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Prophets in Islam (Arabic: الأنبياء في الإسلام) are those people who Muslims believe were assigned a special mission by God to guide humans. Islamic tradition holds that God sent messengers to every nation.[1] This is obligatory to accept in Islam.[2] Muslims believe that every prophet was given a belief to worship God and their respective followers believed it as well.[3] Each prophet, in Muslim belief, preached the same main belief, the Oneness of God, worshiping of that one God, avoidance of idolatry and sin, and the belief in the Day of Resurrection or the Day of Judgment and life after death. Each came to preach Islam at different times in history and some told of the coming of the final prophet and messenger of God, who would be named "Ahmed" commonly known as Muhammad. Each prophet directed a message to a different group of people, and thus would preach Islam in accordance with the times.
Messenger-Prophets were people whom have been ordered to convey and propagate what God revealed to them. To believe in the Messenger-Prophets means to believe that the God has sent them to creation to guide them, and perfect their life, and their hereafter, and he has aided them with miracles which demonstrate their truthfulness; and that they have conveyed the message of God; and have revealed what they were ordered to reveal to the responsible and accountable individuals; and it is obligatory to respect all of them, and not to discriminate or differentiate between any of them.[4] For information about whether or not Islam states that Mohammad and other Messengers or Prophets were always infallible, or unquestionable for any of their acts, see the Qur'an (5: 116) (11: 36 - 37, 40 - 47) (37: 139 - 142) (66: 1).[5][6][7][8]
Muslims believe that God finally sent Muhammad to transmit the message of the Qur'an, which is universal in its message. Muslims believe that the Qur'an will remain uncorrupted because previous Islamic holy books (the Torah given to Moses, the Psalms given to David and the Gospel given to Jesus) were for a particular time and community and because, even if the books were corrupted, many prophets were still to come who could tell the people of what was correct in the scripture and warn them of corruptions. Muhammad, being the last Prophet, was vouchsafed a book which will remain in its true form till the Last Day.[9] Surah 15:9 refers to the Qur'an as the Dhikr,[9] simultaneously labeling it as an authority given from the God of Abraham himself.
In both Arabic and Hebrew,[10] the term nabī (plural forms: nabiyyūn and anbiyāʾ) means "prophet". Forms of this noun occur 75 times in the Quran. The term nubuwwah (meaning "prophethood") occurs five times in the Quran. The terms rasūl (plural: rusul) and mursal (plural: mursalūn) denote "messenger" or "apostle" and occur more than 300 times. The term for a prophetic "message", risāla (plural: risālāt), appears in the Quran in ten instances.[11]
The Syriac form of rasūl Allāh (literally: "messenger of God"), s̲h̲eliḥeh d-allāhā, occurs frequently in the apocryphal Acts of St. Thomas. The corresponding verb for s̲h̲eliḥeh—s̲h̲alaḥ, occurs in connection with the prophets in the Hebrew Bible.[12][13][14][15]
The words "prophet" (Arabic: نبي nabī) and "messenger" (Arabic: رسول rasūl, ) appear several times in the Old Testament and the New Testament.
The following table shows these words in different languages:[16]
In the Hebrew Bible, the word "prophet" (Hebrew: navi) occurs more commonly, and the word "messenger" (Hebrew: mal'akh) refers to angels (Arabic: ملائكة, Malāīkah), But the last book of the Old Testament, the Book of Malachi, speaks of a messenger that Christian commentators interpret as a reference to the future prophet John the Baptist.[17]
In the New Testament, however, the word "messenger" becomes more frequent, sometimes in association with the concept of a prophet.[18]
"Messenger" can refer to Jesus, to his Apostles and to John the Baptist.
It seems that in the New Testament a messenger can have a higher rank than prophets: Jesus Christ said about John the Baptist:
But what went ye out for to see? A prophet? yea, I say unto you, and more than a prophet. For this is he, of whom it is written, "Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee." —Matthew, Gospel of Matthew[19]
In Muslim belief, every prophet preached Islam. The beliefs of charity, prayer, pilgrimage, worship of God and fasting are believed to have been taught by every prophet who has ever lived.[20] The Quran itself calls Islam the "religion of Abraham"[21] and refers to Jacob and the Twelve Tribes of Israel as being Muslim.[22] Isaac, Ishmael, Jesus, Noah, Moses and the disciples of Jesus are just some of the other figures referred to as Muslims in the Quran.[23]
The Quran says:
The same religion has He established for you as that which He enjoined on Noah - the which We have sent by inspiration to thee - and that which We enjoined on Abraham, Moses, and Jesus: Namely, that ye should remain steadfast in religion, and make no divisions therein:... —Quran, sura 42 (Ash-Shura), ayah 13[24]
The Quran speaks of the prophets as being the greatest human beings of all time.[20] A prophet, in the Muslim sense of the term, is a person whom God specially chose to teach the faith of Islam.[20] Before man was created, God had specifically selected those men whom He would use as prophets. This does not, however, mean that every prophet began to prophesy from his birth. Some were called to prophesy late in life, in Muhammad's case at the age of 40 and in Noah's case at 480.[25] Others, such as John the Baptist, were called to prophesy while still in young age and Jesus prophesied while still in his cradle.[26]
The Quran verse 4:69 lists various virtuous groups of human beings, among whom prophets (including messengers) occupy the highest rank. Verse 4:69 reads:[11]
All who obey Allah and the messenger are in the company of those on whom is the Grace of Allah - of the prophets (who teach), the sincere (lovers of Truth), the witnesses (who testify), and the Righteous (who do good): Ah! what a beautiful fellowship! —Quran, sura 4 (An-Nisa), ayah 69[27]
Unlike other Muslims, the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community does not believe that messengers and prophets are different individuals. They interpret the Quranic terms of – "warner" (Nadhir), "prophet", and "messenger" - as referring to different roles that the same divinely appointed individuals perform. Ahmadiyya Muslims distinguish only between law-bearing prophets and non-lawbearing ones. They are the only Muslim group who believe that although law bearing prophethood has ended with Muhammad, non law bearing prophethood continues. In this capacity, the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community recognizes Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1835–1908) as a prophet of God, and also believes him to be the promised Messiah and Imam Mahdi of the latter days.[28]
The revealed books are the records which Muslims believe were dictated by God to various Islamic prophets throughout the history of mankind. All these books promulgated the code and laws of Islam. The belief in all the revealed books is an article of faith in Islam and Muslims must believe in all the scriptures to be a Muslim. Muslims believe the Quran, the final holy scripture, was sent because all the previous holy books had been either corrupted or lost.[29] Nonetheless, Islam speaks of respecting all the previous scriptures, even in their current forms.[30]
The Quran mentions some Islamic scriptures by name, which came before the Quran:
The Quran mentions various divinely-bestowed gifts given to various prophets. These may be interpreted as books or forms of celestial knowledge. Although all prophets are believed by Muslims to have been immensely gifted, special mention of "wisdom" or "knowledge" for a particular prophet is understood to mean that some secret knowledge was revealed to him. The Quran mentions that Abraham prayed for wisdom and later received it.[44] It also mentions that Joseph[45] and Moses[46] both attained wisdom when they reached full age; David received wisdom with kingship, after slaying Goliath;[47] Lut received wisdom whilst prophesying in Sodom and Gomorrah;[48] John the Baptist received wisdom while still a mere youth;[49] and Jesus received wisdom and was vouchsafed the Gospel.[50]
To believe in God’s Messengers (Rusul) means to be convinced that God sent men as guides to fellow human beings and jinn (khalq) to guide them to the path of the Truth, and that they cannot say except the truth about God. It is obligatory to know twenty-five particular messengers.[94]
In Islamic jurisprudence, when it is mentioned that one must believe in all the prophets, this means that it is necessary to believe in them in general, but if a name of a prophet becomes established to one specifically and by name, like Yahya ﷺ (John the Baptist) for example, it becomes obligatory to believe in him specifically, and this is the same for revealed Books and Angels.[95]
Muslims believe that many prophets existed, including many not mentioned in the Quran. The Quran itself refers to at least four other prophets but does not name them.[96][97] All messengers mentioned in the Qur'an are also prophets, but not all prophets are messengers (the difference is discussed in "Prophets and messengers in Islam"). Messengers are tasked with the mission of conveying God's message to people. Out of the twenty-five prophets, five are considered as the God's most preferred Messengers: Nuḥ ﷺ (Noah), Ibrahim ﷺ (Abraham), Musa ﷺ (Moses), `Isa ﷺ(Jesus), and Muhammad ﷺ.[98]
The Quran mentions 25 prophets by name but also tells that God sent many other prophets and messengers, to all the different nations that have existed on Earth. Many verses in the Quran discuss this:
Numerous other prophets have been mentioned by scholars in the Hadith, exegesis, commentary as well as in the famous collections of Qisas Al-Anbiya (Stories of the Prophets). These prophets include:
A few scholars (such as Ibn Hazm)[112] see Maryam (Mary) as a nabi and a prophetess, since God sent her a message via an angel. The Quran, however, does not explicitly identify her as a prophet. Islamic belief regards her as one of the holiest of women, but not as a prophet.[113]
Daniel is not mentioned by name in the Qur'an but there are accounts of his prophethood in later Muslim literature...