ʿUbayd Allah ibn Musa narrated to us, from Ismaʿil, from Qays, from al-Mughirah ibn Shuʿbah (may Allah be pleased with him), that the Prophet ﷺ said: “A group from my community will remain manifest until Allah’s command comes while they are still manifest.”

A similar wording is reported from Abu Hurayrah, Muʿawiyah, Jabir, Salamah ibn Nufayl, and Qurrah ibn Iyas (may Allah be pleased with them all) on the authority of the Prophet ﷺ.

Abu ʿAbd Allah said: “There was no disagreement about this among the people of knowledge up to the time of Malik, al-Thawri, Hammad ibn Zayd, and the scholars of the various lands. After them came Ibn ʿUyaynah among the scholars of the Hijaz; Yahya ibn Saʿid and ʿAbd al-Rahman ibn Mahdi among the hadith scholars of Basra; then ʿAbd Allah ibn Idris, Hafs ibn Ghiyath, Abu Bakr ibn ʿAyyash, Wakiʿ and their peers; likewise Ibn al-Mubarak among his followers, and Yazid ibn Harun among the people of Wasit—down to the era of those we ourselves met from the inhabitants of the Two Sanctuaries, Mecca and Medina, the Iraqis, the people of Greater Syria, Egypt, and the hadith scholars of Khurasan. Among them were Muhammad ibn Yusuf in his Muntabiyyah, Abu al-Walid Hisham ibn ʿAbd al-Malik in his Mujtabiyyah, Ismaʿil ibn Abi Uways with the scholars of Medina, Abu Mus-hir among the Syrians, Nuʿaym ibn Hammad with the Egyptians, Ahmad ibn Hanbal with the people of Basra, al-Humaydi of Quraysh and those Meccans who followed the Messenger, as well as Ishaq ibn Ibrahim and Abu ʿUbayd among the specialists in language. All of these figures, known for knowledge in their respective times, were unanimously agreed that the Quran is the Speech of Allah. Whoever deviates from this, or neglects the clear path so that it becomes obscure to him, must have his matter referred back to the Book and the Sunnah, for Allah the Exalted says: “If you dispute about anything, refer it back to Allah and the Messenger” (al-Nisa 4:59).