Where sects diverged was over how and by whom this Sunna was known and who had the authority to speak in the Prophet’s name. For Sunnis it was transmitted and known by the Muslim community as a whole, borne via the twin routes of the Hadiths, which recorded the Prophet’s words, and the inherited teachings of the early Muslim generations, spoken for by the community’s often cacophonous body of ulama. Taken together, this was the Sunni tradition, in which the authority of God and His Prophet could coalesce from the riot of stentorian voices and express itself fully in instances of consensus
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