52 – ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAmr (may Allah be pleased with him) reported that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “There will surely befall my ummah exactly what befell the Children of Israel, matching them step for step, so much so that if among them there was a man who openly approached his mother, there will indeed be someone in my ummah who does the same. The Children of Israel split into seventy-two sects, and they added yet another creed; and in another narration: my ummah will be seventy-three sects, all of them in the Fire except one.” They asked, “O Messenger of Allah, which is the one?” He replied, “That upon which I and my Companions stand,” and in another wording: “Those who are upon what I and my Companions are upon.”

53 – Thus the Prophet ﷺ informed us that the saved faction is the one that holds fast to what he and his Companions were upon. Whoever follows them is consequently among the saved faction, for he stands upon what they stood upon; whereas whoever contradicts them is among the seventy-two groups that are in the Fire. Likewise, anyone who does not follow the salaf—may Allah have mercy on them—and who, concerning the attributes affirmed in the Book and the Sunnah, speaks from his own opinion with no precedent among the salaf, has introduced something new into the religion and innovated; and the Prophet ﷺ said, “Every newly introduced matter is a bidʿah, and every bidʿah is misguidance.”