From Adam to Muhammad ﷺ

Before Adam was created, Allah told the angels that He would place a vicegerent (khalifah) on earth (2:30). He fashioned Adam and taught him the names of all things, knowledge the angels did not have (2:31–33). The angels bowed to Adam as they were commanded; only Iblis refused, saying, 'I am better than him' (7:12).

Adam and his wife lived in the Garden, free to eat from it except from one tree. Iblis whispered to them, and they ate from it. They turned to Allah in repentance with words their Lord taught them, and He forgave them (2:35–37). They were sent down to the earth, with guidance promised to them and their children. Tradition links Adam with 'Arafat, where he and Hawwa' are said to have met again.

Generations after Adam, people had turned to idols. Allah sent Nuh to call them back to worship Him alone. He called them by night and by day, in public and in private (71:5–9), for nine hundred and fifty years (29:14), but only a few believed. The chiefs mocked him and his poor followers.

Allah commanded Nuh to build an ark under His eyes, and his people laughed as they passed (11:37–38). When the flood came, he took on board the believers and a pair of every kind. One of his own sons refused to come, and was lost in the waves (11:42–43). Then the earth swallowed its water, the sky held back its rain, and the ark came to rest on al-Judi (11:44).

Ibrahim grew up among a people who worshipped idols and the heavenly bodies. Watching a star, the moon and the sun set, he turned his face to the One who created the heavens and the earth (6:76–79). He broke the idols of his people, leaving only the largest, and when they came to burn him, Allah made the fire 'cool and safe' for him (21:58–69).

He left his land for Allah's sake. In a barren valley he left his wife Hajar and their infant son Isma'il, praying that Allah would make hearts incline towards them (14:37). Later, when he saw in a dream that he was sacrificing his son, both submitted, and Allah ransomed Isma'il (37:102–107). Together, father and son raised the foundations of the Ka'bah, praying for a messenger to arise from their descendants (2:127–129). Allah took Ibrahim as His friend (4:125).

As a boy, Yusuf dreamed that eleven stars, the sun and the moon bowed down to him (12:4). His brothers, jealous of their father Ya'qub's love for him, threw him into a well, and travellers sold him in Egypt for a few coins (12:20). Raised in the house of a great official, he refused the advances of his master's wife and chose prison rather than sin (12:33).

In prison he interpreted dreams, and when the king dreamed of seven fat cows eaten by seven lean ones, Yusuf explained the years of plenty and famine to come. He was put in charge of the storehouses of the land (12:55). When famine drove his brothers to Egypt for grain, he made himself known and forgave them: 'No blame upon you today' (12:92). His family came to him, and his childhood dream came true (12:100).

Musa was born when Pharaoh was killing the sons of the Children of Israel. Inspired by Allah, his mother placed him in the river, and he was carried to Pharaoh's own palace, where he was raised (28:7–13). As a young man he fled to Madyan and lived there for years (28:22–28).

Returning across Sinai, he saw a fire by the mountain at Tuwa, and there Allah spoke to him: 'I am Allah; there is no god but Me, so worship Me' (20:12–14). He was sent with his brother Harun to Pharaoh, with the signs of the staff and the shining hand. When Pharaoh pursued the Children of Israel, the sea parted for them and closed over his army (26:63–66). On the mountain Allah gave Musa the Tawrah, written on tablets (7:145). The Quran names him more often than any other prophet.

Dawud was a young soldier in the army of Talut when he slew the giant Jalut, and Allah gave him kingship and wisdom (2:251). He was given the Zabur (4:163). When he glorified Allah, the mountains and the birds joined in his praise, and iron was made soft in his hands for him to make coats of mail (34:10–11). He judged between people and sought Allah's forgiveness often (38:20–26).

His son Sulayman inherited his knowledge and was taught the speech of birds (27:16). He heard an ant warn the others to keep clear of his army, and smiled and thanked Allah (27:18–19). The wind was made to serve him (21:81), and through the hoopoe he learned of the Queen of Saba', who came to him and submitted to Allah (27:20–44). Both prophets are linked in tradition with Jerusalem.

Maryam, whom Allah chose above the women of the worlds (3:42), was told by an angel that she would bear a son though no man had touched her. In the pain of birth she sheltered by a palm tree, and was told to shake its trunk and eat its fresh dates (19:23–26). When her people reproached her, the infant spoke from the cradle: 'I am the servant of Allah' (19:30).

'Isa was given the Injil (5:46). By Allah's permission he healed the blind and the leper and raised the dead, and his disciples, the hawariyyun, believed in him (3:49–52). He foretold a messenger to come after him named Ahmad (61:6). The Quran teaches that he was neither killed nor crucified, but that Allah raised him up to Himself (4:157–158), and Muslims believe he will return before the end of time.

Muhammad ﷺ was born in Makkah in about 570, an orphan raised by his grandfather and then his uncle. He was known as al-Amin, the trustworthy, long before the first revelation came to him in the cave of Hira in 610. For twenty-three years the Quran was revealed to him, and he lived it among his Companions in Makkah and Madinah.

The Quran calls him the Seal of the Prophets (33:40) and a mercy to the worlds (21:107). His message was the message of every prophet on this journey: 'We sent no messenger before you without revealing to him that there is no god but Me, so worship Me' (21:25). From here the timeline is dated, and the map follows his Companions and the scholars who carried the knowledge onward.