Some of the misguided sects distinguish between the Sunnah and the hadith, saying that the Sunnah is the mass-transmitted report agreed upon by the Muslim community, such as the five daily prayers, while what comes in the form of details and particulars they call hadith, and they say they do not accept hadith unless it agrees with the Book. How do we respond to them?

The student : Their perspective and their evidence is that the Qur'an has internal and external sources of interpretation. They count the language of the Qur'an as one of the internal means, and they also count the structure and arrangement of the Qur'an as internal means. They say that the Sunnah and hadith are external means. Then they say that by Sunnah they mean practical mass-transmission; they mean whatever the Muslim community practices, such as the five prayers, fasting, and Hajj. This is from the Sunnah. And what is issued, for example, raising the hands or the details of the prayer...

The Shaykh : ...are the postures of the prayer.
The student : ...they call it hadith. So they say: We test the hadith against the Book; we do not accept it unless it matches the Book. However, they do not deny the Sunnah, but they also say that the Sunnah is an external means, not an internal means for interpreting the Qur'an. This is what the one who contemplates the Qur'an said, in detail.
Another student: What is his name?
The student : Muhammad Amin... all of them...The Shaykh : ...he has passed away.
Another student: He has [works on] enjoining good and forbidding evil.
The student : He has many books and a great tafsir in Urdu.

The Shaykh : In any case, our Lord (Mighty and Majestic) says: , and the well-known hadith is: . First, regarding the hadith: as I said earlier, there is no dispute over terminology. But if the terminology leads to the denial of something that came to us from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), whether we call it Sunnah in the comprehensive sense or in the narrow sense you mentioned last, this is, in my knowledge, the school of those called the Quranists. Whether we adopt this term or that, the matter is as he (peace be upon him) said, as you know on other occasions: . What is the outcome of this terminology, which is distinguishing between the practical Sunnah and the verbal Sunnah that came, as they say, through singular reports, which do not convey certainty, only conjecture? If this terminology and this distinction is to clarify reality, as is the case in the science of terminology where hadiths are divided into categories: authentic, good, weak, and fabricated, there is no harm in this because it explains reality. But if a hadith is good and we do not accept it, ah, this is a rejection of what is established in the opinion of the people of hadith, meaning the scholars of hadith, that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said it, even if by way of conjecture and not by the certainty derived from a mass-transmitted report. So, these people I mentioned earlier, the consequence of their distinction is the denial of the Sunnah. At that point, we say, as the Lord of the Worlds said, and this verse is very important for us in responding to those who oppose the methodology of the righteous predecessors in their adherence to the Sunnah, whether it came from one person or more. We argue against these distinguishers who take some of the Sunnah and disbelieve in some of it by saying, arguing against them with the words of our Lord (Mighty and Majestic): . Therefore, I like what Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah (may Allah have mercy on him) mentioned on this occasion, and may Allah reward him for Islam and the Sunnah with the best, that if a disagreement occurred among the predecessors on an issue between two opinions, it is not permissible to invent a third opinion because it is a deviation from the path of the believers. And if there are more than three opinions, for example, it is not permissible to invent a fourth opinion because it deviates from the path of the believers. So these people I referred to, and I thought they are the ones known as the Quranists, these people deviated from the path of the believers. Those who preceded them in this distinction, one of whose effects is the destruction of much of the Sunnah. I was in Damascus and I met with some young men deluded by the so-called Quranist call. And the Qur'an, without doubt, commands us with the Sunnah, if they knew. He rambled around what I mentioned about them earlier. We take what agrees with the Qur'an. I said to him, do you pray? He said, yes. I said, pray. He came with a prayer that has absolutely no basis; it is from the innovation of his ignorance or from whoever taught it to him. Well, this has no basis, and there are many hadiths, authentic by the consensus of the Muslim community. So how did you deviate from the Muslim community and from the consensus of the Muslim community? And the consensus of the Muslim community is a proof as long as it does not contradict the Book or the Sunnah. So this is my belief: it is not befitting for us to pay much attention, and when I say "much," I mean what I say; I do not mean it is not befitting for us to pay attention. No, I say it is not befitting for us to pay much attention every time we hear a caller calling with a newly invented call that no one from our righteous predecessors said anything of. But we pay attention to the extent that we refute the doubts and we fear for those who are weak in knowledge that they may be entangled, that they may deviate, and that they may consider the mirage as water. So we respond to them to the extent, but we do not pay much attention to them because the matter is as the Lord of the Worlds said, and they will continue to differ except for those whom your Lord has shown mercy.
The student : May Allah bless you.