Islam-beliefs

Prophetic Lineage in Quran

The diagram shows the principle prophets lineage or family tree in accordance to Islam. Most of them are mentioned by name in the Quran.

For easy understanding, I have also mentioned their respective names as found in the Bible or Torah.

Principal Prophet Lineage

Explanations of the short forms (Islamic honorifics) to be used in the article:

mp&buh – may Peace and Blessings of God be upon him {used after Muhammad (mpbuh)}

pbuh – may Peace of God be upon him {used after the name of any prophet of God}

gbph – God be pleased with him/her {used after the name of the companions/spouse of any prophet}

The Concept of Prophethood

Many religions of the world including Islam, Christianity and Judaism have the belief that God sends human prophets to humanity to deliver His message.

These prophets also act as the role model as a human being to demonstrate how to live up to the message sent by God to humanity.

What is Atheism?

Atheism is a concept of absence of the belief in the existence of any God. Atheism is a relatively new concept where, with the evolution of science and technology people lost focus over the basic knowledge of their own religion and the concept of God. The smarter people of the older generation couldn’t imagine a complex world like this to even exist without a creator. 

What is Monotheism?

Monotheism is a concept of the existence of only one God/Deity. It is strongly distinguished from Polytheism with the belief of multiple Gods. If we consider the major religions that exist today, most of them support monotheism. Many people are unaware that the educated Christians also believe in only one God. Interestingly, the concept of the God in Judaism is the same as the God in Islam sharing similar kind of attributes.

Muslims don’t believe in Darwin’s Theory of Evolution

The major religions of the world, including Islam, Christianity and Judaism don’t believe in Darwin’s Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection, which is based on the idea that Human beings came into existence by evolution from other creatures/species like apes or monkeys.

Almost all of the major religions have the common belief that Adam(pbuh) is the first Human being, who was directly created by God and sent to this earth. 

So, Islam is the most ancient religion starting from the first Human being on earth. It did not start from Muhammad(mp&buh).

Starting of Polytheism

Adam → Seith: Seith(pbuh) is one of the sons of Adam(pbuh) who carried on the prophetic legacy. 

Seith –→ Enoch –→ Noah: Enoch/Idris(pbuh) came a few generations after Seith(pbuh) and after a few more generations came Noah/Nuh(pbuh), who faced Idolatry.

The concept of polytheism started from his time and no other prophet before him had to fight this issue. So, the roots of religions like Hinduism are relatively new which actually started a long period of time after the first human being on earth, that is Adam(pbuh).

Noah(pbuh) preached Islam and Monotheism against Idolatry for 950 years but he could only convince a maximum of 80 people. He and his followers with few animals were saved by an Ark from the flood, sent by God as a punishment for the rejection of Islam.

History of Abraham/Ibrahim(pbuh)

He was the mightiest prophetic figure, who is accepted by almost all of the major religions of this world. 

For a long period of time Abraham/Ibrahim(pbuh) was asking God to grant him a righteous child. However, his wife Sara(gbph) was initially a barren, who had a slave girl of noble lineage named Hagar/Hajar(gbph). Sara(gbph) set free Hajar(gbph), so that her husband could marry her in order to have offspring and continue his noble prophetic lineage.

First son Ismael/Ismail(pbuh) from Hajar(gbph)

Thus Abraham/Ibrahim(pbuh) had his first son Ismael/Ismail(pbuh) from Hajar(gbph) and God commanded Ibrahim(pbuh) to leave Hajar(gbph) and his son in a desert land. Ibrahim(pbuh) was blessed with that child after a long time and he also loved his child, however Ibrahim(pbuh) was the best role model of a Muslim who followed the God’s command without any hesitation.

God saved that child and the mother by providing them ZamZam water and slowly a community developed in that place. No prophets are reported to be found from the progeny of Ismail(pbuh) since a long period of time.

Second son Isaac(pbuh) from Sara(gbph)

On the other hand, God sent angels to give the good news for Sara(gbph), that she was going to bear a child even though she had become an old woman. Thus, Isaac/Ishaac(pbuh) was born from the first wife of Ibrahim(pbuh).

All prophets from the progeny of Isaac/Ishaac(pbuh)

All of the prophets that came after Ibrahim(pbuh) onwards are reported to have come from the progeny of his son Ishaac(pbuh). Examples include, Jacob/Yaqub(pbuh), Joseph/Yusuf(pbuh), Jonah/Yunus(pbuh), Moses/Musa(pbuh), Solomon/Sulaiman(pbuh), Jesus/Isa(pbuh) and so on, the number of prophets coming from this progeny too many, that it is almost impossible to deny any prophet to come from this noble lineage. However, interestingly, since a very long period of time, we can not find any prophet from the progeny of Ismail(pbuh).

Stories of the Prophets in various Religious Scriptures

Another interesting fact is that, the stories of all of these prophets that are mentioned in the scriptures(revelation) are almost the same in all the religious scriptures(revelation), including the Quran. However, the Quran or the Hadiths never mentions anything against any of these prophets that is demeaning to their character. 

Many of the information of the scriptures of other religions are changed by humans with time but the Quran is kept intact from the beginning to this point of time.

The Quran affirms that among many other true revelations to the prophets, Zabur was revealed to David or Daud(pbuh), Torah was revealed to Musa(pbuh), The Injil was revealed to Jesus(pbuh) (which was the true Gospel, bestowed upon Jesus(pbuh) by God – subsequently this Injil formed the core/primary section of the Bible). The Quran is the final revelation of the Almighty God that has remained unchanged and uncorrupted until now and we as Muslims believe that God with His divine help will preserve it till the end of times.

Story of Muhammad(mp&buh)

The final messenger of God(mp&buh) was born in Mecca from the progeny of Ismail(pbuh) after a long period of time. After receiving prophethood, he started preaching Monotheism in his own land (where polytheistic worship was rampant and deeply rooted), people of his own land rejected him and started to torture and execute his followers.

Few people from Madina reached out to Muhammad(mp&buh) and offered him and his followers protection in their land and finally Muhammad(mp&buh) had to migrate to Madina with a vast majority of his followers. The entire Quran was revealed to him and the Quran is then protected by God to remain unchanged.

Conceptual differences between the people of Jews, Christians and Islam

Why the Jews & Christians are not accepting Muhammad(mp&buh) as a Prophet of God?

Reason 1: The mother of Ismael(pbuh) was Hajar(gbph), who was once a slave of Sara(gbph). Even though she belonged from a noble lineage, her slavery before her marriage to Ibrahim(pbuh) can easily create negative impact in the minds of people of other faith traditions.

Reason 2: Muhammad(mp&buh) didn’t have much miracles like Isa(pbuh) to prove his prophethood, his Miracle is actually Quran (the true word of God) which is protected by God in a manner that no change could be made to this till now.

Reason 3: Delay in prophethood in the lineage of Ismael(pbuh) as compared to the lineage of Isaac(pbuh).

Reason 4: This contributing factor is actually the lack of humility in accepting the fact that the final messenger Muhammad(mp&buh) originated from an under civilized and lesser educated nation at that time (Arabia).

So, it’s the duty of the Muslims to request people to:

  • Read the meaning of the Quran by themselves
  • Comparing this unmodified word of God with the scripture of their own religion
  • Concentrate on the message of the God (that is the Quran) rather than tracing back the progeny of the messenger, to whom it was revealed.
  • And thereby reach out to the ultimate conclusion as the Quran is itself a miracle whose meaning and eloquence is self-evident to prove itself to be the word of God.

I hope this discussion clarified some of these aspects to you. So, please:

  • Do further research and explore knowledge from all possible dimensions
  • Think with an open mind after your research
  • And finally decide by yourself what you are truly convinced after your seeking of the truth.

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