Islamic mythology

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Central Islam stories[edit]

Life of Muhammad[edit]

Muhammad was born into late 6th-century Arabia. At that time, the inhabitants practiced a polytheistic religion and lived in tribal groups that frequently feuded. Although married, Muhammad retreated into a cave in Mount Hira, in search of enlightenment. While in the cave, Muslims believe he experienced a revelation and received the words of the Qur'an (dictated to him by the angel Gabriel). He returned to Mecca, a cultural center of Arabia, to spread his message.

Threatened by the possibility of a religious revolution, the Meccan leaders persecuted Muhammad and his followers who eventually migrated to Medina, from which they continued to feud with the Meccans. Eventually Muhammad conquered Mecca, converting its religious center, the Kaaba stone, into the new center of Islamic spirituality. By the time he died, he had brought nearly all of Arabia into the religion of Islam.[1]

The Kaaba[edit]

According to Islamic tradition, God instructed Adam to construct a building to be the earthly counterpart of the House of Heaven. This was the giant black stone cube that Muslims call the Kaaba, the mosque revered in Islam as being sacred. Islamic literature states that the Kaaba was destroyed in the flood of Nuh (Noah).[2] Later, Ibrahim (Abraham) and Ismail (Ishmael) were instructed by Allah to rebuild the Kaaba on the old foundations.[3][4] As Ismail was searching for a stone to mark a corner with, he met with the angel Jibrail (Gabriel). Jibrail gave him the Black Stone. According to the hadith, the Black Stone is reported to have been milky white after being descended from Heaven but was rendered black due to the sins of the people, who had touched it.

The Kaaba was originally intended as a symbolic house for the one monotheistic God. However, after Ibrahim's death, people started to fill the Kaaba with pagan idols. When Muhammad conquered Mecca, he cleaned out the idols from the Kaaba.[5] It now stands as an important pilgrimage site, which all Muslims are supposed to visit at least once if they are able. Muslims are supposed to pray five times a day while facing in the Kaaba's direction.[6]

Connection with Jewish and Christian mythologies[edit]

Biblical stories in the Qur'an[edit]

Like Judaism and Christianity, Islam is a monotheistic religion. It has much in common with the stories and teachings of Judaism and Christianity, but Muslims believe that Muhammad was the final and ultimate prophet in the Judeo-Christo-Islamic revelation, called "Khatim Al Anbiya'a".[7] They also believe that the religious texts of the Jews and Christians have been corrupted by the hands of man over the passage of time.[8] Islam incorporates many Biblical events and heroes into its own mythology. Stories about Musa (Moses)[9] and Ibrahim (Abraham)[10] form parts of Islam's scriptures. The Qur'an retells in detail the Jewish tale of Joseph, who was sold to an Egyptian,[11] and the Christian tale of Mary, the mother of Jesus.[12] In both cases, it adds original details and an Islamic interpretation: for instance, in the Islamic version, Jesus speaks while he is still an infant,[13] and he is a miraculously-conceived human prophet, not the incarnation of God.[14]

Linear time[edit]

Unlike many other religions, whose sense of time was basically cyclic, Judaism and Christianity worked to preserve a written linear history and mythic timeline, running from the creation to the end of the world. For example, in Aztec mythology the universe is created and destroyed repeatedly in a circular concept of History,[15] but in Judaism and Christianity, the universe has been created only once and will be destroyed only once, and after its destruction it will be restored to perfection once and for all, having a lineal concept of time.[16] Likewise, Islamic mythology has a linear time perspective, running from the creation to the end of the world and the establishment of paradise on heaven. Qur'an 56 describes the end times, the judgment of the dead, and the eternal reward and punishment of saints and sinners—an eschatological mythology similar to the storyline of the Christian Book of Revelation and to some elements in the Jewish Book of Isaiah and Book of Daniel.

Islamic creation narrative[edit]

Islam shares the creation myth of Judaism and Christianity, spaced out over six periods.[17] The Islamic creation account, like the Hebrew one, involves Adam and Eve as the first parents, living in paradise. As in the Hebrew story, God warns Adam and Eve not to eat fruit from a certain tree, but they do anyway, earning expulsion from Paradise.[18]

This narrative is further developed in many verses in the Qur'an. According to the Qur'an, the skies and the earth were joined together as one "unit of creation", after which they were "cloven asunder".[19] After the parting of both, they simultaneously came into their present shape after going through a phase when they were smoke-like.[20]

Some parts of the Qur'an state that the process of creation took 6 days.[21] While other parts claim that the process took 8 days: 2 days to create the Earth,[22] 4 days to create the mountains, to bless the Earth and to measure its sustenance,[23] and then 2 more days to create the heavens and the stars.[24]

However, the consensus among Muslim scholars is that the process of creation took 6 days, not 8; They claim that the 4 days for creating the mountains, blessing the Earth and measuring its sustenance implicitly include the 2 days for creating the Earth. In light of modern scientific knowledge about the origins of the earth and the universe, many modern interpretations particularly by apologists, prefer to view the word "day" (Arabic: يوم) as used in the Qur'an to mean an arbitrary period of time or epoch; They justify this view by explaining that the usage of the word "day" to mean an arbitrary period of time is not uncommon.[citation needed]


God molded clay, earth, sand and water into a model of a man. He breathed life and power into it, and it immediately sprang to life. And this first man was called Adam. God took Adam to live in Paradise. God taught Adam the names of all the creatures, and then commanded all the angels to bow down before Adam. All of them bowed but Iblis (Azazel) refused to obey.

God placed the couple[clarification needed] in a beautiful garden in Paradise, telling them that they could eat whatever they wanted except the fruit of a forbidden tree. But Iblis (the Serpent) tempted them to disobey God, and eat the fruit. When God knew that Adam and Eve had disobeyed him, he cast them out of Paradise and sent them to the earth.

Islam breaks somewhat with Judaism and Christianity in explaining why Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit. In the actual Hebrew account in Genesis, a snake tempts them to eat the fruit. Extra-biblical Christian mythology identifies the snake with Satan, but the actual text of the Biblical story does not explicitly make this identification. In contrast, the Qur'an states explicitly that Shaitan (Satan) tempted Adam and Eve to eat the fruit.[25] In contrast with Judeo-Christian traditions, which sees Satan as a rebelling angel, Islamic tradition identifies Shaitan with a being called Iblis, who is a jinni, a spirit of fire. In Islamic tradition, angels consist of light and never disobey God since they do not have free will.[26] Thus, it is said that angels are incapable of sin. In contrast, God created jinn with free will and they may choose to obey Him or not, similar to the case of the human being. He told them to bow before Adam, but Iblis refused, claiming that his fiery nature was superior to Adam's flesh, which consisted of clay.[27] God cast Iblis out of his paradise, and Iblis vowed to tempt Adam and Eve's generations to corruption and to disobey God.

Beings, places and events[edit]

The following entities are unique to Islam:

  • Muhammad - the prophet of Islam.
  • Jinn - creatures of fire; along with angels and humans, one of the three intelligent species created by God
  • Kaaba - the sacred building that Muslims visit while on the Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca). In Islamic mythology, Abraham (Abraham) and Ishmael built the Kaaba at God's command, to serve as the earthly counterpart of Jannah (Heaven). Adam built the original earthly Kaaba, but Abraham and his son had to rebuild it.
  • Buraq - a winged steed with a very wide stride: it could place its hooves at the farthest boundary of its gaze. It would transport Muhammed and Abraham between cities.

The following Islamic subjects have some elements in common with Jewish and Christian traditions:

  • Angels - beings of light that serve as God's messengers; in Islam, these lack free will
    • Jibrail - the archangel Gabriel, an archangel who serves as a messenger from God
    • Michael - the angel of nature
    • Darda'il - the angels who travel in the earth searching out assemblies where people remember God’s name. The Qur'an tells of two angels, Harut and Marut, sent down to test the people at Babylon.
    • Kiraman Katibin - the two angels who record a person's good and bad deeds
    • Mu'aqqibat - a class of guardian angels who keep people from death until its decreed time
    • Azrael - the angel of death
    • Munkar and Nakir - the angels who test the faith of the dead in their graves
    • Israfil - the angel of the trumpet of doom
    • Ridwan - the angel in charge of maintaining Jannah or Paradise
    • Maalik - the angel who guards the Hellfire
  • Places
    • Garden of Eden - the heavenly Paradise where Adam and Eve lived before their Fall
    • Barzakh - the state of the souls of the deceased before the Day of Judgment, when they will be assigned to Heaven or to Hell
    • Jannah - Heaven; the abode of the righteous after the Day of Judgment; contains the Garden of Paradise
    • Jahannam - Hell; the abode of the wicked after the Day of Judgment
    • Mount Qaf - a mythical mountain located so far away
  • Events
    • Creation - a six-stages creative act by God
    • Fall of man - the loss of Paradise that resulted from eating the forbidden fruit; like Judaism,[28] and unlike Christianity,[29] Islam does not hold that the Fall made man inherently sinful.[30]
    • Deluge and Noah's (Nuh's) Ark- worldwide flood-event with a water vessel containing the remains of humanity and a set of all animals
    • Qiyamat - the Day of Resurrection (and of the reward and punishment of the good and the wicked); a fundamental element of Islamic eschatology that incorporates much from the Jewish and Christian traditions

See also[edit]



  • Huston Smith. The Religions of Man. NY: Harper & Row (Perennial Library), 1965.
  • Robert A. Segal. Myth: A Very Short Introduction. NY: Oxford UP, 2004.
  • Zong In-Sob. Folk Tales From Korea, Third Edition. Elizabeth: Hollym International, 1982.
  • Mircea Eliade. Myth and Reality. Trans. Willard R. Trask. NY: Harper & Row (Harper Torchbooks), 1968.
  • The Holy Qur'an. Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library. Available online.