How many prophets are there in Islam?

The twenty-five named in the Qur'an

Ibn Kathir lists them when explaining the verse in Surah al-Nisa in which Allah says He related some messengers to the Prophet ﷺ and did not relate others. His list, in the order he gives it, is:

Adam, Idris, Nuh, Hud, Salih, Ibrahim, Lut, Isma'il, Ishaq, Ya'qub, Yusuf, Ayyub, Shu'ayb, Musa, Harun, Yunus, Dawud, Sulayman, Ilyas, al-Yasa', Zakariyya, Yahya, 'Isa — and Dhu al-Kifl, whom many commentators include — with Muhammad ﷺ as their master.

That is twenty-five names, counting Dhu al-Kifl and Muhammad ﷺ. Akram al-'Umari gives the same twenty-five, opening the list with Adam and closing it with 'Isa and Muhammad ﷺ, and adds the obligation that follows from it: these messengers must be believed in by name and person, and denying any one of them is disbelief by the plain text of the Qur'an.

Al-Shawkani's index of prophets in Fath al-Qadir covers the same figures, treating each in turn — Adam, Idris, Nuh, Hud, Salih, Ibrahim, Lut, Yusuf, Shu'ayb, Ayyub, Musa, Dawud, Sulayman, Ilyas, Yunus, Zakariyya and Yahya together, and 'Isa.

There were others we are not told about

The twenty-five are those named. The Qur'an itself says the number of messengers exceeds what was named to the Prophet ﷺ:

"And messengers We have mentioned to you before, and messengers We have not mentioned to you"— Qur'an 4:164

So the count of twenty-five is the count of those named, not the count of all who were sent. Ibn Kathir notes that the scholars differed over the total number of prophets and messengers, and that what is well known on the subject is the long hadith of Abu Dharr.

The reports giving a total number

The hadith of Abu Dharr, which Ibn Kathir cites from Ibn Mardawayh's tafsir, gives the figures:

"A hundred thousand and twenty-four thousand."— the hadith of Abu Dharr, on the number of prophets

And on the messengers among them, the narration gives three hundred and thirteen. A second narration, from Abu Umamah, gives three hundred and fifteen.

Ibn Kathir does not leave these reports unexamined. He records that Ibn Hibban graded the hadith of Abu Dharr authentic in his al-Anwa' wa al-Taqasim, but that Ibn al-Jawzi placed it in his book of fabricated narrations and accused one of its transmitters, Ibrahim ibn Hisham, on account of it — and Ibn Kathir adds that more than one of the imams of criticism spoke against him because of this very hadith. The chain of the Abu Umamah narration, he says, contains Ma'an ibn Rafi'ah al-Salami, 'Ali ibn Yazid, and al-Qasim Abu 'Abd al-Rahman, each of them weak. A third report, from Anas, giving eight thousand prophets, he likewise grades weak. Al-Albani, for his part, judged the narration of Abu Umamah — three hundred and fifteen messengers — authentic through its supporting routes, in al-Silsilah al-Sahihah.

Akram al-'Umari reaches the same conclusion from the other direction: he notes the narration giving twenty-four thousand prophets and three hundred and fifteen messengers, then states that its chain contains Ma'an ibn Rafi'ah al-Salami, who is soft in hadith and transmits a great deal without a chain, 'Ali ibn Yazid, who is weak, and al-Qasim ibn 'Abd al-Rahman, who is truthful but errs often.

Shaykh 'Abd al-Muhsin al-'Abbad, asked whether the authentic Sunnah mentions a number for the prophets and messengers, answers simply that yes, the hadith of Abu Dharr came on this — without asserting its authenticity.

Prophets and messengers are not the same category

The twenty-five named are not all messengers. Asked whether the twenty-five mentioned in the Qur'an are messengers or prophets, al-'Abbad answers that among them are those who are messengers and among them are those who are prophets, and among them are those known to have had a book sent down and those of whom this is not known.

The distinction itself is set out in the sources. A prophet is given a law by revelation without being charged with conveying it, and acts by it; a messenger is given a law by revelation and charged with conveying it. Al-San'ani puts it that messengership is more specific than prophethood, and that the two are not synonyms — whoever claims they are interchangeable is straining the language.

Key takeaways

• Twenty-five prophets and messengers are named in the Qur'an, and belief in them by name is obligatory; denying any one of them is disbelief.
• The twenty-five are not all messengers — some are messengers and some are prophets, and the sources do not assign every name to one category.
• The Qur'an states that messengers were sent whom God did not name to the Prophet ﷺ, so twenty-five is the count of those named, not of all who were sent.
• The hadith of Abu Dharr gives a hundred thousand and twenty-four thousand prophets and three hundred and thirteen messengers, but Ibn Kathir, Ibn al-Jawzi and Akram al-'Umari all record serious criticism of its chains, and the alternative reports are weak.
• The reports giving a total are disputed — Ibn Kathir weakened them, while al-Albani authenticated the narration of three hundred and fifteen messengers — so the safe answer is the twenty-five named, with the rest left to God's knowledge.

Further reading

• Ibn Kathir, Tafsir, on Surah al-Nisa 4:163–165
• Al-Shawkani, Fath al-Qadir, index of the prophets and messengers
• Akram al-'Umari, al-Iman bi-Sa'ir al-Anbiya' wa Atharuhu

And Allah knows best.