Discussion of the hadith: (And my Ummah will split into seventy-three sects...) and the cause of their misguidance.

The Shaykh : Recently, the famous hadith was mentioned, which is his saying (peace and blessings be upon him) We find that the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) did not limit himself to merely commanding the following of his Sunnah, but he coupled this command with the Sunnah of the Rightly Guided Caliphs. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) in this hadith seems to have derived this meaning from the Noble Qur'an. The Qur'an says The Messenger says What is it... whether in the verse or in the hadith Why did he not shorten it here in the verse as he did previously with his saying And why did the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) not limit himself to saying "Follow my Sunnah" and not mention... For the sake of what we are currently discussing, which is establishing the methodology that Muslims in every country, in every time and place, must follow so that they remain protected from deviation from the Book and the Sunnah together. This is because these sects, despite their number being seventy-three, are all perishing, and it is written for all of them that they are from the people of the Fire, except for one sect. Is there among all these sects that we have known up to today, excluding the Quranists who appeared in the present age as one of the trials by which Muslims are tested, is there among these sects one who said what these Quranists claim, that Islam is only the Qur'an and contains no... Every group, every sect among them says, "We are upon the Book and the Sunnah." Before this group of Quranists, a group occurred a century ago. This group is more famous in the Islamic world than the Quranists, because the Quranists' era is recent, whereas the group we want to cite as an example now is the Qadiani group. The Qadianis claim to belong to Islam, but they believe in beliefs that are contrary to Islam and differ from Islam. One of the clearest of these beliefs that contradict Muslims is their explicit statement that prophethood and heavenly revelation did not cease, and that there are prophets who come after the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) in large numbers, and that one of these prophets, according to their claim, came in Qadian in the land of India, and he is called Mirza Ghulam Ahmad al-Qadiani... So they used the Qur'an as evidence and also used the Sunnah as evidence, and all the Islamic sects are like this. None of them says, "Islam is rational, Islam is only the Qur'an." Rather, Islam is the Qur'an and the Sunnah. All the sects, however deeply rooted in misguidance they may be, claim that Islam is the Qur'an and the Sunnah, even the Khawarij. So what is the cause of the misguidance of these groups and all these sects, since they all agree on believing in the Book and the Sunnah? Here is the crux of this speech. The cause is that every group among them acts arrogantly and interprets the texts of the Qur'an and the Sunnah according to their desires. From here, misguidance entered these sects. And the fundamental cause of this is that they did not believe, or at least did not act in accordance with, the previous verse meaning the one who opposes the Messenger. It also established following the path of the believers when it prohibited opposing them, saying, coupled with his saying So there are two prohibitions in the verse, corresponding to two commands. The first prohibition is not opposing the Messenger, and the second prohibition is not opposing the path of the believers. Excuse me, opposing the path of the believers. This is the second prohibition, and the first prohibition is opposing the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him). He prohibited that. Corresponding to the two prohibitions are the command to follow the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) and the command to follow the path of the believers. So misguidance entered even among these sects that agreed on following, or on the fact that the Qur'an and the Sunnah are the two sources of Islam in legislation, but they did not follow the path of the believers, so they strayed from the straight path. So the lesson from this verse is that Allah (Mighty and Majestic) commands Muslims in every time and place not to deviate from the path of the believers who came before them in interpreting the verses and in interpreting the hadiths, until a claimant comes to following the Book and the Sunnah, meaning he claims that he is the intended meaning of the Book and the Sunnah, and this is a foreign concept in Islam. And the evidence for this is that the Muslims who were before this interpreter did not interpret the text that he interpreted in the same way he did, but they interpreted it with a different interpretation. So the Muslims who followed a path in interpreting the texts of the Book and the Sunnah, this path is what we are commanded to follow, so that we do not go right and left because of our own interpretation of texts in a way that contradicts what the Muslims before us were upon.