How many messengers were sent by Allah? (Surah An-Nahl)

[Thinker_Truth_Seeker]

 

How can we be sure that prophets were sent to every nation?

"And verily We have raised in every nation a messenger, (proclaiming): Serve Allah and shun false gods. Then some of them (there were) whom Allah guided, and some of them (there were) upon whom error had just hold. Do but travel in the land and see the nature of the consequence for the deniers!"  (16:36)  Surah An-Nahl.

The above verse confirms without any doubts that every community or nation around the world had its messenger sent by Allah to inform its people about the truth of Monotheism (Tawheed) and the serious sin of polytheism and disbelief.  This includes every part of the globe wherever communities existed throughout the annals of history.  So, how many prophets were there who came as messengers of Allah with His message?  We cannot be sure of the exact number because Allah has not confirmed that in the Quran.  The number of messengers mentioned in the Quran by name are approximately 25.  Allah has also stated in the Quran that He has mentioned of some prophets and has not mentioned of others.  Hence, we can only be sure that the total number of messengers sent by Allah Almighty starting from Prophet Adam upto Prophet Muhammed were surely more than 25.  But the precise number is not known. 

That bit about the total number of messengers being "124,000" is a Hadith guess with no conformity with the Quran. 

For more info on this topic, check: Total number of messengers / prophets