Who is the Saved Sect?

The Ummah Divided

It is reported that God’s Messenger, may God bless him and grant him peace, said: ‘My ummah will be divided into 73 sects (firqah), all of them will be in Hell except for one that will he saved; and every one of them will claim to be that one’. The hadith has been reported in many different versions. In one of them the text states that the saved sect is the one that follows the way of God’s Messenger, may God bless him and grant him peace, and his Companions, may God be satisfied with them. In another it is said that all these sects will be saved except one that will perish, but this report appears to be weak (da‘if).

          The hadith states that each of these sects will claim that it is saved. The claim of every sect that it alone is the saved one is only natural: only a madman would insist on following a sect that will perish. The members of each of the sects have tried hard to prove that they follow the truth and are on the right path, the one followed by Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, and his Companions and that all others have strayed from the way of God, in both doctrine and conduct.

          The imam (Muhammad ‘Abduh) has examined this hadith and debated the claims of each sect and the proofs offered by it to show that it is the saved sect. He then demonstrated that they are equally likely to be on the right path according to God or on the wrong one. His conclusion was mat none of these sects can be the saved one, since that is the one that follows the way of God’s Messenger, may God bless him and grant him peace, and which is divided among all the sects. They are the believers who are not misled by the sayings of mere mortals and who do not follow the ways of error and who only hold onto the guidance of the protected one and his Companions, who are like the stars, ‘whichever of them you follow you shall be guided’.

          What the learned imam said is of value and his understanding of the inner values of the Islamic Shari‘ah in this age, his attachment to the truth, defense of God’s religion reminds one of the earliest age when truth was the utmost goal of the believer, searching for it wherever it leads and standing by it wherever it appears.

The Saved and the Damned of the Sects

On the face of it the hadith that we mentioned about the division of the community in its different versions suggests that 72 of the Muslim sects will perish and only one be saved. If we take this as is, and suppose that Muslims were indeed divided into 73 sects and that this number is real and finite, can we look into this matter from a different perspective?

          Every one of these sects contains millions of Muslims, only God knows their number. All these millions vary in their levels of knowledge, education, intellect and religious consciousness to an extent that cannot be measured or defined. Within each of the sects the number of people who have concerned themselves with the origins of the doctrinal principles upon which the community became divided, such as predestination, divine justice and the attributes of the Creator, is a very small minority.

          As for the remainder of those who conform to one or other of these sects, they know next to nothing about these profound questions that require special qualifications. They perform their religious duties according to the manner in which they were taught to do so, believing in God and His Messenger, peace be upon him, and what he brought with him as a whole and in its details, seeking closeness to God through their deeds, and not having the educational qualifications that would allow them to discuss Qur’anic verses or study the question of the ‘clear’ and ‘obscure’ verses of the Holy Book. Their limited intellectual capacity does not permit them to access the sort of research carried out by the scholars of theology (‘ulama’ al-kalam). It would never occur to the common

Ash‘ari, Ibadi or Mu‘tazili to inquire into the problem of predestination; he naturally believes that nothing in this universe takes place without God’s will. The common man from among these sects does not comprehend terms like ‘Essence’ or ‘Attributes’, or if the ‘Attributes’ are identical with the ‘Essence’, and other issues that require knowledge and sharp wits. Can all these Muslims of different sects who believe in God and perform good deeds be of those who go to hell? For, on the face of it the hadith divides Muslims into 73 sects, consigning 72 of them to hell.

          Many jurisprudents have milked about the faith of old women, saying that their approach to faith should set the example for Muslims, since, it is a faith in God that cannot be shaken nor succumb to any uncertainty, however great it may be. This believer is, despite his naivety and simplicity, a strong believer. It is said that some of the Companions asked a woman once in the presence of God’s Messenger, may God bless him and grant him peace, about God and she replied, ‘He is in the heavens‘. He, peace be upon him, then said, ‘Leave her alone, she is a believer’. He did not ask them to give her a long lecture about the impossibility of the Creator, exalted and glorified is He, being contained or indwelling (in some created thing), since her intellectual capacity does not allow her to absorb such issues. Are all these old women — who get away with their faith unscathed, who know their Lord, perform their duties, preserve their religion, and avoid what God has forbidden — bound for hell, just because they belong to one of those sects which the hadith, on the face of it, has condemned to painful chastisement? Does Islam require that all the followers of the sects, men and women, investigate the origins of these sects and their doctrines, in order to discover which is the saved one and enter it, in order that the mercy of God and His satisfaction may enfold them?

          I think that such an obligation is beyond human nature and that the tolerant nature of Islam would not require such an arduous task, one that would not be within the ability of the average Muslim who believes in God and thinks of Him when going about his work, and who fears Him and obeys His prohibitions.

          What God‘s Messenger, may God bless him and grant him peace, said (‘he will be successful, if he has spoken the truth') about the man who swore that he would not perform any acts of worship beyond the obligatory ones, provides an example of the tolerance of Islam and its forbearance and its acceptance of a believer’s deeds without any requirement that he delve into questions of philosophy or the divisions between schools of thought.

          God is satisfied with Islam as a religion for the community of Muhammad, making it the last of His messages to (the people of) the earth. He has made this community the best community brought form for mankind. The community of Muhammad is the community that shall have fulfillment: those of the community that are true to the religion of God — whatever sects they belong to — hope for God’s mercy and they fear His torment, and they are the ones most worthy of God encompassing them with His mercy and enclosing them in forgiveness, except those that persist in disobedience or bury themselves in discord.

          Before concluding this section, I think it appropriate to cite some selections from Abu Ya‘qub’s sayings about the division of the community and the way to reconcile God’s saying, exalted is He, You were the best community brought forth for people... [Al ‘Imran, 110], and the hadith of the 73 sects (‘My community shall be divided into 75 sects. . . ’). He said: Judging by what we have seen of this community’s extension into the eastern and western limits of the earth, and provided that God, exalted is He, protects them from idol-worship and taking other than Him as Lord, and that there will always be people of the right path among them, then salvation is [their] natural destiny, except for two classes: those that innovate in the religion of God, may He be magnified and glorified, and those that persist in disobedience to Him and are distant from Him: neither of these two have any chance of going to Paradise.

          In another place, he writes: Bid‘ahs are many: the bid‘ah that seeks to destroy the foundations of Islam is the worst in general, since it is all-encompassing, affecting the young and old; as for the one that is limited to reports and does not aim to destroy the foundations of Islam, for example, disagreement over the (application of) terms such as mu’min or muslim, kafir or fasiq, mushrik or munafiq in Islamic law, or over the Qur’an and the divine attributes. Since these concepts for the most part harm the person that speaks them and not the one that hears them, as long as he does not believe them as a religion for the worship of God, exalted is He, or as a way of cutting off the excuse of a Muslim who differs, or with the intention of destroying a principle of Islam: in such instances, no excuse for him. As for the one who restricts himself to the principles of Islam: the profession of the faith (shahada), prayer, the alms-tax, fasting, and, if he is able, the pilgrimage, then perhaps, perhaps . . . (he will be excused). Similarly, for the one confined to remote places in enemy territory, whose imam conveyed to him only the basic pillars of Islam and did not convey anything of the disputes within the ummah, and did not explain (all that), he cannot be denied the profession of the faith or opinions against other men. As for women, dependents, the simple-minded and the very young, they are not affected by this. Similarly again, Islam was not preached to the people of Africa until 500 years after the Hijrah, and so they were not acquainted with the disputes and divisions between the doctrines and sects: God’s compassion and mercy is beyond that He requite one for another’s sin. He has said, exalted is He: No soul shall bear the burden of another [al-Isra, 15].

Reference:

Ibadism in History, Volume I: The Emergence of the Ibadi School, By Ali Yahya Mu'ammar, pg: 32-36.