25 Prophets in Islam — Stories of the Prophets

Who are the prophets in Islam?

A prophet in Islam is a man chosen by Allah to receive revelation and convey it to humankind. The Arabic word nabi (نبي, plural anbiya') literally means "one who informs," while rasul (رسول, plural rusul) means "messenger." The two terms overlap: every rasul is also a nabi, but not every nabi is a rasul. Classical scholars define the distinction as one of mission. A nabi renews and confirms the revelation of an earlier messenger; a rasul is sent with a new legal code (shariah) or to a community that has not yet received the message.

Belief in the prophets is one of the six articles of faith in Islam. The Quran names twenty-five of them, beginning with Adam and ending with Muhammad (peace be upon all of them). Their chain runs through the same monotheistic message in every era: worship Allah alone, abandon idols, prepare for the Hereafter. al-Baqarah 2:285 affirms the principle of non-discrimination among them: "We make no distinction between any of His messengers."

Each prophet was sent to a specific people, in a specific language, carrying signs that matched the intellectual climate of his time. Musa's staff confronted an age of sorcery. Isa's healing met an age of physicians. The Quran itself, given to Muhammad, met an age of Arabic eloquence. The unity of the prophetic message and the diversity of the prophetic missions sit side by side throughout the Quran.

How many prophets are there in Islam?

The most cited narration on this question is the hadith of Abu Dharr al-Ghifari (may Allah be pleased with him), recorded in Musnad Ahmad. Abu Dharr asked the Prophet (peace be upon him) how many prophets there were. The Prophet answered: one-hundred-and-twenty-four-thousand. Abu Dharr then asked how many among them were messengers, and the Prophet replied: three hundred and thirteen, a great multitude. Variant chains record the number of messengers as three hundred and fifteen.

Of that immense total, the Quran names only twenty-five by name. The principle is established in an-Nisa 4:164: "And messengers We have already told you about before and messengers We have not told you about." Allah, in other words, has chosen what is most useful for guidance and withheld the rest. The Quran is a book of instruction, not an exhaustive prophetic registry.

Some scholars, including Ibn Kathir in his Stories of the Prophets, also discuss figures such as Luqman, Dhul-Qarnayn, Khidr, and Uzair (Ezra), whose prophethood is disputed. The classical position is to remain silent where the Quran is silent. The twenty-five named prophets, however, are agreed upon by consensus.

The 25 prophets named in the Quran (in order)

The traditional order, followed by classical biographies and by Ibn Kathir's Stories of the Prophets, begins with Adam (the first human and the first prophet) and ends with Muhammad (the Seal of the Prophets). The chronological gap between adjacent prophets is uneven: centuries pass between some, while others, like Musa and Harun, were contemporaries. Tap any card below to open the full Quran-based account on islamtics.