Muslims believe that God
sent many prophets
, all with direct communication with God
; all with the same basic message
, he alone has the right to be worshipped; and humanity
to His will
. Some of the prophets
would also receive divine revelation
that was to be written down and preserved, for this article we'll refer to them as messenger
s. All messenger
s were prophet
s, but not all prophet
s were messenger
s. Messengers and prophets were normal people; not divine in any way.
However, what would happen is that the message as originally revealed would be deliberately manipulated or slowly distorted as time went on; and the basic message of monotheism was lost.
Muslims believe that the final messenger was a man called Muhammad, who lived during the sixth and seventh centuries CE. His revelation, called the Qur'an is well preserved, and his sayings are also well preserved in the Hadith. It is not surprising to Muslims that there are superficial simliarities in some regards to Christian and Jewish teachings, as they emanate from the same ultimate source: God. However they do believe that the Qur'an is the most well preserved of the divine revelation.
Muslims believe, based on these sources that there were hundreds of thousands of prophets and hundreds of messengers. 25 prophets, including 5 messengers are mentioned in the Qur'an. These are (in roughly chronological order, peace be upon them all, with English equivalents if they exist):
- Aadam (Adam)
- Idrees (Enoch)
- Nooh (Noah)
- Loot (Lot)
- Ibraheem (Abraham, a messenger; his revelation is simply referred to as "the pages")
- Ismaa'il (Ishmael)
- Is-haaq (Isaac)
- Ya'qoob (Jacob)
- Yuusuf (Joseph)
- Ayyuub (Job)
- Musaa (Moses, a messenger; his revelation is called the "Tawraat" which may have some resemblance to the Torah, but is not the same thing)
- Haaroon (Aaron)
- Daawood (David, a messenger; his revelation is called the "Zaboor", sometimes incorrectly translated as "Psalms")
- Sulaimaan (Solomon)
- Yuunus (Jonah)
- Ilyaas (Elijah)
- Al-Yasa' (Elishah)
- Zakariyya (Zachariah)
- Yahyaa (John the Baptist)
- 'Isa (Jesus, a messenger; his revelation is called the "Injeel"; roughly meaning "Gospel of Jesus").
- Muhammad (Mohammed, a messenger; his revelation is called the Qur'an).