السلام عليكم
Moderate Muslims are those Muslims who follow the Religion, without going into extreme, and without falling into neglect. They follow a middle course. In this sense, moderate Muslims are the true Muslims, who are truly following in the footsteps of our beloved Prophet, Muhammad Mustafaa صلى اللّه عليه وآله وسلم
Muslims are very diverse, after all, there are seventy-three different sects among the Muslims. The Prophet Muhammad صلى اللّه عليه وسلم said that out of all the sects, there is only one which is saved. It was asked to him which one is that, to which he replied: "The like of that which today I and my companions are upon."
Jibrael you have sidetracked from the actual idea of this thread and you assisted in spreading deception to non-Muslims. The spirit of Thinker's (OP) original question has to do with the false idea that the reason Moderate Muslims are not violent is because they do not actually follow Islam and that Muslims who are violent, are violent because they follow Islam stringently.
The idea of the questioner is that the Quran and the Hadith are radical books, and Muslims that actually follow the Quran and the Hadith correctly are therefore radical. Thinker suggested that Muslims who do not think that they should correctly follow the Quran and the Hadith are the moderate Muslims.
And you have helped to confuse him.
You attempted to explain a point about Islam that really has little to do with the spirit of Thinker's question.
In order to make this tangential point, you stated that moderate Muslims are the ones that correctly follow the Quran and the Hadith; in other words you stated that moderate Muslims are the true Muslims.
Thinker suggested that moderate Muslims are Muslims that
do not correctly following the Quran and the Hadith.
You stated that moderate Muslims are Muslims that
do correctly follow the Quran and the Hadith.
You both have different definitions of the same term.
However there is no organized group of people that define themselves as "Moderate Muslims".
Unfortunately many Muslims like you frequently use the term. The term is now taken to be a legitimate term because Muslims like you agree that "moderate Muslims" exist.
I understand the meaning of the Hadith that you cited but Thinker does not need to know that many Muslims follow different paths besides the Quran and the Hadith and that true Muslims follow the Quran and the Hadith. And you should not have defined the path of the prophet and his companions as the "Moderate" path. That is the language that non-Muslims have concocted. "Straight" path, or perhaps "Middle" path, is the language of Islam.
The prophet was not a "Moderate Muslim"
NON-MUSLIMS DO NOT DEFINE "MODERATE MUSLIMS" THE SAME WAY AS YOU DO. AND THEY ALSO DON'T UNDERSTAND YOUR DEFINITION. WHAT THEY UNDERSTAND IS THAT MUSLIMS USE THE TERM AND THEREFOR THEY THINK THAT THE TERM IS LEGITIMATE.
Furthermore, you stated that Muslims are divided into 73 sects.
Your statement did not promote the idea that you intended.
Your intended idea was that there are 72 groups of Muslims that do not correctly follow the Quran and the Hadith and that these Muslims are radical because they do not correctly follow the Quran and the Hadith.
When non-Muslims here that Islam is divided into 73 sects they understand that the Quran and the Hadith can be interpreted in 73 different ways and that "radical" Muslims are interpreting the Quran and the Hadith the correct way.
In any event I don't agree with you that there are 73 different sects of Islam. 90% of Muslims are Sunni Muslims. Within the Sunni Muslim group probably 30% also subscribe to the advise of a particular scholar. But all of these scholars give advise based upon the Quran and the Hadith.
You made the claim that there are 73 different sects. I would like for you to list these sects because I don't agree with you.