Prophets and messengers in Islam

The prophets of Islam (Arabic: الأنبياء في الإسلام, DMG al-ʾanbīyāʾ fī al-ʾislām) are those persons who are considered prophets according to Islamic understanding. Accordingly, they were sent by God to various peoples to convey God's message to them. Many of them are mentioned in the Qur'an and also in the Hadith.

There are various verbs in the Qur'an that convey the idea of a prophetic revelation. The most common verb forms referring to a divine revelation are formed in the Qur'an from the verb root n-z-l/نزل and denote an "act of sending down". Accordingly, God, whose throne is commemorated in heaven, sends down his revelations to his prophets and messengers on earth. However, the revelation does not come down directly to the prophets. The messengers are the angels. Consequently, God sends them down with the revelations to the prophets.

A distinction is made between prophets (nabī/نبي) and messengers (rasūl/رسول), and they are explained differently by religious scholars. The most commonly mentioned statements in this regard are:

1. A messenger is sent to the people with a new law, whereas a prophet follows the law of the messenger who preceded him and urges the people to follow it.
2. A messenger is charged with proclaiming what God has revealed to him, but a prophet is not.

According to the doctrine of faith, every messenger is also a prophet, but not every prophet is a messenger. Consequently, in Islam, the messenger (risāla/رسالة) is understood as the highest form of divine mission.

Belief in the prophets and messengers is one of the six articles of faith in Islam. According to Islamic understanding, the prophetic tradition already begins with the forefather of humanity, Adam, with whom God is said to have made a primordial covenant according to Sura 7:172-173. Muhammad, in turn, is understood in Islam as the last prophet or the "seal of the prophets" (ḫātam al-'anbīyā'/خاتم الأنبياء), with whom the chain of all divine revelations is concluded.

According to the Islamic view, all prophets and messengers had a common message and also always referred to each other. Therefore, in Islam, the succession of prophets and messengers is called the "chain of prophets" (silsilat al-ʾanbīyāʾ/سلسلة الانبياء). Accordingly, they all preached the same basic belief or oneness of God (tauḥīd/توحيد) and His sole worship, the occurrence of the Last Day (al-yaum al-āḫir/اليوم الآخر), and life after death. In this context, the prophets were sent to different peoples at different periods in history.

According to Islamic teachings, prophets were sent to different peoples in different periods of history. Accordingly, God sent at least one prophet to each people. Only the Children of Israel (banū ʾisrāīl/بـنـوإسـرائـيـل) were sent several prophets and two messengers (Moses and Jesus). According to the Qur'an and Sunnah, the message of each prophet and messenger was only for the people to whom they were sent. Muhammad's message alone was universal and addressed to all peoples.

According to Sura 72:27-28, God is always with His messengers when they proclaim His message: "[Except] when a messenger is acceptable to Him (and He finds him worthy to be initiated into the hidden). He then places overseers before and behind him [...]" The word "overseers" (raṣad/رَصَد) as companions of the messengers means angels. God's presence thus guards his messengers from danger (Sura 27:10) and offers them help (naṣr/نصر) and protection (Sura 12:110; 40:51). According to the Qur'an, God has bestowed upon the prophets clear "proofs" (bayyināt/بينات) to confirm their prophetic mission. These proofs are interpreted by Islamic scholars as "miracles" (muʿǧiza/معجزة). The Qur'an is seen as a confirmatory miracle for Muhammad's prophetic mission. Furthermore, the characteristics of prophethood can be partly physical. For example, in Islam, "the prophetic seal" between Muhammad's shoulders is interpreted as a mark of his prophethood.

Sura 33:7 speaks of some prophets with whom God has made a special covenant (mīṯāq/ميثاق). Sura 46:35, in turn, speaks of God's messengers who are called "ūlū l-ʿazm" ("[...] messengers who showed determination"). Accordingly, they endured (the difficulties of their prophetic mission) with patience. Islamic commentators do not agree on which messengers are meant here. However, ūlū l-ʿazm/أولوالعزم (people of determination or arch-prophets) are often used to refer to the five prophets Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Mohammed.

From the middle of the 8th century AD, the doctrine of the sinlessness of the prophets developed (ʽiṣmat al-al-ʾanbīyāʾ/عصمة الأنبياء, literally: "protection of the prophets"). By this is meant that prophets are protected from sin and error. This doctrine was apparently originally developed by Shiites, but was accepted by almost all Islamic theologians and jurists. Ar-Razi also held that prophets cannot commit a major or minor sin or error (ḏanb/ذَنْب).

The narratives about the various prophets make up a significant part of the Qur'an, and many of them are mentioned by name. However, some prophets are only identified in hadiths and Qur'anic commentaries (tafsir). Many of the 48 narratives of the prophets of Judaism and Christianity also appear - in a slightly different form - in the Qur'an. In the Islamic literary genre Qisas al-ʾanbīyāʾ/قصص الأنبياء, which is a collection of narratives about prophets and men of God before Muhammad's appearance, the Qur'anic prophet stories were later supplemented with materials from Judeo-Christian tradition (Isrā'īlīyāt/إسرائيليات) and rendered from an Islamic perspective. The differences of the prophets in Islam compared to their images in Christianity or Judaism can be seen from their names. For example, Abraham is Ibrahim, David is Dawud, Moses is Musa.

Muslims believe that there were many prophets who were not mentioned in the Koran. Thus Sura 10:47 says: "And every community has a messenger." According to a prophet tradition (hadith) cited in Musnad Ahmad ibn Hanbal after the companion Abu Dharr, it is said that there were 313 (or 319) messengers and 124,000 prophets. The Muʿtazila assumed that the two names were interchangeable. The Qur'an likewise establishes belief in all the recognised prophets and revealed books without making any distinction between them.

The 25 prophets or messengers mentioned in the Qur'an are:

In addition, there are other persons who, according to various scholars, have been prophets, or pious, or saints:

• 'Uzair, which corresponds to the biblical Ezra
• Luqmān
• Dhul-Qarnain
• Daniyal, who corresponds to the biblical Daniel.

In Islam, the prophets are exclusively male:

The following qualities are attributed to each Messenger, derived from religious law and logic, to underpin the nature of his Messengership:

• Sincerity in his call to follow him and in what he conveys from God.
• Trustworthiness in the sense of not doing anything forbidden or frowned upon and the associated sinlessness
• Transmission of what has been revealed to him or what he is to proclaim.
• High intelligence so that he cannot be taken advantage of.

The opposites are those qualities which, according to religious scholars, cannot possibly apply to an envoy (lying, deception, concealment and simple-mindedness). Since they are human beings, anything that can happen to a human being is possible for them, including marriage, slight illness, etc., as long as this does not hinder their Messengership.