Who are the Salaf, and what does "Ahl al-Sunnah wa'l-Jamāʿah" mean?

"Salaf" (predecessors) refers to the first three generations of Islam — the Companions, then the Tābiʿūn who followed them, then the generation after them — whom the Prophet ﷺ described when he said, "The best of people are those of my generation, then those who follow them, then those who follow them." "Ahl al-Sunnah wa'l-Jamāʿah" means the people who cling to the Sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ and to the way of that united body of early Muslims, rather than to opinions and sects that came later. Allah praised "the first forerunners among the Muhājirūn and the Anṣār, and those who followed them in goodness," which is why the way of the Salaf is simply to understand the Qur'ān and Sunnah as the Companions understood them. It is a description of methodology, not a new sect or a fourth madhhab.

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