The Most Prominent Characteristics of the People of the Sunnah and the Community

Question:
The questioner says: What are the most prominent characteristics of the people of the Sunnah and the community?

Answer:
Answer: In the name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Bestower of Mercy. Praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds, and may Allah send prayers and blessings upon our Prophet Muhammad, and upon his family and all his Companions. The characteristics of the people of the Sunnah and the community are many, and praise be to Allah. The most prominent of them is: acting in accordance with the Book of Allah and the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him). And the soundness of their creed from ideological deviations and the deviations that befell some of the sects. So the people of the Sunnah and the community are upright upon the Book and the Sunnah, and they act in accordance with what the preferred generations of the Companions, the Tabi'un, and those who followed them in goodness did; acting in accordance with his saying (peace and blessings be upon him): "Hold fast to my Sunnah and the Sunnah of the Rightly Guided Caliphs. Hold fast to them and bite into them with your molars. And beware of newly invented matters, for every newly invented matter is a religious innovation, and every religious innovation is misguidance." So they act in accordance with the Book and the Sunnah and what the Salaf of the Ummah did, and they avoid the newly invented calls. They avoid the false figurative interpretations of the names and attributes, and they affirm the names and attributes in accordance with what came in the Book of Allah and the Sunnah of His Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him). They do not distort, they do not liken Allah to creation, they do not compare Allah to creation, and they do not deny the divine attributes, in accordance with the saying of the Exalted: "There is nothing like unto Him, and He is the Hearing, the Seeing."