Parables in the Quran

Quran Essay Upon my reading of the Quran, I found that many themes of this text are wrapped up in parables. Being the Christian man that I am, I am fascinated not only with parables in the Bible, but also Parables in other religious text as well. For this paper I will be focusing on parables and why they are key in many Muslims paths to spiritual ascension. According to the Ahlul Bayt Librabry, an online source for understand the Quran, the central theme of the Quran is training its follower to have an understanding of his duties in life. The Quran provides Muslims with a detailed and descriptive outline on their everyday lives. This outline is important because it guides Muslims to a point of spiritual ascension. One way that the Quran helps this spiritual ascension is by the use of parables. The Quran shows Muslims how they should live their lives, and uses parables to show what happens to people when they do or don’t follow Allah’s word or Muhammad’s recommendations. In this paper I will illustrate how the Quran uses parables to help Muslim’s through their everyday problems. Illustrating these parables is important because the Quran has been the legal authority over Muslim’s since the 7th century (Ahlul Bayt). The first parable that I will be discussing is the Parable of the Dog (Surah 7: 175-177). This parable is about people who turn away from the Ayat of Allah. Due to my limited background in the Quran I looked up the meaning of Ayat, and it means sign or evidence. The parable of the dog is about people who deny the signs of Allah. This Surah compares the person that turns down the Ayat to a dog that pants when you give it what it wants and when you don’t. What this Surah is telling its readers is not to give in to worldly desires like the dog. The worldly desires are evident when the Surah says that “he clung to the earth and followed his vain desires”. I believe that this Surah tells its readers to be careful and follow the signs of Allah at every