Muslims claim the traditional prophets (Adam, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Noah etc) as messengers of their faith, but why do they mark Muhammad's tenure as the 'beginning' of Islam?

by [deleted]

[deleted]

CptBuck

Apologies, there was a deleted comment that I intended to reply to :)

There are some specific aspects of this question that I would like to look into: but in general terms:

I can say that in Islamic theology that all previous such prophets are regarded as Muslims within orthodox Islam. E.g. Moses, in fact, in Islamic theology, was a Muslim.

The basic explanation for this in Islam is that each of these prophets had the correct message and was a Muslim, but that this was somehow misunderstood, misinterpreted, or mis-distributed by their followers. The Prophet Muhammad, in this context, was the first to correctly transmit the perfect word of God in the form of the Qur’an.

There are some, ahem, ramifications of this view within Islamic doctrine. Technically speaking, in some Islamic views, all human beings are born Muslims. The rationale for this, the “Fitra”, which are those requirements for everyone regardless of religious status, stand for everyone. The Five Fitra are somewhat comparable to the Noahide laws in Jewdaism/Christianity, i.e. those laws that even gentiles/barbarians are expected to uphold as true even if they don’t have access to “The Book.”

I will look into the specific terms of this question further, but I hope the above is helpful :)