Prophets and messengers in Islam

Islam is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number 2 billion worldwide and are the world's second-largest religious population, after Christianity.

Muslims believe that there is a primordial faith that was revealed many times through earlier prophets and messengers, including Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and Jesus, and they believe that Islam is the universal and complete version of this faith. Muslims consider the Quran to be the verbatim word of God and the unaltered, final revelation. Alongside the Quran, Muslims also believe in previous revelations, such as the Tawrat (the Torah), the Zabur (Psalms), and the Injil (Gospel). They believe that Muhammad is the main and final of God's prophets, through whom the religion was completed. The teachings and normative examples of Muhammad, called the Sunnah, documented in accounts called the hadith, provide a constitutional model for Muslims. Islam is based on the belief in the oneness and uniqueness of God (tawhid), and belief in an afterlife (akhirah) with the Last Judgment—wherein the righteous will be rewarded in paradise (jannah) and the unrighteous will be punished in hell (jahannam). The Five Pillars, considered obligatory acts of worship, are the Islamic oath and creed (shahada), daily prayers (salah), almsgiving (zakat), fasting (sawm) in the month of Ramadan, and a pilgrimage (hajj) to Mecca. Islamic law, sharia, touches on virtually every aspect of life, from banking and finance and welfare to men's and women's roles and the environment. The two main religious festivals are Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha. The three holiest sites in Islam are Masjid al-Haram in Mecca, Prophet's Mosque in Medina, and al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.

Islam is India's second-largest religion, with 14.2% of the country's population, or approximately 172.2 million people, identifying as adherents of Islam in a 2011 census. India has the third-largest number of Muslims in the world. Most of India's Muslims are Sunni, with Shia making up around 15% of the Muslim population.

Islam first spread in southern Indian communities along the Arab coastal trade routes in Gujarat and in Malabar Coast shortly after the religion emerged in the Arabian Peninsula. Later, Islam arrived in the northern inland of Indian subcontinent in the 7th century when the Arabs invaded and conquered Sindh. It arrived in Punjab and North India in the 12th century via the Ghaznavids and Ghurids conquest and has since become a part of India's religious and cultural heritage. The Barwada Mosque in Ghogha, Gujarat built before 623 CE, Cheraman Juma Mosque (629 CE) in Methala, Kerala and Palaiya Jumma Palli (or The Old Jumma Masjid, 628–630 CE) in Kilakarai, Tamil Nadu are three of the first mosques in India which were built by seafaring Arab merchants. According to the legend of Cheraman Perumals, the first Indian mosque was built in 624 CE at Kodungallur in present-day Kerala with the mandate of the last ruler (the Tajudeen Cheraman Perumal) of the Chera dynasty, who converted to Islam during the lifetime of the Islamic prophet Muhammad (c. 570–632). Similarly, Tamil Muslims on the eastern coasts also claim that they converted to Islam in Muhammad's lifetime. The local mosques date to the early 700s.

The Quran (vocalized Arabic: الْقُرْآن‎, Quranic Arabic: الۡقُرۡءَان‎, al-Qurʾān [alqurˈʔaːn], lit. 'the recitation' or 'the lecture'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation directly from God (Allāh). It is organized in 114 chapters (surah, pl. suwar) which consist of individual verses (āyah). Besides its religious significance, it is widely regarded as the finest work in Arabic literature, and has significantly influenced the Arabic language. It is the object of a modern field of academic research known as Quranic studies.

Muslims believe the Quran was orally revealed by God to the final Islamic prophet Muhammad through the angel Gabriel incrementally over a period of some 23 years, beginning on the Laylat al-Qadr, when Muhammad was 40, and concluding in 632, the year of his death. Muslims regard the Quran as Muhammad's most important miracle, a proof of his prophethood, and the culmination of a series of divine messages starting with those revealed to the first Islamic prophet Adam, including the holy books of the Torah, Psalms, and Gospel in Islam.

The history of Islam is believed, by most historians, to have originated with Muhammad's mission in Mecca and Medina at the start of the 7th century CE, although Muslims regard this time as a return to the original faith passed down by the Abrahamic prophets, such as Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon, and Jesus, with the submission (Islām) to the will of God. According to the traditional account, the Islamic prophet Muhammad began receiving what Muslims consider to be divine revelations in 610 CE, calling for submission to the one God, preparation for the imminent Last Judgement, and charity for the poor and needy. As Muhammad's message began to attract followers (the ṣaḥāba) he also met with increasing hostility and persecution from Meccan elites. In 622 CE Muhammad migrated to the city of Yathrib (now known as Medina), where he began to unify the tribes of Arabia under Islam, returning to Mecca to take control in 630 and order the destruction of all pagan idols. By the time Muhammad died c. 11 AH (632 CE), almost all the tribes of the Arabian Peninsula had converted to Islam, but disagreement broke out over who would succeed him as leader of the Muslim community during the Rashidun Caliphate.

The early Muslim conquests were responsible for the spread of Islam. By the 8th century CE, the Umayyad Caliphate extended from al-Andalus in the west to the Indus River in the east. Polities such as those ruled by the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates (in the Middle East and later in Spain and Southern Italy), the Fatimids, Seljuks, Ayyubids, and Mamluks were among the most influential powers in the world. Highly Persianized empires built by the Samanids, Ghaznavids, and Ghurids significantly contributed to technological and administrative developments. The Islamic Golden Age gave rise to many centers of culture and science and produced notable polymaths, astronomers, mathematicians, physicians, and philosophers during the Middle Ages. By the early 13th century, the Delhi Sultanate conquered the northern Indian subcontinent, while Turkic dynasties like the Sultanate of Rum and Artuqids conquered much of Anatolia from the Byzantine Empire throughout the 11th and 12th centuries. In the 13th and 14th centuries, destructive Mongol invasions, along with the loss of population due to the Black Death, greatly weakened the traditional centers of the Muslim world, stretching from Persia to Egypt, but saw the emergence of the Timurid Renaissance and major economic powers such as the Mali Empire in West Africa and the Bengal Sultanate in South Asia. Following the deportation and enslavement of the Muslim Moors from the Emirate of Sicily and elsewhere in southern Italy, the Islamic Iberia was gradually conquered by Christian forces during the Reconquista. Nonetheless, in the early modern period, the gunpowder empires—the Ottomans, Timurids, Mughals, and Safavids—emerged as world powers.

Muhammad (c. 570 – 8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious, military and political leader and the founder of Islam. According to Islam, he was a prophet who was divinely inspired to preach and confirm the monotheistic teachings of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and other prophets. He is believed by Muslims to be the Seal of the Prophets, and along with the Quran, his teachings and normative examples form the basis for Islamic religious belief.

According to the traditional account, Muhammad was born in Mecca to the aristocratic Banu Hashim clan of the Quraysh. He was the son of Abdullah ibn Abd al-Muttalib and Amina bint Wahb. His father, Abdullah, the son of tribal leader Abd al-Muttalib ibn Hashim, died around the time Muhammad was born. His mother Amina died when he was six, leaving Muhammad an orphan. He was raised under the care of his grandfather, Abd al-Muttalib, and paternal uncle, Abu Talib. In later years, he would periodically seclude himself in a mountain cave named Hira for several nights of prayer. When he was 40, in c. 610, Muhammad reported being visited by Gabriel in the cave and receiving his first revelation from God. In 613, Muhammad started preaching these revelations publicly, proclaiming that "God is One", that complete "submission" (Islām) to God (Allāh) is the right way of life (dīn), and that he was a prophet and messenger of God, similar to other prophets in Islam.

In Abrahamic religions, Moses was the Hebrew prophet who led the Israelites out of slavery in the Exodus from Egypt. He is considered the most important prophet in Judaism and Samaritanism, and one of the most important prophets in Christianity, Islam, the Baháʼí Faith, and other Abrahamic religions. According to the Abrahamic scriptures, God dictated the Mosaic Law to Moses, which he wrote down and which formed part of the Torah.

According to the Book of Exodus, Moses was born in a period when his people, the Israelites, who were an enslaved minority, were increasing in population; consequently, the Egyptian Pharaoh was worried that they might ally themselves with Egypt's enemies. When Pharaoh ordered all newborn Hebrew boys to be killed in order to reduce the population of the Israelites, Moses' Hebrew mother, Jochebed, secretly hid him in the bulrushes along the Nile river. The Pharaoh's daughter discovered the infant there and adopted him as a foundling. Thus, he grew up with the Egyptian royal family. After killing an Egyptian slave-master who was beating a Hebrew, Moses fled across the Red Sea to Midian, where he encountered the Angel of the Lord, speaking to him from within a burning bush on Mount Horeb.

Maslaha or maslahah or maslahat (Arabic: مصلحة, lit. 'benefit, public interest') or maslaha mursala (Arabic: مصالح مرسلة, lit. '"sent", "transmitted", "unbonded", "open" or "unconditional" public interest'), comes from the term "Salihat" (good deeds, also linked to Islah and Istislah), is a concept in Sharia (Islamic divine law) regarded as a basis of law. It forms a part of extended methodological principles of Islamic jurisprudence (uṣūl al-fiqh) and denotes prohibition or permission of something, according to necessity and particular circumstances, on the basis of whether it serves the public interest of the Muslim community (ummah). In principle, maslaha is invoked particularly for issues that are not regulated by the Qur'an, the sunnah (the teachings and practices of the Islamic prophet Muhammad), or qiyas (analogy). The concept is acknowledged and employed to varying degrees depending on the jurists and schools of Islamic jurisprudence (madhhab). The application of the concept has become more important in modern times because of its increasing relevance to contemporary legal issues. The opposite term of maslaha is mafsada (مفسدة, harm). Islamic politics is itself predicated on maslaha, and is such changeable, as it must respond to the exigencies of time. The term is different from bidah.

Maryam (Arabic: مريم, Maryam; Arabic cognate of 'Mary') is the 19th chapter (sūrah) of the Qur'an with 98 verses (āyāt). The 114 chapters in the Quran are roughly ordered by size. The Quranic chapter is named after Mary, mother of Jesus (ʿIsa, عیسی), and the Virgin Mary in Christian belief. It recounts the events leading up to the birth of Jesus. The text of the surah refers to many known prophetic figures, including Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, Ishmael, Idris, Adam, Zechariah and Noah.

The Birmingham Quran manuscript preserves the final eight verses (Q19:91–98), on parchment radiocarbon dated to between 568 and 645 CE (56 BH – 25 AH). The Sanaa manuscript, dated between 578 and 669 CE (44 BH – 49 AH), includes verses 2–28.

Medina, officially al-Madinah al-Munawwarah, also known as Taybah and known in pre-Islamic times as Yathrib, is the capital and administrative centre of Medina Province in the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia. It is one of the oldest and most important places in Islamic history. The second holiest city in Islam, the population as of 2022 is 1,477,023, making it the fourth-most populous city in the country. Around 58.5% of the population are Saudi citizens and 41.5% are foreigners. Located at the core of the Medina Province in the western reaches of the country, the city is distributed over 589 km (227 sq mi), of which 293 km (113 sq mi) constitutes the city's urban area, while the rest is occupied by the Hejaz Mountains, empty valleys, agricultural spaces and older dormant volcanoes.

Medina is generally considered to be the "cradle of Islamic culture and civilization". The city is considered to be the second-holiest of three key cities in Islamic tradition, with Makkah and Jerusalem serving as the holiest and third-holiest cities respectively. Al-Masjid al-Nabawi (lit. 'The Prophet's Mosque') is of exceptional importance in Islam and serves as burial site of the prophet Muhammad, by whom the mosque was built in 622 CE (first year of the Hijrah). Observant Muslims usually visit his tomb, or rawdhah, at least once in their lifetime during a pilgrimage known as Ziyarat, although this is not obligatory. The original name of the city before the advent of Islam was Yathrib (Arabic: يَثْرِب), and it is referred to by this name in Chapter 33 (Al-Aḥzāb, lit. 'The Confederates') of the Quran. It was renamed to Madīnat an-Nabī (lit. 'City of the Prophet' or 'The Prophet's City') after and later to al-Madinah al-Munawwarah (lit. 'The Enlightened City') before being simplified and shortened to its modern name, Madinah (lit. 'The City'), from which the English-language spelling of "Medina" is derived. Saudi road signage uses Madinah and al-Madinah al-Munawwarah interchangeably.

From 613 to 619 CE, the Islamic prophet Muhammad gathered in his hometown of Mecca a small following of those who embraced his message of Islam and thus became Muslims. The first person who professed Islam was his wife, Khadija bint Khuwaylid. The identity of the second male Muslim, after Muhammad himself, is disputed largely along sectarian lines, as Shia and some Sunni sources identify him as the first Shia imam Ali ibn Abi Talib, a child at the time, who grew up in the household of his cousin, Muhammad. Other sources report that the first male convert was Abu Bakr, who later succeeded Muhammad as the first Sunni caliph, or Muhammad's foster son, Zayd ibn Haritha. While it is difficult to establish the chronological order of early conversions, the identities of early Muslims are known with some certainty.