HookThe most examined split in Islam was decided in 632 CE
When the Prophet Muhammad died in 632 CE, the community he founded faced an immediate, practical question: who leads now? One group backed Abu Bakr, the Prophet's close companion, chosen by the community — their heirs became Sunni Islam, today roughly nine in ten of the world's Muslims. Another held that Muhammad had already designated his cousin and son-in-law Ali, and that leadership belonged in the Prophet's family by God's appointment — their heirs became Shi'a Islam. Nearly fourteen centuries later, that one disagreement about authority still shapes how the faith is organised, and AQA has built it into the specification: you are required to know Sunni and Shi'a Islam as two expressions of one religion, starting with their two different summaries of what a Muslim believes.
This matters in Britain's classrooms more than most: the 2021 Census counted 3.9 million Muslims in England and Wales — 6.5% of the population, up from 4.9% a decade earlier — making Islam the country's second-largest religion, with much the youngest age profile. The exam, as ever, is not asking what you believe. It wants two things: precise AO1 knowledge of what Sunni and Shi'a Muslims hold about God, angels, destiny, the afterlife, prophets, books and leadership — and the AO2 skill of weighing statements about those beliefs with arguments, teachings and a conclusion you actually justify.
ModelSix articles, five roots — two maps of the same faith
Sunni Islam summarises belief as six articles of faith: belief in one God (Tawhid); in his angels; in his revealed books; in his prophets; in the Day of Judgement; and in al-Qadr, God's decree or predestination. Shi'a Islam summarises it as the five roots of Usul ad-Din (the 'foundations of the faith'): Tawhid; Adl or Adalat, the justice of God; Nubuwwah, prophethood; Imamah, the divinely appointed leadership of the imams; and Mi'ad, the resurrection and Day of Judgement.
Lay the two lists side by side — examiners do — and the overlap is the headline: one God, prophethood, judgement appear in both, and Shi'a Muslims believe in angels and holy books just as firmly even though the five roots do not list them separately. The differences are the diagnostic detail. The five roots make God's justice a foundation in its own right, which (as we will see) softens how Shi'a theology reads predestination. And Imamah appears only in the Shi'a list, because it is the 632 CE question fossilised into doctrine: for Shi'a Muslims, God would not leave the community leaderless, so authoritative guidance continued after the Prophet through his appointed family. A 4-mark 'two contrasting beliefs' question can be answered from this block alone.
ModelTawhid — the oneness that shapes everything else
Tawhid is the absolute oneness of God — the claim on which the whole of Islam stands. God is one, unique, without partners, parents or children; the Qur'an's short Surah 112 makes the point with maximum compression, teaching that God is one and eternal, that he neither begets nor was begotten, and that nothing whatever compares to him. Its mirror image is shirk — associating anything with God, whether idols, celebrities or one's own ego — which Islam treats as the gravest of all sins. Tawhid is why mosques hold calligraphy rather than images of God, and why Muslims reject the Christian Trinity as compromising God's unity: a ready-made 'contrasting beliefs across religions' point.
The specification also wants God's nature and characteristics. He is omnipotent creator and sustainer; merciful — the two names Muslims repeat most, ar-Rahman and ar-Rahim, are both built on the Arabic root for mercy, and tradition speaks of ninety-nine names describing his qualities; and just, the fair judge of every life (for Shi'a Muslims, remember, justice is a root of the faith itself). He is transcendent — beyond the universe, beyond imagining — and yet immanent: the Qur'an describes God as closer to each person than the pulse in their own neck (Surah 50). Holding those two together is the mature AO1 move: God is neither a man in the sky nor a distant force, and Muslims experience him as both utterly beyond and intimately near.
ModelAngels — messengers made of light, with no choices of their own
In Islam, angels are real beings created by God from light, without free will: they exist to obey, which makes them perfect messengers — nothing they deliver has been edited. Belief in angels is the second Sunni article, and it solves a theological problem Tawhid creates: if God is utterly transcendent, how does he communicate with human beings at all? Answer: through angels.
Three names carry the marks. Jibril is the angel of revelation, who delivered the Qur'an to Muhammad in stages across some twenty-three years, beginning in the cave of Hira in 610 CE. Mika'il is associated with mercy and provision — sustenance, rain, the running of the natural world. Israfil will blow the trumpet that ends the world and raises the dead, tying angels directly to the Day of Judgement. Add the kiraman katibin, the 'noble writers' — paired recording angels at each person's shoulders logging every deed, good on the right, bad on the left — and angel belief stops being decorative and starts doing moral work: a Muslim lives every moment on the record. That is the 'influence on believers today' link examiners reward: belief in recording angels encourages honesty and self-restraint even when no human is watching.
MechanismAl-Qadr and Akhirah — destiny, freedom and the Day when the books open
Al-Qadr is God's decree: nothing happens outside God's will and knowledge, and Sunni tradition speaks of all things written on a preserved tablet, al-Lawh al-Mahfuz. Muslims draw comfort from it — suffering is not random, and the phrase 'in sha' Allah' (if God wills) folds the belief into everyday speech. The hard question is obvious: if everything is decreed, how can people deserve judgement? Sunni theology generally holds both truths at once — God decrees, humans genuinely choose — treating the mechanics as beyond human comprehension. Shi'a theology, with Adl (divine justice) as a root of faith, leans harder on freedom: a just God could not fairly punish people for choices they never really made, so human free will must be real.
Judgement is the second half of the same machine. Akhirah — the everlasting life to come — begins at death with barzakh, a barrier state of waiting where tradition says two angels question the dead about their faith. At the Last Day, Israfil's trumpet sounds, the dead are bodily resurrected, and each person receives the record of their life — in the right hand for the saved, the left for the condemned, with deeds weighed on a balance. Jannah, paradise, is pictured as gardens with flowing water, peace and the presence of God; Jahannam is fire, torment and separation from him. The practical consequence is the one to write about: a Muslim's daily honesty, prayer, charity and repentance all make sense as preparation for an exam already scheduled.
Take the 12-mark statement 'Belief in al-Qadr means it is unfair for God to judge people.' Support the statement first, properly: al-Qadr is a Sunni article of faith; tradition holds everything is already written on the preserved tablet; and if God knows every choice before I am born, the outcome seems fixed — punishing what was decreed looks like punishing the puppet for the script. Developed, that is a serious philosophical argument, and pretending otherwise caps your AO2. Then the other view, with teachings: knowledge is not compulsion — a teacher who accurately predicts a student's grade did not cause it, and God's foreknowledge no more forces my choice than my memory of yesterday forces what I did yesterday. Islam also insists judgement is fair by design: God sent prophets and books precisely so that no one is condemned in ignorance (that is Risalah's whole function), judgement weighs intention — niyyah — not just outcomes, and the Qur'an repeatedly describes God as merciful before it describes him as wrathful. The Shi'a root of Adl sharpens the reply: God's own justice guarantees that real accountability requires real freedom. Justified conclusion: the statement only works if al-Qadr means fatalism, and mainstream Islam — Sunni and Shi'a alike — rejects that reading; since the same God who decrees also guarantees justice and judges intention, the charge of unfairness fails. Note the shape: strongest case for, strongest case against with named concepts, verdict with a reason. That shape is the AO2 mark scheme.
ModelRisalah — one message, a long chain of messengers
Risalah is prophethood: God's channel of communication with humanity. Islam teaches that God has sent messengers to every people throughout history — tradition speaks of 124,000, of whom twenty-five are named in the Qur'an — all carrying the same essential message: there is one God; worship him. The chain starts with Adam, the first human and first prophet, appointed as God's khalifah (steward) on earth. Ibrahim (Abraham) is the model of pure monotheism — smashing his people's idols, passing the test of his willingness to sacrifice his son, and rebuilding the Ka'aba with his son Isma'il, which is why he saturates the Hajj. Musa (Moses) received the Tawrat; Dawud (David) the Zabur; Isa (Jesus) the Injil.
Isa is the leaf's trap and treasure at once: Islam honours him as a major prophet, born of the virgin Mary, a worker of miracles by God's permission — but emphatically not the son of God and not divine, since Tawhid rules out God having partners or children. Get that contrast with Christianity crisp and it will earn marks in both religions' papers. The chain ends with Muhammad, the 'Seal of the Prophets': the final messenger, through whom the complete and uncorrupted revelation — the Qur'an — was delivered. Because he is the seal, no further prophets are expected; the message is finished.
ModelThe Qur'an and the books before it
Muslims believe the Qur'an is the literal word of God — not Muhammad's biography or poetry, but God's own speech, delivered in Arabic through Jibril over about twenty-three years and arranged into 114 surahs. The first words came in the cave of Hira in 610 CE, on the night Muslims call the Night of Power, commanding the Prophet — who tradition holds could not read or write — to recite. It was memorised and written down by his followers as it arrived, then gathered into a single authorised text under the early caliphs within a generation of his death. Because it is God's direct speech, the Arabic itself is treated as part of the revelation: translations are regarded as interpretations, which is why Muslims worldwide pray and recite in Arabic and why memorising the entire text — becoming a hafiz — is so honoured.
The Qur'an does not claim to be God's first word, only his final one. Islam teaches that earlier scriptures were genuinely revealed: the Sahifah (scrolls of Ibrahim, now lost), the Tawrat given to Musa, the Zabur given to Dawud and the Injil given to Isa. But Muslims hold that those books were altered, edited and partly lost over centuries of transmission — which is exactly why a final, protected revelation was needed. That single idea explains Islam's simultaneous respect for Jews and Christians as 'People of the Book' and its insistence that the Qur'an supersedes what came before: same author, corrupted earlier editions, definitive final edition.
CaseThe imamate — why leadership is an article of faith in Shi'a Islam
For Sunni Islam, Muhammad's death ended divinely guided leadership: caliphs who followed were human administrators chosen by the community, respected but fallible. Shi'a Islam holds something structurally different — Imamah, the third root of Usul ad-Din: God, being just, would never leave humanity without guidance, so after the final prophet came divinely appointed Imams, descendants of Muhammad through Ali and Fatimah. Shi'a Muslims point to the Prophet's address at Ghadir Khumm, shortly before his death, where he declared a special bond between himself and Ali — read by Shi'a Islam as Ali's appointment, and by Sunni Islam as an expression of affection, not succession. One event, two readings: the split in a single sentence.
In Twelver Shi'a Islam — the largest branch, dominant in Iran and Iraq — there are twelve Imams, beginning with Ali and running through his sons Hasan and Husayn (whose death at Karbala in 680 CE remains the defining Shi'a tragedy). The Imams are held to be ma'sum — divinely protected from sin and error — making them infallible interpreters of the Qur'an, though never prophets and never divine: revelation is closed, but its authoritative explanation continues. The twelfth, Muhammad al-Mahdi, is believed not to have died but to be in occultation — hidden by God since the ninth century — and Shi'a Muslims expect his return alongside Isa to fill the earth with justice. Do not confuse capital-I Imams with the lower-case imam who leads prayers in any mosque: one is a doctrine of divinely appointed guidance, the other is a job.
VocabularyKey terms the mark scheme pays for
TrapsMisconceptions that cost marks
ExamWhat examiners want
Islam questions run on the same 1, 2, 4, 5, 12 ladder as every other religion in Paper 1, and the Sunni–Shi'a distinction is the board's favourite raw material. For the 4-mark 'two contrasting beliefs' question, the reliable contrasts are: six articles against five roots; Sunni emphasis on al-Qadr against the Shi'a stress on free will grounded in Adl; and community-chosen caliphs against divinely appointed Imams. Name the tradition each belief belongs to — 'some Muslims' without a label reads as padding, 'Sunni Muslims believe… whereas Shi'a Muslims believe…' reads as knowledge.
The 5-marker requires a reference to sacred writings or another source of Muslim belief and teaching. You are not expected to quote translations — name the source and paraphrase it exactly: Surah 112 for Tawhid, the first revelation in the cave of Hira for the Qur'an's origin, the Qur'an's image of God nearer than one's own pulse (Surah 50) for immanence, the title Seal of the Prophets for Muhammad's finality. Spellings vary in transliteration and examiners accept any consistent version — what they will not accept is a 'quote' you invented, so paraphrase with confidence instead.
The 12-marker is pure AO2, and with beliefs content the statements are usually about importance or coherence: 'Tawhid is the most important belief', 'the afterlife matters more than this life', 'belief in al-Qadr is unfair'. The rubric is fixed — arguments supporting the statement, arguments for a different view, reference to Muslim teaching, justified conclusion — and the discriminator is development: each argument should run point, teaching, so-what. For 'most important' statements, the elite move is to argue the beliefs are load-bearing walls in one structure — angels exist to deliver revelation, revelation exists because prophets carry it, judgement only makes sense because the message was fairly delivered — so ranking one belief first requires saying what the others depend on. And keep AO1 and AO2 in balance across the paper: the two objectives are weighted 50/50, so a beautifully argued 12-marker cannot rescue 4- and 5-markers left thin, or vice versa. Paragraphs, accurate technical terms and correct capital letters (Qur'an, Jibril, Jannah) also protect the SPaG marks tied to the 12-mark answers.