The label “Muslim” is the name that Allah the Exalted chose for everyone who responds to the call of His Messenger, peace and blessings be upon him.
Allah the Exalted said:
“وَجَاهِدُوا فِي اللَّهِ حَقَّ جِهَادِهِ هُوَ اجْتَبَاكُمْ وَمَا جَعَلَ عَلَيْكُمْ فِي الدِّينِ مِنْ حَرَجٍ مِلَّةَ أَبِيكُمْ إِبْرَاهِيمَ هُوَ سَمَّاكُمُ الْمُسْلِمِينَ مِنْ قَبْلُ وَفِي هَذَا”
“And strive for Allah with the striving due to Him. He has chosen you and has not placed upon you in the religion any hardship. It is the religion of your father Ibrahim. He named you Muslims before and in this” (al Hajj 78).
Ibn Kathir (d. 774 AH) said: “His saying: هُوَ سَمَّاكُمُ الْمُسْلِمِينَ مِن قَبْلُ وَفِي هَذَا “He named you Muslims before and in this” (al Hajj 78). Imam Abdullah ibn al Mubarak (d. 181 AH) narrated from Ibn Jurayj (d. 150 AH), from Ata (d. 114 AH), from Ibn Abbas (d. 68 AH) regarding His saying: “He named you Muslims before.” He said: Allah, Mighty and Majestic.
And the same was said by Mujahid (d. 104 AH), Ata (d. 114 AH), al Dahhak (d. 105 AH), al Suddi (d. 127 AH), Qatadah (d. 117 AH), and Muqatil ibn Hayyan (d. 150 AH).
And Abdur Rahman ibn Zayd ibn Aslam (d. 182 AH) said: His saying “He named you Muslims before” means Ibrahim, due to His saying: رَبَّنَا وَاجْعَلْنَا مُسْلِمَيْنِ لَكَ وَمِن ذُرِّيَّتِنَا أُمَّةً مُّسْلِمَةً لَّكَ “Our Lord, make us Muslims in submission to You, and from our offspring a nation Muslim in submission to You” (al Baqara 128).”
Tafsir Ibn Kathir (5/456).
This name was sufficient for the Muslim to distinguish himself from the misguided ones among the Christians, Jews, and polytheists, until sects arose that claimed to belong to Islam yet opposed Allah and His Messenger, and entered into the religion of Islam matters that are not from it, such as the Shia, the Khawarij, the Muʿtazila, and other sects that appeared after them.
The Muslims who followed what the Prophet ﷺ came with needed to distinguish themselves from the people of misguidance and innovation, after they started to appear
They did so by describing themselves with a praiseworthy description in the Sharia which Allah and His Messenger love, namely following the Sunnah and path of the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, and his rightly guided caliphs, and their concern for uniting the word of the Muslims, but uniting upon the truth that the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, and his companions were upon.
The answer is that every group of the innovators only claims that what they believe in is what the Messenger of Allah was upon, since they all claim the Sharia of Islam, outwardly adhere to its symbols, and hold that what Muhammad ﷺ came with is the truth. But the paths then divided them, and they introduced into the religion that which Allah and His Messenger did not permit.
So every group claimed that it is the one holding to the Sharia of Islam, and that the truth with which the Messenger of Allah stood is what it believes and follows.
Yet Allah, the Exalted, refused that the truth and the sound creed be except with the people of hadith and reports, for they took their religion and creed generation after generation, century after century, until they reached the Tabi‘in, and the Tabi‘in took it from the Companions of the Messenger of Allah, and the Companions took it from the Messenger of Allah himself.
And there is no path to knowing what the Messenger of Allah ﷺ called the people to of the straight path and the upright path except this path which the people of hadith walked. As for the other sects, they sought the religion not by its true path, for they returned instead to their intellects, ideas, and opinions.
They sought the religion through these. If they heard something from the Book or the Sunnah, they weighed it against the standard of their intellects. If it matched, they accepted it. If it did not match in the scale of their intellects, they rejected it
If forced to accept it, they distorted it with far-fetched interpretations and strange meanings. So they deviated from the truth, turned away from it, cast the religion behind their backs, and placed the Sunnah under their feet. Exalted is Allah above what they describe.
As for the people of truth, they placed the Book and the Sunnah in front of them, and they sought the religion from them. Whatever occurred to them of their intellects and ideas, they weighed it against the Book and the Sunnah.
If they found it in agreement, they accepted it and thanked Allah the Mighty and Majestic for showing it to them and guiding them to it. If they found it opposed to them, they abandoned what occurred to them and turned to the Book and the Sunnah, accusing themselves, for the Book and the Sunnah guide only to the truth. A man’s opinion may see the truth and it may see falsehood.
This is the meaning of the saying of Abu Sulayman al Darani (d. 215 AH), who was unmatched in his time in knowledge:
My soul has never suggested something to me except that I sought for it two witnesses from the Book and the Sunnah. If they came with them, I accepted. If not, I rejected it back upon it, or words with this meaning.
And among what shows that the people of hadith are upon the truth is that if you examined all of their authored books from the earliest to the latest, the old and the new, despite their different lands and times, and the distance between their homes, and each one of them residing in a different region, you would find them in explaining the creed upon one way and one manner, proceeding in it upon a method from which they do not turn away nor deviate.
Their statement in this is one, their action one. You do not see among them difference or division in anything, even if small. Rather, if you gathered all that passed upon their tongues, which they transmitted from their Salaf, you would find it as if it came from one heart and flowed from one tongue. And is there any proof clearer than this that they are upon the truth?
Allah the Exalted said: أَفَلَا يَتَدَبَّرُونَ الْقُرْآنَ وَلَوْ كَانَ مِنْ عِندِ غَيْرِ اللَّهِ لَوَجَدُوا فِيهِ اخْتِلَافًا كَثِيرًا
“Do they not reflect upon the Quran? If it had been from other than Allah, they would have found in it much contradiction” (al Nisa 82).
And He said: وَاعْتَصِمُوا بِحَبْلِ اللَّهِ جَمِيعًا وَلَا تَفَرَّقُوا وَاذْكُرُوا نِعْمَتَ اللَّهِ عَلَيْكُمْ إِذْ كُنتُمْ أَعْدَاء فَأَلَّفَ بَيْنَ قُلُوبِكُمْ فَأَصْبَحْتُم بِنِعْمَتِهِ إِخْوَانًا
“Hold fast to the rope of Allah all together, and do not be divided. And remember the favour of Allah upon you, when you were enemies and He brought your hearts together, so you became brothers by His favour” (Aal Imran 103).
Al Irbad ibn Sariyah narrated: “The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, gave us a sermon one day after the dawn prayer, a sermon so eloquent that eyes wept and hearts trembled from it. A man said: This is the sermon of one bidding farewell, so what do you entrust us with O Messenger of Allah?
He said: I entrust you with the fear of Allah, and listening and obeying even if an Abyssinian slave becomes a leader, for whoever lives after me will see much differing. Beware of newly introduced matters, for every innovation is misguidance. Whoever among you lives to see that, let him adhere to my Sunnah and the Sunnah of the rightly guided caliphs after me. Hold fast to it with your molar teeth.” (Reported by al Tirmidhi (2676) who said: “This is a hasan sahih hadith.” Also reported by Abu Dawud and Ibn Majah (43).)
From here, those who followed the prophetic way, the athari path, became distinguished with this praiseworthy description: “Ahl al Sunnah” (the people of Sunnah), “Ahl al Hadith wa al Athar” (the people of hadith and report), or “Ahl al Sunnah wa al Jamaah.”
As Shaykh al Islam Ibn Taymiyyah (d. 728 AH) said: ” Their way is the religion of Islam which Allah sent Muhammad ﷺ with.
But when the Prophet ﷺ informed that his Ummah would divide into seventy-three sects, all of them in the Fire except one, and he said in the hadith:
“They are the Jama‘ah.”
And in another hadith from him ﷺ he said: “They are those who are upon what I am upon today and my Companions.”
Then those who hold fast to pure Islam, free from mixture, are the people of Sunnah and Jama‘ah. Among them are the truthful ones, the martyrs, and the righteous. From them are the guides of guidance and the lamps in darkness, the people of known virtues and mentioned merits.
Among them are the abdal, the Imams upon whose guidance and knowledge the Muslims have agreed.”
Majmu al Fatawa (3/159)
