The Six Articles of Faith

These six beliefs are the foundation of Muslim faith (iman). They are most often taught in this form by Sunni Muslims.

• Tawhid — the oneness of God. God is one, unique, with no partner, no image and no offspring. The opposite of tawhid is shirk, associating anything with God, which is the gravest sin. Surah 112 (Al-Ikhlas) is the classic short statement of this belief.
• Risalah — prophethood. God has sent messengers to every people, including Adam, Nuh (Noah), Ibrahim (Abraham), Musa (Moses), Isa (Jesus) and finally Muhammad (pbuh). Prophets are human — never divine.
• Akhirah — life after death: the Day of Judgement, when every person is raised, their deeds weighed, and they enter Paradise (Jannah) or Hell (Jahannam).
• Mala'ikah — angels: created from light, without free will, carrying out God's commands. Jibril brought revelation; Israfil will sound the trumpet; recording angels write down every deed.
• Qadar — predestination: God knows and decrees all things. Yet humans are still accountable, which is why Judgement is just. Muslims have debated how these fit together for centuries.
• Kutub — the holy books: the Scrolls of Ibrahim, the Tawrat (Torah) of Musa, the Zabur (Psalms) of Dawud, the Injil (Gospel) of Isa, and the Qur'an — the final, uncorrupted revelation.

Impact on daily life: beliefs are not abstract. Tawhid means a Muslim will not bow to any human power; akhirah makes every small act count, because it is recorded; qadar brings patience in suffering ("God knows best"); belief in angels encourages honesty even in private. Muslims differ on which article they find most demanding — many say akhirah shapes behaviour most, others that everything flows from tawhid.

The heart of the faith

The five roots of Usul ad-Din

Usul ad-Din means "the roots of religion". These five are the foundations of faith as taught by Shi'a Muslims. Two of them you have already met; three make the Shi'a understanding distinctive.

• Tawhid — the oneness of God. Shared.
• 'Adl — divine justice. God is perfectly just and never acts unjustly. This is a separate root for Shi'a Muslims, and it carries a consequence: because God is just, humans must have real freedom — otherwise punishment would be unfair.
• Risalah — prophethood. Shared.
• Imamah — the authority of the Imams. Shi'a Muslims believe God appointed rightful leaders from the Prophet's family to guide the ummah after him, beginning with Imam 'Ali.
• Mi'ad — the Day of Resurrection and judgement.

Do not overstate the difference. Sunni Muslims also believe God is just and that there will be a resurrection — those beliefs are simply contained inside tawhid and akhirah rather than listed separately. The genuinely distinctive Shi'a belief in this list is Imamah. Cambridge wants accuracy and fairness here, not caricature.

Impact on daily life: belief in 'Adl encourages Shi'a Muslims to campaign for justice and to see suffering as a test rather than as God's caprice; belief in Imamah shapes devotion to the Prophet's family, the commemoration of Imam Husayn at Karbala, and the practice of following a living, qualified scholar for guidance.

Which list does it belong to?

Tap a belief, then tap the list it belongs to. Careful — two of them appear in both.

The distinctive root

The Five Pillars of Islam

If the articles are what a Muslim believes, the pillars are what a Muslim does. A well-known hadith, recorded in the collections of al-Bukhari and Muslim, teaches that Islam is built on five:

• Shahadah — the declaration: there is no god but God, and Muhammad is the Messenger of God. Saying it sincerely makes a person a Muslim; it is whispered to newborns and said at the point of death.
• Salah — the five daily prayers, facing the qiblah.
• Sawm — fasting through the daylight hours of Ramadan.
• Zakah — the obligatory annual payment on surplus wealth (usually reckoned at one fortieth, 2.5%), purifying the rest.
• Hajj — the pilgrimage to Makkah, obligatory once in a lifetime for every Muslim who is physically and financially able.

Different views on importance: most Muslims regard the shahadah as first, because the other four are meaningless without it. Shi'a Muslims often teach a longer list of obligatory acts ("the branches of religion", furu' ad-Din) that also includes duties such as khums (a further payment) and commanding good and forbidding wrong — so the "five pillars" framing is more typically Sunni.

Becoming a Muslim

Early life, and the first revelation

Early life. Muhammad (pbuh) was born in Makkah around 570 CE. Orphaned young, he was raised by his grandfather and then his uncle Abu Talib. He worked as a merchant and earned a reputation for honesty so strong that the Makkans called him al-Amin — the trustworthy. He married Khadijah, a successful businesswoman who had employed him, and she became the first person to accept his message.

Why the trustworthy character matters: Muslims argue that a man known city-wide for never lying is not a man who would then invent a revelation — and that the Makkans, who later opposed him fiercely, never accused him of dishonesty in business. His character is therefore treated as evidence for the truth of the message, not merely a nice detail.

The cave of Hira'. Troubled by the greed and idolatry of Makkah, Muhammad (pbuh) would retreat to meditate in a cave on Mount Hira'. There, aged about forty, the angel Jibril came to him with the command "Iqra" — "Read!" / "Recite!" — the opening of Surah 96 (Al-'Alaq). He replied that he could not read; the angel pressed him and he recited.

Its significance: this is the beginning of the Qur'an and of Islam as a revealed religion. He came home shaking and afraid, and Khadijah comforted and believed him. Revelations continued for around 23 years. The event tells Muslims that the Qur'an is given, not composed — the Prophet is the receiver, never the author.

The first revelation

Persecution, the hijrah, and the final messenger

Why was he persecuted in Makkah? Give reasons, not just the fact:

• Religion. He preached one God and rejected the idols of the Ka'bah. This attacked the city's whole religious identity.
• Money. Makkah profited from pilgrims visiting those idols. Monotheism threatened the tribal leaders' income.
• Power and status. His message that all people are equal before God, and his welcoming of the poor and the enslaved, undermined the authority of the Quraysh elite.

Early Muslims were mocked, boycotted, tortured and in some cases killed. Some emigrated to Abyssinia for safety.

The hijrah. In 622 CE the Prophet (pbuh) and his followers migrated to Yathrib, which became Madinah, the City of the Prophet. There he was invited to lead: he built a mosque, drew up an agreement setting out the rights and duties of the different groups living in the city, and the first Muslim community — the first ummah with a public life of its own — was established.

Importance for Islam today: the Muslim calendar counts from the hijrah (AH), not from the Prophet's birth — a striking choice. It says that what mattered was the birth of the community. The hijrah also gives Muslims a model for migration: leaving hostility to practise faith freely; Muslims living as minorities today often draw on it, as do refugees.

The Seal of the Prophets. The Qur'an calls Muhammad (pbuh) the Messenger of God and the Seal of the Prophets (Surah 33:40). Muslims take this to mean that prophethood is complete: no prophet will follow, the Qur'an will not be superseded, and his sunnah is therefore the permanent model for how to live.

The life of the Prophet (pbuh)

Tap a term on the left, then its meaning on the right.

The development of Islam: Sunni and Shi'a

When the Prophet (pbuh) died in 632 CE he left no undisputed instruction about who should lead. The disagreement that followed is the origin of the two main traditions. Both are Muslim; both hold the shahadah, the Qur'an and the pillars. Explain the difference respectfully and accurately.

• The Sunni view. Leadership should pass to the best-qualified companion, chosen by the community. Abu Bakr — the Prophet's close friend, an early convert, and the man he asked to lead the prayers in his final illness — became the first caliph (khalifah, "successor"). He held the community together and had the Qur'an gathered together in writing.
• After him came 'Umar, under whom the Muslim state expanded enormously and administration and justice were organised, and then 'Uthman, who is remembered above all for producing an authoritative single text of the Qur'an. Sunnis honour these, with 'Ali, as the Rightly Guided (Rashidun) caliphs.
• The Shi'a view. Leadership belonged by God's appointment to the Prophet's family: to 'Ali, his cousin, son-in-law (husband of Fatimah), and one of the very first believers. Shi'a Muslims hold that the Prophet (pbuh) had designated 'Ali, and that spiritual authority cannot simply be voted on. "Shi'a" comes from shi'at 'Ali, "the party of 'Ali".
• The Twelve Imams. Most Shi'a Muslims today are Twelvers: they believe in a line of twelve divinely appointed, sinless Imams, beginning with 'Ali and his sons Hasan and Husayn (killed at Karbala, remembered at Ashura), and ending with the twelfth, Muhammad al-Mahdi, who they believe is hidden and will return to establish justice. Other Shi'a groups, such as the Isma'ilis, count the line differently.

Exam warning: do not write that Sunnis and Shi'a "believe in different Gods" or "have different Qur'ans" — they do not. The disagreement is about authority and succession, with consequences for law, leadership and devotional practice.

Who should have led?

How Muslims understand the Qur'an

• As a revelation from God. Muslims believe the Qur'an is the literal, uncreated word of God, revealed in Arabic through Jibril over about 23 years, memorised and written down, and preserved unchanged. It is not regarded as the Prophet's own words — which is why a translation is called an "interpretation of the meaning" rather than the Qur'an itself.
• As a source of authority. It is the first source of Islamic teaching and law, above the sunnah and above any scholar's opinion. If a ruling contradicts the Qur'an, the ruling is wrong.
• As a source of moral principles. The syllabus points you to two passages that set out requirements (things Muslims should do) and restrictions (things they should not): Surah Al-An'am 6:151–153 and Surah Al-Isra' 17:23–39.

Both passages read like a moral charter. Between them they require: worshipping God alone; treating parents with kindness (Surah 17 famously forbids even saying an impatient word to them, and tells the believer to lower the wing of humility to them); giving relatives, the poor and the traveller their due; keeping promises and covenants; giving full measure and weight in trade; speaking justly. They forbid: shirk; killing one's children out of fear of poverty; killing any soul unlawfully; approaching indecency; misusing the property of orphans; wastefulness; and walking the earth in arrogance.

Why this matters in Muslim life: notice what these verses are about — parents, orphans, the poor, honest trade, keeping your word. They show that for Muslims, worship of one God is inseparable from ethics. A Muslim quoting them is not quoting an abstract creed but a rule for how to behave at home, in the market and in the street. Muslims interpret them with the help of the sunnah and of scholars, and some passages are debated — but their authority is not.

Requirements and restrictions

I2 Beliefs and scriptures — the big ideas

Whenever you state a belief, add the phrase Cambridge is waiting for: "and this affects daily life because…" Press Finish to see your score.