. A group is a number of nine and descending. And I was shown a prophet with a man and two men, and a prophet with no one with him. Do you see whether the call of this prophet who had no one with him was a call of falsehood or truth? All the prophets' calls were the call of Islam. His call was truth, but he did not find the ground that would accept this call, so no person at all believed in him. Therefore, it is an error to take the majority as the criterion for knowing the truth. This is the reality.
As for the Sunnah, the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) tells us many hadiths that suit our situation today, about the strangeness of Islam in the end times. The hadiths of strangeness are known to you. But I am glad to give you the glad tidings that the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) gave to his ummah so that they do not despair of the spirit of Allah. He (peace and blessings be upon him) said: , . And a "party" in the language of the Arabs is one person and above. , two men who fought with each other, and it is necessary to reconcile between them. So a "party" linguistically is one person and above. So the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) gives us the glad tidings that this Islam will remain, no matter how severe the strangeness becomes, and no matter how many the opponents and enemies around it are.
So it is not permissible for us to imagine that the meaning of the group is the majority, which is the greater number. Because Islam has never existed on the face of the earth with this meaning, meaning that the majority of people are Muslims. This has never happened at all. Even in the time of the Prophet (peace be upon him), who is the best of times and the best of generations, the majority of people were not Muslims. How is this, when Allah (Mighty and Majestic) says: , and He said: , ? Until the end of the known verses that all agree on condemning the majority and praising the few. That is because the few are mostly those who hold fast to the truth, and the majority are holding fast to falsehood.
If one of the three characteristics here is adhering to the group, then who is the group?
You have known the saying of Ibn Mas'ud that the group is whoever the truth is with, even if he is an individual or one man. And in another meaning, as it came in some of the famous books of hadith, that the group—and this is a confirmation of the word of Ibn Mas'ud and the hadiths we referred to—is the group of knowledge and jurisprudence. If we stop at this phrase, we take a great lesson in our present age. Because defining the group as the group of knowledge and jurisprudence, this definition must be stopped at for a little while to understand it, unfortunately. Because most people do not know the meaning of knowledge itself. What is knowledge? Of course, our research is not knowledge...