The intended meaning of the Sunnah in the saying of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him): “Whoever turns away from my Sunnah is not one of me”

The Shaykh : Here, a brief pause is necessary regarding his saying (peace be upon him) in this hadith: What is the intended meaning of the Sunnah here? Some people may assume that the intended meaning of the Sunnah is what is defined among the jurists by dividing acts of worship into many categories based on the difference in the command for them or the encouragement of them. They say, for example, that the obligatory part of the midday prayer is four rak'ahs, and the recommended practice of the midday prayer is two rak'ahs before it and two rak'ahs after it, up to the known recommended practices, which are ten rak'ahs in every day and night, as Abdullah ibn 'Umar ibn al-Khattab said: The total is ten rak'ahs, my voluntary recommended practices. And so on, there are many recommended practices. The intended meaning in his saying (peace be upon him): is not the Sunnah that is less than the obligatory, but rather what is broader than that: my Sunnah, meaning: my path that I established and followed in my life. This is the intended meaning of the word Sunnah in this hadith. It is not intended to mean my Sunnah as in what is not obligatory, but the way, path, and methodology that the Messenger (peace be upon him) followed in all acts of worship, which Muslims must adhere to and not turn away from or deviate from. Like this hadith, the hadith: The intended meaning is not my Sunnah as in what is less than the obligatory, but rather my path and my methodology, and so on with other hadiths. The point is his saying (peace be upon him): which is what the scholars mean when they say that a condition of righteous work is that it be in accordance with the Sunnah of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him).