When we discuss "Ahl al-Sunnah wal Jama`a" in the coming chapters, we mean by them our contemporaries. We have indicated in several previous chapters that these are innocent people who do not have a hand in what their predecessors had committed, or any sin or transgression. We have already indicated that they are the victims of plots and the misrepresentation of history which the Umayyads and Abbasides and their henchmen had coined in order to obliterate the Prophet's Sunnah and bring things to the way they used to be during the pre-Islamic period. 

We used to be among them,[125] following in their footsteps, being guided by them, then Allah blessed us and guided us to the Ark of Salvation. We plead to Him, the most Glorified, to likewise guide all the Muslim nation so that nothing remains except the truth. 

One may ask the following: "Thus criticizing and undermining the integrity of the sahaba hurts the feelings of the majority of Muslims who believe that they were all just and equitable; they regard them the best of all people after the Prophet." We say: Muslims are required to believe in Allah and His Messenger and to carry out their Will and abide by the limits which they outlined. The salvation of the Muslims, including the sahaba, depends on it, for the destiny of whoever strays from this line will be hell even if he were an uncle or a son of the Prophet. Our criticism of some companions is dictated by the historical events with which they interacted, by the dissension among them, and by their causing the nation to be divided upon itself, thus afflicting it with the greatest of calamities.