@cheeko..
what about your opinion about this post of mine.. why u r reluctant to endourse this hadith MA ANA ALAHI WA ASHABI (tirmizi) eager to read your reply about this wether you agreed or disagreed.. dont hesitate cz this is what all three sects hanafi fiqah believes on.. dont know abt urs..
Malik sahib, if you read the quran the context of this hadith will become very clear.
The quran says all human beings were one single family ie ummah but some went their own way after the guidance was made clear to them ie people invented their own religions against what allah revealed. They divided into sects ie reliigons others than that was sent by allah.
In islamic source texts numbers are rarely for precision just to give an idea.
If you take number as some thing exact then the hadith will make no sense at all.
So when prophets came they came with very same religion=way of life guidance. Those who followed the guidance were saved and the rest who deliberately rejected it perished.
The ummah means all kufaar and muslims not just muslims. It is silly to take this hadith and use it against muslims.
In time of jewish prophets the situation was similar and so it has been always ie after adam some of his children just did not follow the guidance he left them with. This will continue for as long as allah's guidance remains ignored by some of us ie children of adam.
All muslim sects are basically muslims, they differ in detail of things not in actual message ie all believe in the very same god, quran, islam and prophet. So anyone calling them kafir or mushrik is ignorant and foolish to extreme or even stupid. Such a person needs to educate himself to come out of this state of his mindset.
There are plenty of things that really need doing other than issuing silly fatwas against each other.
You must realise that each person has his own mind and thoughts and no two people are exactly alike. So there are as many sects as number of people themselves. So you must interpret hadith the way it makes better sense. If we cannot make any sense of a hadith then it has to be faulty or may even be false.
regards and all the best.