Beliefs and teachings · GCSE Religious Studies
Islam: beliefs and teachings
Tawhid, angels, books, prophets, destiny and the afterlife, with the Sunni–Shi’a difference examiners expect you to name.
Tawhid is the whole religion in one word: God is one, with no partners.
The important bits
What you need to know
- 1
Islam is strict monotheism (tawhid). Allah is not a different God invented in the seventh century; Muslims understand themselves as restoring the faith of Ibrahim. Shirk — associating partners with God — is the gravest sin.
- 2
Sunni Islam often summarises six articles: tawhid, angels (malaikah), holy books (kutub), prophets (risalah), the Day of Judgement, and al-Qadr (predestination). Shi’a Islam’s Usul ad-Din (roots) emphasise tawhid, adl (justice), nubuwwah (prophethood), imamate, and resurrection.
- 3
Angels are created, obedient, without the same moral testing as humans. Jibril revealed the Qur’an to Muhammad; Mika’il is associated with provision; Israfil will sound the last trumpet; Izra’il is the angel of death. Recording angels write deeds.
- 4
Holy books: Scrolls of Ibrahim, Tawrat (Moses), Zabur (Dawud), Injil (Isa), and the Qur’an as final, uncorrupted revelation. Respect for earlier books sits beside the claim that they were altered or misread, which is why the Qur’an “guards” them.
- 5
Prophets: Adam, Ibrahim, Musa, Dawud, Isa, and Muhammad as khatam an-nabiyyin, the Seal of the Prophets. Isa is Messiah and miraculously born in Islamic teaching, not the incarnate Son. Muhammad’s life in Makkah and Madinah is the pattern (sunnah).
- 6
Al-Qadr: God knows and decrees. Sunni kalam often stresses God’s comprehensive decree; Shi’a thought typically leaves more room for human responsibility under divine justice (adl). Exam answers should not turn Muslims into robots or into deists.
- 7
Akhirah: death, barzakh, resurrection, judgement, Jannah and Jahannam. Deeds, faith and God’s mercy all figure. The fear and hope of the Last Day is meant to make ethics serious now.
- 8
Imamate (Shi’a): after the Prophet, God provides infallible Imams from his household to interpret the faith. Sunnis locate authority in Qur’an, sunnah and the scholarly community after the rightly guided caliphs. This is politics and theology together.
Quotations worth analysing
Short evidence. Real method.
“Say, He is Allah, [who is] One, Allah, the Eternal Refuge. He neither begets nor is born, nor is there to Him any equivalent.”
Surah al-Ikhlas is the tawhid syllabus in four lines: oneness, independence, and a direct refusal of Christian begetting language. Use it in every God question.
“Muhammad is not the father of [any] one of your men, but [he is] the Messenger of Allah and last of the prophets.”
The Seal of the Prophets: revelation is complete. That is why new “prophets” are rejected and why sunnah sits under, not over, the Qur’an as a second scripture.
Go deeper
Tawhid against every smaller god
Tawhid is not only counting to one. It is refusing to treat money, nation, saints or rulers as ultimate. The shahadah (“there is no god but God, Muhammad is the messenger of God”) is a metaphysical claim and a political one: no priestly class owns God, no image can trap Him. That is why statues in worship are rejected and why Jesus is honoured as prophet but not worshipped. In 12-mark questions about the nature of God, pair 112 with a practical consequence: prayer directed only to Allah, or the offence of shirk in saint-veneration debates. Shi’a Muslims who honour Imams still insist they are not divine; that sentence shows you can do diversity without collapsing tawhid.
Go deeper
Sunni and Shi’a without a playground version
The split began as a succession dispute: who should lead after 632, Abu Bakr by communal choice or Ali by designation? It became a theology of authority. Sunnis trust the Prophet’s companions and the scholarly consensus around Qur’an and hadith collections. Twelver Shi’a hold that Ali and a line of Imams were appointed, that the twelfth Imam is in occultation, and that justice (adl) is a root of faith, which colours how they talk about free will. Both pray, fast, give alms, and honour the Qur’an. Do not write “Sunnis and Shi’as believe totally different religions”. Write where they differ (imamate, some ritual detail, Ashura) and where they do not (tawhid, akhirah, Muhammad as Seal).
Go deeper
Predestination and the moral life
If God already knows the outcome, why try? Muslim teaching generally answers that God’s knowledge does not cancel human accountability; people still choose, and the record of the angels is not theatre. The Qur’an holds together verses on divine will and verses commanding effort, charity and justice. Shi’a emphasis on adl resists any picture of God as arbitrary. A GCSE contrast that markers like: a Sunni student might stress that nothing happens outside Allah’s will (comfort in suffering, humility in success); a Shi’a student might stress that God does not command injustice, so humans remain genuinely responsible. Neither side is “Islam does not believe in free will” — that is a caricature.
See the idea in action
Question: explain two Muslim beliefs about risalah. First: God sends prophets so that humanity cannot plead ignorance; Musa and the Tawrat, Isa and the Injil. Second: Muhammad is the final messenger, Qur’an the final book, sunnah the lived commentary. Develop with 33:40 and a consequence (why the Five Pillars follow this prophet, not a new lawgiver). If asked to evaluate importance, argue that without risalah tawhid would be a rumour; then let a counterpoint say tawhid is still the root the prophets all taught.
Exam technique
Turn knowledge into marks
Use Arabic terms (tawhid, shirk, risalah, akhirah, imamate) once, then explain them. A term dumped without English is not scholarship.
Common mistakes
Do not give these marks away
- 01
Calling Allah a different God from the God of Abraham, or translating tawhid as “Muslims have many gods”.
- 02
Writing that Muslims worship Muhammad.
- 03
Treating Sunni and Shi’a as enemies with no shared beliefs, or ignoring Shi’a entirely on a paper that names them.
What is tawhid?
AThe belief that Muhammad is God
BThe oneness of Allah, with no partners
CThe pilgrimage to Makkah
DThe split between Sunni and Shi’a
Show the answer
The oneness of Allah, with no partners. Tawhid is the core theological claim of Islam. Hajj is a practice; the Sunni–Shi’a split is about authority after the Prophet. Worship of Muhammad would be shirk, the opposite of tawhid.
Quick questions
If this is the bit you searched
Do Muslims believe Jesus is the Son of God?
No. Isa is a major prophet, born of Maryam by God’s command, Messiah in Islamic language, but not divine. Qur’an 112 rejects “begetting”. This is the cleanest Christian–Muslim contrast in the whole course.
What is the imamate?
In Shi’a Islam, the belief that God appointed Imams from the Prophet’s family to lead and interpret. It is a root of faith, not an optional extra. Sunnis do not treat Imams as infallible authorities in that sense.