section_path: Self-image of the Sunnis/As the "saved sect"
section_name: As the "saved sect"
paragraph_text: As the "saved sect"
  
  A well-known Hadith, which is to be interpreted as Vaticinium ex eventu, says that the Muslim Umma will split into 73 sects, only one of which will be saved. The Sunnis have the idea that they are this "saved sect" ("firqa nā niya"). For example, Abu Mansur al-Baghdadi (d. 1037) explains at the beginning of his heresiographical work al-Farq baina l-firaq ("The difference between the sects") that there are 20 Rafiditic, 20 Kharijite, 20 Qadaritic, 3 Murjiite, 3 Nadjāritic, 3 karramitic and furthermore Bakriyya, Dirariyyya and Jahmīya. These are the 72 erring sects. The 73rd sect that is the "saved sect" are the Sunnis (ahl as-sunna wa-l-jamaʿa). According to al-Baghdadi, they are composed of two groups, namely the followers of the Ra'y and the followers of the hadith. They agreed on the fundamentals of religion (uṣūl ad-dīn). There were only differences in the derivations (furūʿ) from the norms regarding the question of what permitted and what forbidden is. These differences are not so great that they considered each other to have strayed from the right path.