নবী করীম সাল্লাল্লাহু আলাইহি ওয়াসাল্লাম এর কী কোন দল ছিল?

What was the group that the Prophet (saw) had? What are the evidences to show he had such a groups? Why did not the other scholars of Islam discuss the obligations of groups?

The Sahabah are the kutlah of the Messenger (saw). The presence of the Sahabah in the time of the Messenger (saw) is not disputed by the Muslims though some do not like to call them a group or party however it is very clear that the Sahabah were the kutlah of the Messenger (saw) due to the following:

a) The Messenger (saw) took care to teach and culture the Sahabah with Islam in Dar al-Arqam b. al-Arqam as a structure. They used to leaves their houses in secret and go to Dar al-Arqam: so they were organized in terms of the time and place. When the Messenger of Allah (saw) took them to the public stage he went in two lines. It was clear that they were an organized group, structured around Islam and the Messenger of Islam. Thus, the Sahabah were a group whose leader was the Messenger of Allah (saw) which was acculturated by Islam secretly, it came out in public with him (saw) as a disciplined and organized group which had the great ideology of Islam.

This reality has the meaning of a structure (takattul), block (kutlah) or a party (Hizb).

b) To the Muslims the Sahabah were known as those who spent time with the Messenger (saw), accompanied him, heard hadiths from him and went to battle with him. This term was not applied to anyone else. Not everyone who embraced Islam in the time of the Messenger (saw) was called a Sahabi; rather this term was used for specific Muslims who were different from the other Muslims in that they were structured around the Messenger (saw) and they had companionship (suhbah) with him.

Therefore, the presence of a kutlah in the time of the Messenger of Allah is a proven matter and they are the Sahabah (may Allah be pleased with them). As for the times that followed after the Sahabah had either become martyred or died (ra), there was no Islamic political group in the time of the Umayyads, Abbasids and Ottomans. This resulted in weak accounting and the week effect it had on the ruler and consequently the Ummah weakened and the state weakened.

As for the presence of sincere scholars in those times so why did they not establish a group?

The answer is that the group which was needed is more apparent and obligatory when it is in the stage of the Da’wah to establish the state. When the state has been established the work that remains for the kutlah is accounting. Those scholars used to undertake accounting and they saw the state exist. This kept them away from establishing a party to account (the ruler) as long as the functions of group were fulfilled. Thus, the state existed and the accounting existed.

This we think is the most likely reason for why the scholars did not establish a party in those ages. However, (and may Allah forgive them) because they were content to just undertake their individual accounting in the time of the Umayyads, Abbasids and Ottomans. And because they did not establish a group: all of this resulted in weak accounting and weakness of its effect on the rulers. Thus, the ruler’s adherence to Islam weakened and the state weakened. This is because the individual accounting does not realize the objective it is supposed to achieve and the result was what the rulers did in terms of their policies in looking after the citizens in those ages.