COVID-19, an infectious disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) in March 2020 after infecting over 100,000 people in at least 100 countries. Nigeria recorded its first case of the disease in February 2020, and by the end of December 2022, Nigeria had recorded over 266,145 cases and 3,155 deaths, while there had been over 651,918,402 confirmed COVID-19 cases with 6,656,601 deaths globally. The first COVID-19 vaccine was released in December 2020 and as of July 2023, the World Health Organization has approved 10 COVID-19 vaccines for use worldwide.

For viral and bacterial infections, vaccines help to prevent people from having a severe illness that could lead to death or developing long-term health complications. Vaccination also helps to contribute to mass wellness as it helps the community build herd immunity against viruses like COVID-19. Unfortunately, as beneficial as vaccination is, and despite concerted efforts by the government to make the vaccines available for every eligible individual to take, a lot of people, including Muslims, have been hesitant about being vaccinated for a variety of reasons. Vaccine hesitancy in the Nigerian Muslim community was especially evident in the fight against polio as eradicating polio in the country was very challenging due to the various beliefs, concerns, arguments, misconceptions, and conspiracy theories around allowing children to take the polio vaccine. This has cost the lives of young people while rendering others disabled for life.

Thus, the purpose of this book, which is based on an extensive survey with over 3000 respondents, is not just to respond to arguments specifically against the COVID-19 vaccine, but to respond to the common perennial arguments against vaccination generally within the Muslim community. We hope that responding to these arguments will help contribute to addressing the concerns that some Muslims have against vaccination and therefore improve vaccine acceptance in our community, This would contribute to fewer expressions of cynicism. misinformation, and ignorance that are harmful and cost lives, and thus, help to reduce the incidences of vaccine-preventable diseases leading to healthier societies.