Before a single prophet is named, before the clay of Adam or the ark of Nuh or the staff of Musa, there is a question worth a whole evening: why did Allah fill so much of the Qur'an with their stories at all? He is not a storyteller passing time. So what are these accounts of drowned nations and tested fathers and broken idols actually for?
This is day one of twenty-nine, a walk through the prophets who came before the final one ﷺ, retold faithfully from Mufti Ismail Menk's beloved series. And like any good teacher, he begins not with the first story, but with why there are stories.
Allah did not leave us guessing
لَقَدْ كَانَ فِى قَصَصِهِمْ عِبْرَةٌ لِّأُو۟لِى ٱلْأَلْبَٰبِ ۗ مَا كَانَ حَدِيثًا يُفْتَرَىٰ وَلَٰكِن تَصْدِيقَ ٱلَّذِى بَيْنَ يَدَيْهِ وَتَفْصِيلَ كُلِّ شَىْءٍ وَهُدًى وَرَحْمَةً لِّقَوْمٍ يُؤْمِنُونَ
“There was certainly in their stories a lesson for those of understanding. Never was it [i.e., the Qur’ān] a narration invented, but a confirmation of what was before it and a detailed explanation of all things and guidance and mercy for a people who believe.”
Surah Yusuf 12:111 Read 12:111 with tafsir
Allah made you, and He did not then walk away. He is ar-Rabb, a word Mufti Menk pauses on because no single English word holds it: the One who created you, nourishes you, provides for you, protects you, and holds every atom of your existence in His hand. A Lord like that does not create a servant and leave him to guess his way home. He sent a manual, and He sent men to carry it. There is no nation that has passed, not one, without a warner sent to it.
So the stories of the prophets are not folklore, and they are not bedtime tales we dress in robes. Allah Himself tells us what they are: a lesson for people of understanding, not invented, but a confirmation of the truth and a detailed explanation and a guidance and a mercy. That is the whole reason we will spend twenty-nine days here. Every one of these lives was preserved by Allah on purpose, for you.
A messenger, a prophet, and you
وَوَهَبْنَا لَهُۥ مِن رَّحْمَتِنَآ أَخَاهُ هَٰرُونَ نَبِيًّا
“And We gave him out of Our mercy his brother Aaron as a prophet.”
Surah Maryam 19:53 Read 19:53 with tafsir
Mufti Menk draws a line the Qur'an itself draws. A rasool, a messenger, is sent with something new: a fresh law, a book, a command from Allah to deliver. A nabi, a prophet, carries the message of a messenger who came before him. Every messenger is a prophet, but not every prophet is a messenger. When Allah gave Musa, peace be upon him, the message, He gave him his brother Harun alongside him as a prophet to help him. The message was Musa's to bring; Harun was sent to hold him up.
And then comes the line that should make you sit up, because it is about you. There is a third kind of carrier, neither messenger nor prophet, and it is every single one of us. We are the messengers of the Messenger ﷺ. He carried Allah's final message, and then he turned to us and said: convey from me, even if it is one verse. So you are not a spectator at these stories. You are the next link in the chain that runs from Allah, to His prophets, to His final Prophet ﷺ, and now to you, with a duty to learn it, live it, and pass it on.
Why we read it here, and nowhere else
How man began, why he is here, what happened to the nations that vanished: none of this can be reached by digging or guessing. No scientist can hand you the name of the first human being or tell you what was said to him. It can only come from the One who was there, through revelation. That is what makes a believer a believer.
Open the older scriptures and you will find the same prophets, the same broad outlines, because they began from the same source. But Mufti Menk is honest about why we do not lean on them: their keepers are still arguing among themselves over which version is authentic, and too much has crept in and been altered. So we take our account from the Qur'an, which Allah Himself has kept pure, the one book no hand has been allowed to change. When the Qur'an tells the story of Nuh or Yusuf or Musa, peace be upon them, you are not reading a remembered legend. You are reading the record of the One who watched it happen. This is why these stories are the natural doorway back into the Qur'an itself, the book your whole faith is built on.
A book to be lived in, not leaned on
كِتَٰبٌ أَنزَلْنَٰهُ إِلَيْكَ مُبَٰرَكٌ لِّيَدَّبَّرُوٓا۟ ءَايَٰتِهِۦ وَلِيَتَذَكَّرَ أُو۟لُوا۟ ٱلْأَلْبَٰبِ
“[This is] a blessed Book which We have revealed to you, [O Muḥammad], that they might reflect upon its verses and that those of understanding would be reminded.”
Surah Sad 38:29 Read 38:29 with tafsir
Why did Allah reveal the Qur'an? He answers the question Himself: so that its verses would be pondered. Not recited and shelved like a pillow under the head at night, but understood. Mufti Menk asks it plainly, and it stings a little: how many of us have read a shelf of novels cover to cover, and could not say what the verse we recited this morning actually meant? He gently presses everyone, himself included, to read a portion of the Qur'an in a language they understand, because a manual you cannot read cannot run your life.
And here is the mercy in where we are starting. The stories of the prophets make up the great bulk of the Qur'an, and they are the most accessible part of it: anyone can follow a story. So this is not a detour away from the Qur'an. It is the easiest road straight into it. Walk these twenty-nine days and you will find you are no longer a stranger to large stretches of the book.
The kind of person Allah chooses
وَمَا يَنطِقُ عَنِ ٱلْهَوَىٰٓ إِنْ هُوَ إِلَّا وَحْىٌ يُوحَىٰ
“Nor does he speak from [his own] inclination. It is not but a revelation revealed,”
Surah an-Najm 53:3-4 Read 53:3 with tafsir
Allah never picked the mediocre to carry His word. Mufti Menk walks through the qualities every prophet shared, and as he does, notice that you are watching a portrait of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ take shape, the one whose life the whole of this chain is climbing toward. They were truthful, every one, known for it by their own people long before any revelation came, the way Makkah called him ﷺ the truthful and the trustworthy before they knew what he would become. They were highly intelligent: Ibrahim, peace be upon him, debated more than any of them, questioning idols and kings while still a young man. They were people you were drawn to, not repelled by; of the Prophet ﷺ a companion said simply, when I saw his face I knew this is not the face of a liar.
Allah trained them first with flocks, for there was no prophet who had not at some point herded sheep, learning patience on animals before he was trusted with people. He protected them from sin. And what they spoke was not their own opinion: of His final Messenger ﷺ Allah says he does not speak from desire, it is only revelation. None of them ever asked for a wage. Follow, the Qur'an says, those who ask of you no reward and are themselves rightly guided. When you meet Nuh and Ibrahim and Musa in the coming days, you already know the family they belong to.
Why the stories are really told
أَمْ حَسِبْتُمْ أَن تَدْخُلُوا۟ ٱلْجَنَّةَ وَلَمَّا يَأْتِكُم مَّثَلُ ٱلَّذِينَ خَلَوْا۟ مِن قَبْلِكُم ۖ مَّسَّتْهُمُ ٱلْبَأْسَآءُ وَٱلضَّرَّآءُ وَزُلْزِلُوا۟ حَتَّىٰ يَقُولَ ٱلرَّسُولُ وَٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ مَعَهُۥ مَتَىٰ نَصْرُ ٱللَّهِ ۗ أَلَآ إِنَّ نَصْرَ ٱللَّهِ قَرِيبٌ
“Or do you think that you will enter Paradise while such [trial] has not yet come to you as came to those who passed on before you? They were touched by poverty and hardship and were shaken until [even their] messenger and those who believed with him said, "When is the help of Allāh?" Unquestionably, the help of Allāh is near.”
Surah al-Baqarah 2:214 Read 2:214 with tafsir
Here is the lesson Mufti Menk says runs underneath all of them. The people of Nuh, peace be upon him, transgressed for a very long time, and to the eye of the moment it looked like wrong was winning and right was drowning. Then the flood came, and it was the other way around. So when you watch evil look like it is winning, the prophets' stories tell you the ending in advance: the people of goodness win. Maybe not immediately. But ultimately, always.
And there is a warning folded inside that comfort: none of it comes without a test. Did you think you would enter Paradise untouched, when those before you were shaken with poverty and hardship until even the messenger cried out, when is the help of Allah? Mufti Menk gives the image of a school. The higher the grade, the harder the exam, and the real life is not the years inside the school but everything after you graduate. The prophets sat the hardest exams ever set, and Allah preserved their papers so we would know how the test is passed. Tomorrow, the first paper: the creation of the first human being.