What do Muslims believe?

The center of Islam is tawhid, the absolute oneness of God. God, called Allah in Arabic, is one, without partner, equal or offspring. He is the creator and sustainer of everything, all-knowing, all-powerful, just and merciful.

Arabic-speaking Christians and Jews also use the word Allah for God. In Islam, associating anything with God as a partner, called shirk, is considered the gravest error. Muslims understand God as beyond physical form and beyond full human comprehension, yet close to every person and responsive to prayer.

Muslims believe that God has spoken to humanity through revealed scriptures. The Quran names earlier revelations, including the Torah given to Moses, the Psalms given to David and the Gospel given to Jesus.

The Quran is understood as God’s final revelation, conveyed to Muhammad through the angel Gabriel over about twenty-three years in the seventh century. Muslims regard the Arabic Quran as the literal word of God. Translations are valued for understanding, but they are considered interpretations of meaning rather than the Quran itself.

Alongside the Quran, the sunnah, meaning the example of the Prophet as recorded in hadith reports, is a major source of guidance. Sunni and Shi’a Muslims rely on different hadith collections and chains of transmission.

Islam teaches that God sent prophets to every people. The Quran names many figures also known from the Bible, including Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon, John and Jesus. All prophets taught the same basic message: worship one God and live righteously.

Muhammad is believed to be the last prophet, the “seal of the prophets.” Jesus is honoured as a great prophet and the Messiah, born of the virgin Mary, but Muslims do not believe he is divine or the Son of God. The Quran also teaches that Jesus was not crucified, though Muslim interpreters have explained that passage in different ways.

Muslims believe in angels as beings created by God who carry out his commands. Angels have no free will in the human sense. Well-known angels include Gabriel (Jibril), who brought revelation, and angels who record human deeds.

Islamic tradition also speaks of the jinn, beings created from smokeless fire who, like humans, have free will. Belief in the unseen world, al-ghayb, is part of Islamic faith.

Muslims believe that this life is a test and that every person will be resurrected and judged by God on the Day of Judgment. Deeds, intentions and faith will be weighed. Paradise is described in the Quran as a garden of peace and closeness to God, while hell is a place of punishment.

God’s mercy is a constant theme. Muslims believe that God forgives those who sincerely repent, and many hadith emphasize that no one enters paradise by deeds alone but through God’s mercy.

Islam teaches qadar, God’s knowledge and decree. Nothing happens outside God’s knowledge and will. At the same time, humans are responsible for their choices and will be judged for them.

How divine decree and human responsibility fit together has been discussed by Muslim theologians for centuries. Different schools of theology, such as the Ash’ari, Maturidi and Mu’tazili, offered different explanations, and Shi’a theology has its own emphasis on divine justice. Ordinary Muslim faith usually holds both truths together: trust in God and personal accountability.

Sunni and Shi’a Muslims share belief in one God, the Quran, the prophethood of Muhammad, the Day of Judgment and the core acts of worship. Their main historical disagreement concerns leadership after Muhammad’s death.

Shi’a Muslims believe that leadership passed through a line of Imams from Muhammad’s family, beginning with Ali, and Twelver Shi’a theology lists the imamate among the roots of religion. Sunni Muslims recognize the first four caliphs and do not hold a doctrine of the imamate in the Shi’a sense. Both communities are internally diverse.

Belief is expressed through practice: prayer, fasting, almsgiving and pilgrimage put faith into action. Many Muslims also see ethical conduct, honesty, family duty, justice and kindness, as inseparable from belief.

Muslims vary in how strictly they practise. Someone who is not regularly observant may still hold Islamic beliefs firmly, and Muslim scholars have long discussed how faith (iman) relates to action.

The six articles of faith come from a famous hadith, often called the hadith of Gabriel, which is widely cited in Sunni teaching. Twelver Shi’a teaching more often uses the five roots of religion: divine oneness, divine justice, prophethood, the imamate and resurrection.

The two lists overlap substantially. Both affirm God, prophethood and the afterlife, and both include belief in angels and scripture in their wider teaching. The difference is mostly in how belief is organized and what is emphasized.

Muslims believe in one God, the Quran as his final revelation, the prophets culminating in Muhammad, angels, a coming Day of Judgment and God’s knowledge and decree. These beliefs are shared across Sunni and Shi’a Islam, though they are organized and emphasized differently, and they are lived out through worship and ethical conduct.