Home > Stories of the Prophets
Updated on 07 September 2026 at 2:33 AM
The history of the prophets, called Qasas al-Anbiya in Arabic, gathers the accounts of the messengers reported by the Quran and the Sunna: their call, their people, the trials and the salvation of the believers. This encyclopedia presents 25 of them, from the creation of Adam to Issa ibn Maryam, faithfully translated from Arabic and arranged in chronological order.
Qasas al-Anbiya means in Arabic “the stories of the prophets”. These stories are among the greatest sources of lessons: Allah said: “Indeed, in their stories is a lesson for people of understanding” (Yousouf, 111). Our primary source is the book The Beginning and the End (al-Bidaya wa-l-Nihaya) by the imam and hafiz Ibn Kathir: each story cites its verses, its hadiths and the views of the exegetes, without summary or paraphrase. The biography of the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) is covered in detail in the Sounna section.
From the first to the last, here are the 25 stories of the encyclopedia, in chronological order:
The Quran relates the stories of the prophets so that lessons may be drawn: the people of Nuh engulfed by the flood, Ibrahim thrown into the fire which left him unharmed, Moussa before Pharaon, Younous in the belly of the fish, Ayyoub patient in illness, the children of Israël crossing the sea with Moussa... The Sunna completes these stories with the authentic hadiths of the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him). This encyclopedia follows the chronological order: the creation of the heavens and the earth, the angels and the jinn, then Adam, and the prophets up to Issa ibn Maryam.
Each story is a faithful translation from Arabic: the verses are quoted in full, the hadiths are reported with their chains of transmission (isnads abridged as “related by X, from Y”), and the differences of the exegetes are mentioned. Nothing is summarized or paraphrased: the sources are cited page by page, and each story offers an anchored table of contents to navigate directly to its sections.