Belief in prophets and the revealed books are essential to Islam. Write an account of these two articles of faith.

Mark scheme

Marking points from the official mark scheme (Oct/Nov 2015). The mark or mark type is shown in brackets.

1. [10] For this answer candidates need to give an account of Muslim belief in prophets and the revealed books. They could say that prophets were sent as guidance to humankind and in turn were guided by God Himself. The prophetic line starts with Adam and ends with Prophet Muhammad (pbuh). That all prophets preached Islam and invited people to worship the one God, that they spoke the language of their people, they were all normal human beings, chosen by God and endowed with miracles and books, were obedient to God etc., are all points that could be raised and developed in the answer amongst other points. Names of some of the prophets could be given and linked to the second part of the answer which asks about revealed books. Their names could be given and candidates could say which book was revealed to which prophet. They could go on to say that all divine books invited people to worship God, and contained belief in prophethood, the Day of Judgement, accountability before God, a code of morality and justice. Answers could also talk about the finality of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) and the Qur'an being the last universal and most perfect book of guidance sent by God to humankind for all ages.
2. [4] Here again, an evaluative response is being looked for. Candidates could give their reasons for how the Qur'an is similar to other revealed scriptures and where it differs from them. The language of the Qur'an could be one of the points of difference; that all the earlier books have been corrupted could also be a point raised by the more able candidates. All valid responses need to be credited.