This excerpt is taken from the book of Fazilat-ul-Sheikh Abdul Salam Rustami From Denial of Hadith to Denial of Quran.
Fifth Doubt
Hadith is the cause of sectarianism. In this regard, Mr. Parvez has written: The result of accepting these hadiths as religion was that hundreds of sects were formed in the Ummah and the unity of the community was shattered. The hadiths of Sunnis are separate and those of Shias are separate. Each sect built its religion according to its own chosen narrations. They consider only their own hadiths to be authentic and others' hadiths to be false, while sectarianism according to the Holy Quran is polytheism.
Reference: Maqam-e-Hadith, p. 14
Mr. Parvez wrote that the result of accepting hadith as religion was the formation of hundreds of sects, meaning more than a hundred sects, yet he could not name any sect other than Shia and Sunni. One can ask him, which are the other sects?
The real cause of Shia and Sunni sectarianism is not the difference in hadiths but the heretical beliefs of the Shia introduced into Islam by Ibn Saba. Due to differences in these beliefs, the Shias imposed an additional condition for the authenticity of hadith that it must be narrated from one of their Imams, whereas Ahl al-Sunnah wal Jama'ah, besides the two famous conditions for the authenticity of hadith, also require that the narration should not support any innovation (bid'ah), whether the hadith is transmitted from an Imam or someone else. Both Shia and Sunni agree on the authority of hadith, so the cause of disagreement and division is not hadith but heretical beliefs. This is why the most sects have formed among the Shia. Initially, three sects of Ahl al-Shia were formed: ① Ghulat ② Zaidiyyah ③ Rafidah
Then Ghulat split into twelve, Zaidiyyah into six, and Rafidah into fourteen sects, thus the Shia divided into a total of thirty-two sects.
Reference: See: Kitab al-Milal wa al-Nihal by al-Shahrastani
Similarly, due to heretical beliefs, the Mu'tazila (deniers of hadith) also divided into six major sects. We say that if accepting hadith as authoritative is the cause of disagreement and division, then why have the Mu'tazila, who deny hadith, split into so many sects? In reality, denial of hadith is the greatest cause of division. In the present era, various sects of hadith deniers exist such as the sect of Chakralvi, the sect of Allama Mashriqi, the sect of Dr. Jilani Barq, the followers of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, and the group of Mr. Parvez, and there are differences among them even though they all agree on denial of hadith.
If a follower of Parvez cites the example of disagreements among followers to support his doubt, the scholarly answer is that this disagreement did not arise from accepting hadith as authoritative but from a heretical belief, which is the adherence to personal imitation (taqlid shakhsī), i.e., considering the imitation of some Imam obligatory and regarding others as misguided. Therefore, the real cause of sectarianism is heretical beliefs, and denial of hadith is also a heretical belief. For this reason, among the deniers of hadith and those who consider their own intellect as the criterion for understanding the Quran, there are countless disagreements due to differences in intellect, and more disagreements will continue to arise.
