بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
The prophet (ﷺ) said:
وَإِنَّ أُمَّتِي سَتَفْتَرِقُ عَلَى ثِنْتَيْنِ وَسَبْعِينَ فِرْقَةً كُلُّهَا فِي النَّارِ إِلاَّ وَاحِدَةً وَهِيَ الْجَمَاعَةُ
“… and my nation will split into seventy-two sects, all of which will be in Hell apart from one, which is the Jamā’ah.” (Ibn Mājah 3993. Declared Sahīh by al-‘Irāqī, Ibn Kathīr, al-Albānī)
The prophet (ﷺ) said:
لاَ يَزَالُ طَائِفَةٌ مِنْ أُمَّتِي عَلَى الْحَقِّ مَنْصُورِينَ لاَ يَضُرُّهُمْ مَنْ خَالَفَهُمْ حَتَّى يَأْتِيَ أَمْرُ اللَّهِ عَزَّ وَجَلَّ
“There will not cease to be a group amongst my Ummah who will be upon the truth and prevail, and those who oppose them will not be able to harm them, until the command of Allāh comes to pass.” (Sahīh Muslim 1921, Ibn Mājah 10 and others)
Imām Ahmad said:
“If the aided group is not the People of Hadīth, then I have no idea who it is.” (Ma’rifah ‘Ulūm al-Hadīth pg. 2)
Shaykh al-Albānī said:
“Some people may find it hard to accept the explanation of those scholars that the Victorious Group and the Saved Sect, are the People of Hadīth, but that is not strange if we remember what follows:
That the People of Hadīth are, due to their specilisation in studying the Sunnah and what is connected to it, likewise the knowledge of the biographies of the narrators and the defects in the narrations and also the knowledge of the different routes of narration, most definitely, they are the most knowledgeable of the people about the Prophet (ﷺ) and his guidance, manners, battles, and everything else connected to him.”
(The creed of the pious predecessors, the people of hadīth, introduction pg. 5)
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