The twenty-five, in order
In the usual chronological order of the scholars. Every messenger (rasūl) is a prophet (nabī), but not every prophet is a messenger; the label on each card says which. Select a prophet for his story in the Qurʾān and the verses that name him.
Messengers and prophets
Every messenger (rasūl) is a prophet (nabī); not every prophet is a messenger. The Qurʾān keeps the two apart: “We did not send before you any messenger or prophet …” (22:52), and it calls Mūsā and Ismāʿīl “a messenger and a prophet” (19:51, 19:54).
The Sunni scholars draw the line in two ways:
- a prophet receives a law by revelation to act upon, even if he is not commanded to convey it; if he is commanded to convey it, he is also a messenger (al-Bayjūrī, Tuḥfat al-Murīd; al-Taftāzānī, Sharḥ al-ʿAqāʾid al-Nasafiyya, who adds that a book is sometimes made a condition);
- a messenger brings a renewed law, while a prophet may also be sent to uphold the law before him (al-Bayḍāwī on 22:52), though al-Bayḍāwī notes on 19:54 that a messenger need not bring a law of his own.
Nūḥ is “the first messenger Allah sent to the people of the earth” (al-Bukhārī 4476, Muslim 193); Ādam, before him, was a prophet whom Allah taught and spoke to. Five messengers are “of firm resolve” (46:35): Nūḥ, Ibrāhīm, Mūsā, ʿĪsā and Muḥammad ﷺ, whom the Qurʾān names together twice (33:7, 42:13).
How many there were, Allah knows best. Reports give 124,000 prophets and 313 or 315 messengers, and al-Ḥākim graded the report of 315 messengers sound; al-Taftāzānī and al-Bayjūrī hold that the better course is not to fix a number, for “of them are those We have told you about, and of them those We have not told you about” (Ghāfir 40:78).
On this page a prophet is labelled Messenger where the Qurʾān, or an authentic hadith, calls him one, and Prophet where only his prophethood is stated. Where the scholars count him otherwise, his entry says so.
Kinship
Fathers and sons as the Qurʾān gives them: Ibrāhīm and his sons Ismāʿīl and Isḥāq, Isḥāq's son Yaʿqūb and grandson Yūsuf, Dāwūd and Sulaymān, Zakariyyā and Yaḥyā. Others the tradition places by their people rather than by descent; those notes are marked as tradition.
The line from Ādam to Muḥammad ﷺ
The whole line of descent, from Ādam through Nūḥ, Ibrāhīm and Ismāʿīl to the Prophet ﷺ, is drawn in the family tree, with the uncertain stretches folded and every name explained.