Picture a shepherd at the edge of a hillside, his flock scattered across the slope below him, and he opens his mouth and makes a sound. Not a sentence. Not a word, even. Just a call, the same odd cry he makes every day, and the sheep lift their heads and come. They do not understand a syllable of it. He is not saying anything. And still they come running, because that sound is the one they have been trained to follow.
That is the example Allah strikes for those who reject the truth, in the longest surah of the Qur'an. This is day five of twenty-seven, retold faithfully from Nouman Ali Khan's series, and it is the most unsettling mirror yet, because before he holds it up to anyone else, he turns it slowly toward us.
The ones who kept the book to themselves
وَإِذَا قِيلَ لَهُمُ ٱتَّبِعُوا۟ مَآ أَنزَلَ ٱللَّهُ قَالُوا۟ بَلْ نَتَّبِعُ مَآ أَلْفَيْنَا عَلَيْهِ ءَابَآءَنَآ ۗ أَوَلَوْ كَانَ ءَابَآؤُهُمْ لَا يَعْقِلُونَ شَيْـًٔا وَلَا يَهْتَدُونَ
“And when it is said to them, "Follow what Allāh has revealed," they say, "Rather, we will follow that which we found our fathers doing." Even though their fathers understood nothing, nor were they guided?”
Surah al-Baqarah 2:170 Read 2:170 with tafsir
To reach the picture, Nouman Ali Khan walks us back a few ayat, because the Qur'an stitches its scenes together and this one only opens with its hinges in place. The verses just before it describe a certain kind of leader: the learned ones who held the scripture and hid the parts of it that would have set their people free. They could see that some of what the Qur'an taught was already in their own books, and they knew what would happen if they admitted it. To accept the Prophet ﷺ as the messenger of Allah was to become just another follower, and lose the title, the standing, the crowd overnight. Tell the public what the Book actually says, and the public might walk straight out of your hands, and then your position is gone, your following is gone, the income is gone. So you keep the dangerous parts to yourself, and you feed the people only what keeps them coming back.
He widens it into something we all recognise. For most of human history, he says, religion was used to manage populations, often married to whatever king was in power, kept deliberately shallow so the people would feel and obey and never think. Keep them emotional, and they will not use their minds. And the followers answer here exactly as a managed crowd answers: do not ask us to follow what was revealed, we will follow what we found our fathers doing. Then Allah lays the trap bare with one question. What if their fathers understood nothing, and were not guided at all? You inherited the path without ever checking where it led.
You were built to think
إِنَّ فِى خَلْقِ ٱلسَّمَٰوَٰتِ وَٱلْأَرْضِ وَٱخْتِلَٰفِ ٱلَّيْلِ وَٱلنَّهَارِ وَٱلْفُلْكِ ٱلَّتِى تَجْرِى فِى ٱلْبَحْرِ بِمَا يَنفَعُ ٱلنَّاسَ وَمَآ أَنزَلَ ٱللَّهُ مِنَ ٱلسَّمَآءِ مِن مَّآءٍ فَأَحْيَا بِهِ ٱلْأَرْضَ بَعْدَ مَوْتِهَا وَبَثَّ فِيهَا مِن كُلِّ دَآبَّةٍ وَتَصْرِيفِ ٱلرِّيَٰحِ وَٱلسَّحَابِ ٱلْمُسَخَّرِ بَيْنَ ٱلسَّمَآءِ وَٱلْأَرْضِ لَءَايَٰتٍ لِّقَوْمٍ يَعْقِلُونَ
“Indeed, in the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the alternation of the night and the day, and the [great] ships which sail through the sea with that which benefits people, and what Allāh has sent down from the heavens of rain, giving life thereby to the earth after its lifelessness and dispersing therein every [kind of] moving creature, and [His] directing of the winds and the clouds controlled between the heaven and earth are signs for a people who use reason.”
Surah al-Baqarah 2:164 Read 2:164 with tafsir
Right in the middle of all this, before the parable lands, Allah turns to the open sky. The heavens and the earth, the night folding into day, the ships that ride the sea, the rain that wakes dead ground, the winds turned this way and that, the clouds held between heaven and earth: signs, the ayah says, for a people who use their reason. Nouman Ali Khan pauses here, because the placement is the point. Allah set this verse here on purpose.
Long before any revelation reached you, he reminds us, the cloud was already there, and the mountain, and the sea, and a mind in you that could look at all of it and ask who put it there and why you get to benefit from it. Allah did not make you like the animals, who eat and sleep and move on. He gave you something that lifts its head past the food to the One who sent it. So the human being was built to think first, and only then handed revelation, which is why a thoughtful heart recognises the truth the moment it arrives, like a confirmation of something already stirring inside. To stop thinking is not just to miss a lesson. It is to bury the very thing that makes you human.
The sound that means nothing
وَمَثَلُ ٱلَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا۟ كَمَثَلِ ٱلَّذِى يَنْعِقُ بِمَا لَا يَسْمَعُ إِلَّا دُعَآءً وَنِدَآءً ۚ صُمٌّۢ بُكْمٌ عُمْىٌ فَهُمْ لَا يَعْقِلُونَ
“The example of those who disbelieve is like that of one who shouts at what hears nothing but calls and cries [i.e., cattle or sheep] - deaf, dumb and blind, so they do not understand.”
Surah al-Baqarah 2:171 Read 2:171 with tafsir
Now the picture, and it is a strange one at first. The example of those who reject faith is like one who calls out to what hears nothing but a call and a cry. Notice, Nouman Ali Khan points out, that the animals are never named. Allah does not say sheep, or cattle. He gives you only the sound, the bare call going out and a creature that catches the noise of it and nothing more. The lexicons tie the verb to a shepherd herding his flock, so the scene is the herder and the herd, but the verse keeps the animals offstage and leaves you with the emptiness of the exchange itself.
And then the same four words from the very first parable in the surah return, like a refrain: deaf, dumb, blind. Only this time the ending is changed. Where the first example closed with so they will not return, this one closes with so they do not reason. The flock hears the sound, comes when it is called, and never once understands what was said, or whether anything was said at all. That, Allah says, is the picture of a heart that has chosen not to think.
Why the flock comes running
So why do the sheep answer a sound that carries no meaning? Nouman Ali Khan actually went and watched shepherds at work to sit with this, and what he draws out is quietly devastating. The shepherd, he notes, knows full well that he is making meaningless noise. He is not saying, my dear flock, I love you, come to safety. He is making a call with nothing behind it. And the sheep are not moved by its meaning, because there is none. They simply hear the sound and come.
They come, he explains, because they have been conditioned to. Sheep are herd animals, too weak to stand alone, so they cling to a leader, and the shepherd has slipped into that place by three doors. He feeds them, so he becomes their provider. He drives off the wolf, so he becomes their protector. He leads them out to the grass and home again, so he becomes their guide. And then a fourth: the straggler that lags behind gets the stick, so they learn to fear falling out of step. Provider, protector, guide, and fear. Four ropes, and not one of them runs through the mind. The animal never has to understand anything. It only has to follow.
The same herd, in new clothes
وَمِنَ ٱلنَّاسِ مَن يَتَّخِذُ مِن دُونِ ٱللَّهِ أَندَادًا يُحِبُّونَهُمْ كَحُبِّ ٱللَّهِ ۖ وَٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوٓا۟ أَشَدُّ حُبًّا لِّلَّهِ ۗ وَلَوْ يَرَى ٱلَّذِينَ ظَلَمُوٓا۟ إِذْ يَرَوْنَ ٱلْعَذَابَ أَنَّ ٱلْقُوَّةَ لِلَّهِ جَمِيعًا وَأَنَّ ٱللَّهَ شَدِيدُ ٱلْعَذَابِ
“And [yet], among the people are those who take other than Allāh as equals [to Him]. They love them as they [should] love Allāh. But those who believe are stronger in love for Allāh. And if only they who have wronged would consider [that] when they see the punishment, [they will be certain] that all power belongs to Allāh and that Allāh is severe in punishment.”
Surah al-Baqarah 2:165 Read 2:165 with tafsir
Here is where Nouman Ali Khan refuses to let the example stay in the past. The crowd that once gathered around a corrupt priest, he says, has not disappeared. It has only changed temples. The ayat just before the parable describe people who take rivals besides Allah and love them as Allah alone deserves to be loved, an attachment that is all emotion and no thought. And on the Day of Judgment, the very ones who were followed will turn and disown every follower they had, while the followers cry out for one more chance to cut themselves loose. Notice, he says, that Allah does not blame only the leaders. He comes for the followers too, because they were given a mind and chose not to use it.
Then he brings it into our hands. The temple now, he says, is the feed on the screen. We follow the celebrity, the influencer, the brand, the way crowds once followed a shepherd: what they wore, where they ate, what we must buy to belong. Marketing, he says from his own study of it, works by poking a primal urge, safety, status, the hunger to be seen as higher than the next person, and then the herd moves as one. A belt whose only job is to hold up your clothes becomes a sign of rank. A car you do not need becomes a way to be looked at. And nobody in the stampede is asking why. That is the empty call, and we come running to it every single day.
The crowd is not your proof
He tells of an experiment from his university days that names the disease exactly. A hall of capable students, each handed a simple sum, the kind you can solve in twenty seconds. The room answers one by one, and every voice gives the same wrong number, because every voice but one has been told to. The single honest student checks his work again, and again, and gets the right answer each time, and then, asked aloud, gives the wrong one. The crowd's answer. And privately, the reason splits two ways. Some say, how could I be right when everyone else is wrong, so many people, surely they cannot all be mistaken. And others say, I knew I was right, but I did not want them looking at me funny, so I went along.
Two faces of the same herd, Nouman Ali Khan says, and the parable holds both. One mind shuts off because it trusts the crowd over the truth. The other mind stays on, sees the truth clearly, and follows the crowd anyway, because standing out costs too much. Turn that toward yourself for a moment. How many of your own choices, the wedding you could not afford, the loan you should not have taken, the belief you have never once examined, came down to nothing more than this: everyone around me was doing it, and I did not want to be the one who looked strange. The sheep does not need the stick to keep it in line. The fear of the stick is enough.
Will you come back, or just come running
صُمٌّۢ بُكْمٌ عُمْىٌ فَهُمْ لَا يَرْجِعُونَ
“Deaf, dumb and blind - so they will not return [to the right path].”
Surah al-Baqarah 2:18 Read 2:18 with tafsir
Set the two endings side by side, the way Nouman Ali Khan does, and the whole arc opens up. The first parable in the surah ended deaf, dumb, blind, so they will not return. This one ends deaf, dumb, blind, so they do not reason. To return is to find your way back to what Allah placed in you. But you cannot return if you will not think, and so this example reveals the root of the first: the reason a heart never comes home is that it stopped using the one faculty that could carry it there. The lights went out in the desert because no one would think their way toward the flame.
And then he turns the mirror fully on us, and it is the hardest turn of the night. He is not, he says, only describing other religions. What frightens him is how close we have come. There are Muslim homes today where a child who asks a real question about the Qur'an is told to stop, that thinking is for the experts, that your job is only to recite and to follow. A young person hears every clever argument against faith on their screen, brings one home, and is met with do not ask, just pray, just follow. That, he warns, is the one betrayal this religion cannot survive, because of every faith that ever came, this is the one that begged human beings to think. We were never meant to be the flock that comes running to a sound. We were meant to be the people who hear, and weigh, and understand, and choose.