In many ways, it can be said that the language of all scriptures is a language of parables. Many of these parables are closely interlinked, creating the impression of religious intertextuality or a sort of universal Book of Faith. Because of their complexity, perhaps certain truths can be conveyed to man only by means of parables or allegories (Asad, 1980:541). The explicitly refers to this universality of parables: ‘And for each of them [the prophets], we struck parables’ (25.39). As scholars have noted, many of the parables in the are reminiscent of the Bible, especially Psalms. For example, in 14.24, the comparison between a ‘good word’ (kalimatan tayyibatan) and a ‘good tree’ (shajaratin tayyibatin) is said to be reminiscent of the comparison of a good man to a tree in Psalm 1. The famous Throne Verse or ayat al-Kursi bears echoes of Isaac 66:1: ‘Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool’ (Frieling, 1978:128). Indeed, in 48.29, two parables from the Torah (Tawrat) and the Gospels are cited as examples of good or righteous people of all religions. Although parables have often been defined as ‘didactic’ stories that answer a question or point out a moral, it is not the didacticism that makes them so important to the language of religion, but rather the cognitive role that they play in illustrating abstract religious concepts. Like charts and diagrams, parables set out to make the unfamiliar appear familiar, the abstract concrete. A ‘true’ parable parallels, detail for detail, the situation that calls forth that parable for illustration (Holman and Harmon, 1986:357).
In the parables (mathal, pl. amthal) are used extensively, in a variety of forms and covering many themes: ‘And indeed We have explained for people in this every kind of parable (mathalin), but most people [accept nothing] but disbelief (17.89). In various other places, parables are highlighted as instruments of cognition and as a means of providing a ‘better’ explanation of all things: ‘And every time they come to you with a parable (mathalin), we bring you the truth and a better explanation’ (25.33). From this, it should not be concluded that it is easy to understand some of the more elaborate comparisons presented in the parables. In fact, many of the Prophet Muhammad’s opponents were perplexed by them. They seemed to be taunting them, daring them to understand the gist of the comparison. A number of verses in the contain the potent question: ‘What does God intend with such a parable?’ (2.26; 74.31). Indeed, one often has to think about the grounds of the comparisons. Take, for example, 3.59: ‘Verily the likeness of Jesus before God is like the likeness of Adam. He created him from dust then said to him, “Be”, and he was.’ The likeness here between Jesus and Adam cannot be deduced simply from reading the parable; one has to work to understand it. This is what Muslim scholars call zahir lafz al-jumla. The pivotal word is ‘created’, and the connection conveyed by this parable is not that God created both Jesus and Adam from dust, since all men are created thus, but the deeper fact that they are alike in their origin—neither were born of two parents.
It is important to note at the outset that the word mathal is not only used to denote parables in the in fact, it introduces a variety of rhetorical devices, such as examples, similes, metaphors, proverbs and stories. In essence, the word is derived from the preposition mithl, meaning ‘like’, and it is most often collocated with the particle ka, which is equivalent to ‘as if’ or ‘as it were’. When prefixed to a noun, this particle is called kaf al-tashbih (the letter kaf of resemblances or metaphors), such as in the schematic construction ‘mathalu ka-[word] [word] ka-[word]’ (e.g. 14.26). The word mithl and all its derivatives occur more than 200 times in the obviously not all of these are instances of parables. Many of the longer and more elaborate parables start with the formulaic construction: mathalahum ka-mathali (‘their example is like the example of’). Other formulaic constructions include ‘Strike for them a parable (mathalan)’ (wa adrib lahum mathalan) (36.13); ‘And God strikes parables (alamthala) for men in the hope that they may take heed’ (wa yadribu allahu alamthala lil-nasiyatadhakkarun) (14.25); and ‘Dost thou not see how thy Lord has struck a parable (mathalan)’ (alam tar a kayfa daraba allahu mathalan) (14.24).
The material of parables is drawn from a huge variety of spheres. However, familiar entities in the natural world are the ones most often used to explicate religious concepts. These entities include rocks, animals, plants, rain, lightning, thunder, winds, tempests, mountains, fire, stars, the earth, the sky and the seas. In 18.45, for example, worldly life is compared to the fall of rain and the cycle of vegetation:
And strike for them a mathal of the worldly life: it is like the water which we send down from the sky, and then the plants of the earth mingle with it. But then they become dry and broken and are scattered by the winds. And God is capable of all things.
To illustrate the idea that a disbeliever’s good deeds are always in vain, a parable is set up comparing his deeds to ‘ashes on which the winds blow furiously as in a tempestuous day’ (14.18). Another short parable criticizes those who worship idols by comparing their action to that of a spider building its web (29.41). We are also told that God is not ashamed to strike parables ranging from the most insignificant of creatures, the gnat to the very highest (2.26). Of course, this is reminiscent of the biblical imagery used by Jesus: ‘Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! …which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel’ (Matthew 23:23, 24).
One major difficulty facing the reader is trying to distinguish between parables and extended similes, examples and narratives, since (as noted above) the word mathal seems equally to be applied to all of them. As Paret (1983:201) explains, the is rich in images. In general, these images are used only for purposes of comparison and are not to be identified with the object or event in question. When an image denotes directly the object or event that it originally served to paraphrase and elucidate, it becomes a metaphor. Examples of short similes can be found in 22.2, for example, where the horrors of doomsday are presented in a series of very brief but vivid images:
On the Day you behold it, every nursing mother shall neglect what she has nursed, and every pregnant woman shall deliver her load, and you shall see people drunk, and yet they are not drunk, but severe will be the torment of God.
But how can we distinguish between a metaphor and the more elaborate and didactic parable? The distinction, Paret maintains, is not always easy to make. Perhaps the basic difference between parables and other forms of comparison in the is one of length: an extended simile presents a very brief story, a parable can extend for many verses.
The longest parable in the is the parable of the Two Gardens (18.32–44), which extends for twelve verses:
And strike for them a mathal of two men. To one of them, We gave two gardens of grapes and We surrounded them with date-palms; and We set out between them sown fields. Each of these gardens yielded its produce, and failed naught in any wise.
The real climax of the story occurs when, in a moment of arrogant pride, the man says to his friend: ‘I do not think this will ever perish. Nor do I think the Hour will ever come and if indeed I am returned to my Lord, surely I shall find better than this when I return to Him.’ What we are witnessing here is the actual moment when a man of faith falls into disbelief—there seems to be, in fact, only a thin line separating joy and arrogance, righteousness and sin. The protagonist in this parable does not seem to be doing anything sinful in terms of evil conduct; his error was one of speech, as his friend tells him: ‘It were better for you to say, when you entered your garden: As God wills. There is no power except in God, when you saw me less than you in wealth and children.’ The moral of the parable is finally hammered home in verse 46, when we are told that ‘Wealth and children are the adornments of worldly life—but the abiding things, the deeds of righteousness, are better with your lord in reward and better in hope.’
It is important to note that, when seen together, the parables in the form a network of related ideas and syntactic constructions which, when juxtaposed, can decode the meanings of difficult passages. Take, for example, 6.7–8, where the basic attempt is to illustrate how disbelievers are bent on denying the manifest truth of the This theme can be found in many places in the text, but the key to understanding it lies within the elaborate and intertextual parable, which involves the opening of the gate of the heavens and ascending/descending upon a ladder:
Had we sent down upon you a book on a parchment, so that they could feel it with their hands, those who disbelieve would have said: This is naught but manifest sorcery.’ They say: ‘Why has an angel not been sent down unto him?’
In 52.44, the notion of concrete pieces of the heavens falling from the sky is introduced: ‘And if they were to see a piece of the heaven (kisfan) falling down, they would say: “Stacked up clouds”.’ This complete denial of palpable truths is echoed in another parable in 15.14–15: ‘And if we opened to them a gate in heaven and they were to keep on ascending thereto, yet they would say: “Our eyes have been dazzled, nay, we are a people bewitched”.’ The same storyline is present, with the same protagonists (the disbelievers and God) and the same heaven out of which God sends his messages, but the main difference is that the gate (bab) of heaven is now clearly present and, instead of a book on parchment, we now infer the presence of an actual ladder (sullaman) upon which they are asked to ascend. In 6.35, this ladder is provided:
And if their aversion is hard on you, then, if you can, seek a tunnel in the earth or a ladder (sullaman) to the sky, so that you may bring them a sign. But had God willed, he would have gathered them to the guidance.
Seen in totality, these repetitive images form an interconnected parable running through the pages of the
The most famous parable in the is the Parable of Light (24.35), which begins: ‘God is the Light of the heavens and the earth; the likeness of his light is as a niche, wherein is a lamp. The lamp in a glass, the glass as it were a glittering star.’ This verse has been the subject of much speculation, but what is most striking about the parable is the complex effect that it creates. What we find is a series of embedded structures, one within the other, ‘light upon light’, almost ad infinitum. Commentators usually perceive the parable to have ended at 24.35. However, it in fact extends for five more verses. At 24.40 we are presented with the opposing theme of ‘darkness’ (zulumatin) and the imagery is not one of recursiveness, but of a stacked or multi-decked darkness in an abysmal ocean of ‘waves upon waves’. Separating these two diametrically opposed parables, we have the parable of the mirage in an open desert which offers a new form, a form that speaks of endless linearity.
Many of the more complex parables are concerned with illustrating God’s attitude towards polytheists and hypocrites. A good example is 22.31, where disbelief is compared to falling or plummeting from the sky: ‘And whoever assigns partners to God it is as if he had fallen from the sky, and the birds of prey had snatched him or the wind had thrown him to a far and desolate place.’ What are we to make of this parable? Basically the comparison sets out to illustrate the physical torments awaiting people who associate other partners with God. Three basic stages can be deduced: a tumultuous fall from grace, horrific torture, and lingering death and despair. The first stage is compared to a literal plummeting from the sky. The second introduces a bird of prey (perhaps a vulture or eagle) snatching at the flesh of the idolater in mid-air. The third stage sees the idolater being finally taken away to a far-off nest to be feasted on. This highly elaborate parable is often explained by a tradition which reports that when the angels carry a disbeliever’s body after his death and they ascend to the sky, the gates of heaven refuse to open and his soul is thus hurled from on high. The use of the ‘or’ (aw) conjunction seems to suggest two options for the idolater: either a horrific mid-air death or a lingering one of torture.
Something of the complexity of parables can be illustrated by the parable of the fire-kindler (2.17), one of the most quoted parables and one that has been discussed extensively by many scholars. It sets out to illustrate the actions of hypocrites who confess their faith in front of the faithful, but when they are alone with their ‘own devils’ they renounce, insisting that they had only believed in mockery. The point being made is that they have elected to purchase darkness and loss rather than light and guidance. It starts with the formulaic mathalahum kamathal
Their parable is that of one who kindled a fire but when it illuminated all around him, God took away their light and left them in utter darkness, where they cannot see. Deaf, dumb, blind; they cannot turn back. Or [like the parable] of a cloudburst from the sky within which is darkness and thunder and lightning, they place their fingers into their ears to ward off the peals of thunder in fear of death and God encompasses all who deny the truth. The lightning well-nigh snatches their vision; whenever it lights their path they walk therein and whenever it darkens upon them they stand still. And if God willed he would indeed have taken away their hearing and their sight. For verily God is capable of all things.
Controversy about this parable centres on the difficulty of comparing a whole group of hypocrites to just one firekindler. This has led some commentators to discuss at length why there is a sudden shift from the third-person singular pronoun (one/him) to third-person plural (their/them/they). This controversy is partially cleared up when we realize that most commentators erroneously associate the fire-kindler with the hypocrites, while in fact he is not from among them, but rather someone who is meant to resemble the Prophet, a person with a message of light that should have brightened the darkness encircling these people. In fact, the fire he kindles does succeed in illuminating the surroundings. What is then taken is not that original light that he had provided but the inner light of the hypocrites. We never see the fire-kindler again in the parable and we must assume that he has accomplished his role as fire-kindler. Presumably, the place is still lit, but the hypocrites are unaware of the light and have to eagerly await whatever small glimpses of guidance are offered by the lightning.
One of the first problems thus appears to be determining what the basis of comparison is in this parable. What specific action of the hypocrites is the parable illustrating? Is it their inability to distinguish darkness from light, the erroneous path from the path of guidance? Or is it their extreme fear of death? Or perhaps it is their constant shifting between right and wrong? Or is it really all of these simultaneously, hence the elaborateness and length of the parable?
References and further reading
Asad, M. (trans.) (1980) The Message of the Gibraltar: Dar al-andalus.
Frieling, R. (1978) Christianity and Islam, Edinburgh: Floris Books.
Holman, C.H. and Harman, W. (1986) A Handbook to Literature, New York: Macmillan.
Paret, R. (1983) The Language and style’, in A.F.L.Beeston et al. (eds) Cambridge History of Arabic Literature: Arabic literature to the end of the Umayyad period, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 196–205.
explicitly refers to this universality of parables: ‘And for each of them [the prophets], we struck parables’ (25.39). As scholars have noted, many of the parables in the 
are reminiscent of the Bible, especially Psalms. For example, in 14.24, the comparison between a ‘good word’ (kalimatan tayyibatan) and a ‘good tree’ (shajaratin tayyibatin) is said to be reminiscent of the comparison of a good man to a tree in Psalm 1. The famous Throne Verse or ayat al-Kursi bears echoes of Isaac 66:1: ‘Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool’ (Frieling, 1978:128). Indeed, in 48.29, two parables from the Torah (Tawrat) and the Gospels are cited as examples of good or righteous people of all religions. Although parables have often been defined as ‘didactic’ stories that answer a question or point out a moral, it is not the didacticism that makes them so important to the language of religion, but rather the cognitive role that they play in illustrating abstract religious concepts. Like charts and diagrams, parables set out to make the unfamiliar appear familiar, the abstract concrete. A ‘true’ parable parallels, detail for detail, the situation that calls forth that parable for illustration (Holman and Harmon, 1986:357).
parables (mathal, pl. amthal) are used extensively, in a variety of forms and covering many themes: ‘And indeed We have explained for people in this 
every kind of parable (mathalin), but most people [accept nothing] but disbelief (17.89). In various other places, parables are highlighted as 
contain the potent question: ‘What does God intend with such a parable?’ (2.26; 74.31). Indeed, one often has to think about the grounds of the comparisons. Take, for example, 3.59: ‘Verily the likeness of Jesus before God is like the likeness of Adam. He created him from dust then said to him, “Be”, and he was.’ The likeness here between Jesus and Adam cannot be deduced simply from reading the parable; one has to work to understand it. This is what Muslim scholars call zahir lafz al-jumla. The pivotal word is ‘created’, and the connection conveyed by this parable is not that God created both Jesus and Adam from dust, since all men are created thus, but the deeper fact that they are alike in their origin—neither were born of two parents. 
in fact, it introduces a variety of rhetorical devices, such as examples, similes, metaphors, proverbs and stories. In essence, the word is derived from the preposition mithl, meaning ‘like’, and it is most often collocated with the particle ka, which is equivalent to ‘as if’ or ‘as it were’. When prefixed to a noun, this particle is called kaf al-tashbih (the letter kaf of resemblances or metaphors), such as in the schematic construction ‘mathalu ka-[word] [word] ka-[word]’ (e.g. 14.26). The word mithl and all its derivatives occur more than 200 times in the 
obviously not all of these are instances of parables. Many of the longer and more elaborate parables start with the formulaic construction: mathalahum ka-mathali (‘their example is like the example of’). Other formulaic constructions include ‘Strike for them a parable (mathalan)’ (wa adrib lahum mathalan) (36.13); ‘And God strikes parables (alamthala) for men in the hope that they may take heed’ (wa yadribu allahu alamthala lil-nasi 
yatadhakkarun) (14.25); and ‘Dost thou not see how thy Lord has struck a parable (mathalan)’ (alam tar a kayfa daraba allahu mathalan) (14.24).
parables is drawn from a huge variety of spheres. However, familiar entities in the natural world are the ones most often used to explicate religious concepts. These entities include rocks, animals, plants, rain, lightning, thunder, winds, tempests, mountains, fire, stars, the earth, the sky and the seas. In 18.45, for example, worldly life is compared to the fall of rain and the cycle of vegetation:
to the very highest (2.26). Of course, this is reminiscent of the biblical imagery used by Jesus: ‘Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! …which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel’ (Matthew 23:23, 24). 
is rich in images. In general, these images are used only for purposes of comparison and are not to be identified with the object or event in question. When an image denotes directly the object or event that it originally served to paraphrase and elucidate, it becomes a metaphor. Examples of short similes can be found in 22.2, for example, where the horrors of doomsday are presented in a series of very brief but vivid images:
is one of length: an extended simile presents a very brief story, a parable can extend for many verses.
is the parable of the Two Gardens (18.32–44), which extends for twelve verses:
form a network of related ideas and syntactic constructions which, when juxtaposed, can decode the meanings of difficult passages. Take, for example, 6.7–8, where the basic attempt is to illustrate how disbelievers are bent on denying the manifest truth of the 
This theme can be found in many places in the text, but the key to understanding it lies within the elaborate and intertextual parable, which involves the 
is the Parable of Light (24.35), which begins: ‘God is the Light of the heavens and the earth; the likeness of his light is as a niche, wherein is a lamp. The lamp in a glass, the glass as it were a glittering star.’ This verse has been the subject of much speculation, but what is most striking about the parable is the complex effect that it creates. What we find is a series of embedded structures, one within the other, ‘light upon light’, almost ad infinitum. Commentators usually perceive the parable to have ended at 24.35. However, it in fact extends for five more verses. At 24.40 we are presented with the opposing theme of ‘darkness’ (zulumatin) and the imagery is not one of recursiveness, but of a stacked or multi-decked darkness in an abysmal ocean of ‘waves upon waves’. Separating these two diametrically opposed parables, we have the parable of the mirage in an open desert 
which offers a new form, a form that speaks of endless linearity. 
parables can be illustrated by the parable of the fire-kindler (2.17), one of the most quoted parables and one that has been discussed extensively by many scholars. It sets out to illustrate the actions of hypocrites who confess their faith in front of the faithful, but when they are alone with their ‘own devils’ they renounce, insisting that they had only believed in mockery. The point being made is that they have elected to purchase darkness and loss rather than light and guidance. It starts with the formulaic mathalahum kamathal
Gibraltar: Dar al-andalus.
Language and style’, in A.F.L.Beeston et al. (eds) Cambridge History of Arabic Literature: Arabic literature to the end of the Umayyad period, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 196–205.
