Sources for Islamic legends are numerous, especially if one includes narratives from the oral traditions that have been gathered from the Islamized peoples in Africa, India, and Indonesia, as well as the Middle East.  Other published sources are commentaries on the Koran, written mostly in Arabic, but also in Persian languages and Urdu.

What are called Islamic legends, as a parallel to biblical legends, would not be called that by Muslim scholars, most of whom prefer the fundamentalist interpretation of the Koran.  The Koran refers to many prophets and other persons who can often be identified with biblical characters.  The references are clearly intended to draw parallels with Muhammad’s own situation, especially the disbelief of fellow countrymen, the problems of leadership, and the assured success of such qualities of character as steadfastness and faith. The commentaries of the exegetists of the centuries after Muhammad endeavored to reconstruct the full history of each prophet or king by questioning those men and women, as well as their relatives, friends, and descendants, who had been closest to Muhammad. If none of them remembered having heard Muhammad’s comments on a point of biblical history, then a biblical expert might be consulted.

The best known of these scholars was Ka’b ibn al Ahbar, a Jew who converted to Islam, who put his vast knowledge of Jewish legends and history at the disposal of the interpreters of the Koran.  Thus, many Jewish narratives as well as points of doctrine and customary law were adopted into Islam under the guise of Koranic exegesis, making Islam more Jewish than it already was.  Many motifs from Jewish folklore that are not found in the canonical text of the Old Testament thus came to be accepted as part of Islamic history.