Principle Twenty-Two: The Aims of the Qur’anic Parables

Realise that the Noble Qur’an gathers within its pages the loftiest, most perfect, and most beneficial subjects that created beings could ever require, across every field of knowledge. It contains the finest methods of instruction and the most direct way of conveying meanings to the heart with utmost ease and clarity.

Among its elevated teaching techniques is the striking of parables. Allah – glorified be He – invokes them in matters of greatest moment: tawḥīd (monotheism) and the condition of those who uphold it; shirk (polytheism) and the plight of its people; and the major, comprehensive deeds. His purpose in all of this is to clarify salutary meanings and to portray them through tangible realities, so that the heart beholds those meanings as though seeing them with its own eyes. This reflects the Creator’s care and gentleness toward His servants.

Thus, in several verses Allah likens the waḥy (revelation) and knowledge He has sent down upon His Messenger to the ghayth (rainfall) that pours from the sky, while likening people’s hearts to lands and valleys. The action of revelation and knowledge upon hearts mirrors that of rain upon the earth.

Some lands are wholesome: they absorb the water and bring forth plentiful herbage and grass. These resemble perceptive hearts that grasp Allah’s revelation and the speech of His Messenger, comprehend it, and act upon it—learning and teaching in proportion to their capacity, just as lands produce according to theirs.

Other lands retain the water yet grow no vegetation; people still benefit from the water they store, drinking it themselves and watering their livestock and fields. Such are the hearts that preserve the revelation—Qur’an and Sunnah—and transmit it to the ummah, although they do not possess the insight and depth of understanding found in the first group. These people are upon goodness, but they rank below the former.