We do not say that a teacher strikes an example. We say she gives one, offers one, maybe draws one on the board. But when Allah turns to this way of teaching in the Qur'an, the word He uses, again and again, is daraba: He strikes the example, the way a judge strikes a gavel and the whole room falls silent. Something is about to be said that you must not miss.
This is day one of twenty-seven, the start of a slow walk through the examples Allah strikes in the Qur'an, the amthal, retold faithfully from Nouman Ali Khan's series. And like any patient teacher, he does not begin with the first example. He begins with why there are examples at all, and what they are quietly doing to the heart that receives them.
Not given, but struck
To strike something, Nouman Ali Khan points out, is to make a sudden, sharp sound that pulls every head in the room around. A teacher raps the desk. A judge brings down the gavel and says, order. A courtroom that had dissolved into noise goes quiet in an instant. You were not fully paying attention, and now you are. That is what the word is built to do.
So when Allah strikes an example in the Qur'an, He is not simply adding information. The speech is already flowing, the lesson already underway, and then, at exactly the right moment, He strikes: the final nail, the last turn of the key, an image so vivid it gathers everything said before it into one picture you will not be able to forget. Examples in the Qur'an are not decoration. They are the moment the lesson is driven home.
He is not shy to draw you a mosquito
إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ لَا يَسْتَحْىِۦٓ أَن يَضْرِبَ مَثَلًا مَّا بَعُوضَةً فَمَا فَوْقَهَا ۚ فَأَمَّا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ فَيَعْلَمُونَ أَنَّهُ ٱلْحَقُّ مِن رَّبِّهِمْ ۖ وَأَمَّا ٱلَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا۟ فَيَقُولُونَ مَاذَآ أَرَادَ ٱللَّهُ بِهَٰذَا مَثَلًا ۘ يُضِلُّ بِهِۦ كَثِيرًا وَيَهْدِى بِهِۦ كَثِيرًا ۚ وَمَا يُضِلُّ بِهِۦٓ إِلَّا ٱلْفَٰسِقِينَ
“Indeed, Allāh is not timid to present an example - that of a mosquito or what is smaller than it. And those who have believed know that it is the truth from their Lord. But as for those who disbelieve, they say, "What did Allāh intend by this as an example?" He misleads many thereby and guides many thereby. And He misleads not except the defiantly disobedient,”
Surah al-Baqarah 2:26 Read 2:26 with tafsir
Allah tells us plainly that He teaches this way on purpose, and that He will not shrink from the smallest, humblest picture if it carries the point. The believer looks at the little image, a mosquito, a fly, a spider's thread, and sees straight through it to the truth it holds. The scoffer looks at the very same image and sneers: what kind of God talks about insects? And so one example guides one heart and hardens another. The picture was never the point. What you bring to it is.
This is the first thing to make peace with before we begin. The examples ahead will be humble. A man lighting a fire. A dog left panting. A handful of grain. Do not wait for something grander to arrive. The smallness is the mercy: Allah is reaching for something already in your hand.
An example is something you already know
An example only works, Nouman Ali Khan says, if you already know the thing it is made of. It is never the new lesson; it is the familiar object Allah uses to carry the new lesson, so that the lesson becomes as easy to keep as the object itself.
He tells a small story on himself. As a young man in New York, newly serious about praying five times a day, he could not work out the qibla; he did not even know which way was east among all those tall buildings. A friend fixed it in a sentence: you know which way Queens is, so stand toward Queens, and now downtown is on your right, that is south, uptown is on your left, that is north, and New Jersey is at your back, that is west. Years later, praying in some other state entirely, he still found his direction by picturing himself facing Queens. One familiar thing, and a whole problem solved, for life. That is exactly what an example does to a lesson.
Every example paints a scene
يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلنَّاسُ ضُرِبَ مَثَلٌ فَٱسْتَمِعُوا۟ لَهُۥٓ ۚ إِنَّ ٱلَّذِينَ تَدْعُونَ مِن دُونِ ٱللَّهِ لَن يَخْلُقُوا۟ ذُبَابًا وَلَوِ ٱجْتَمَعُوا۟ لَهُۥ ۖ وَإِن يَسْلُبْهُمُ ٱلذُّبَابُ شَيْـًٔا لَّا يَسْتَنقِذُوهُ مِنْهُ ۚ ضَعُفَ ٱلطَّالِبُ وَٱلْمَطْلُوبُ
“O people, an example is presented, so listen to it. Indeed, those you invoke besides Allāh will never create [as much as] a fly, even if they gathered together for it [i.e., that purpose]. And if the fly should steal from them a [tiny] thing, they could not recover it from him. Weak are the pursuer and pursued.”
Surah al-Hajj 22:73 Read 22:73 with tafsir
Here is the thread that runs through all of them, the one thing to carry into every day that follows: every example in the Qur'an paints a scene. Not a definition, a picture, and usually a moving one, a small clip you can replay in your head. Tomorrow it will be a figure alone in the dark desert, bent over a few sticks, desperate to start a fire. Once you can see the scene, you can hold the lesson.
Take the picture in this ayah. People laid milk and flowers and food before their idols, and the idols sat there, sacred, untouchable; reach for that offering yourself and you might be beaten for it. Then a fly lands, helps itself, and lifts off again, and the god who could not be touched by a human hand cannot take back what a fly has stolen. You could argue theology for an hour. Or you could just remember the fly. Nouman Ali Khan's point is that the image settles in a second what an argument labours at: weak is the seeker, and weak the sought.
Struck rarely, and on purpose
وَتِلْكَ ٱلْأَمْثَٰلُ نَضْرِبُهَا لِلنَّاسِ ۖ وَمَا يَعْقِلُهَآ إِلَّا ٱلْعَٰلِمُونَ
“And these examples We present to the people, but none will understand them except those of knowledge.”
Surah al-Ankabut 29:43 Read 29:43 with tafsir
Allah does not strike an example on every page. Al-Baqarah is the longest surah in the Qur'an, and across the whole of its opening juz you meet only a couple of them. They are placed with care, exactly where a heart most needs the lesson pinned down. Treasure them when they come; their rarity is part of their weight.
And notice what this ayah says about who truly receives them. The examples are struck for all people, but it is the ones with knowledge, the ones willing to stop and actually think, who grasp them. The picture is held up for everyone. Whether it opens depends on whether you sit with it.
The mark of a teacher who loves the student
Think of the difference between an ordinary teacher and a great one. The ordinary teacher states the concept, names the test date, and leaves the rest to you. The great teacher sees the confusion on your face and says, hold on, let me give you an example, and then another, and then says, when this comes up in the exam, picture this. Nouman Ali Khan draws the obvious conclusion: the example never benefits the teacher. He already knows the material. The example is a pure act of care for the student.
Then he turns it where it belongs. Allah, who knows all things, strikes examples for us. He does not need them; we do. Which means the Qur'an is not Allah merely informing you, or even merely guiding you. It is Allah teaching you, the way only a teacher who wants you to pass would teach. So the real question over these twenty-seven days is not about the examples at all. It is about you. Will you be the student who studies the picture, replays it, carries it into the exam of your own life? Or the one who hears it, nods, and shelves it? Tomorrow, the first picture: a man in the dark, fighting to light a fire.