{"product_id":"forty-parables-of-the-holy-quran","title":"Forty Parables of The Holy Qur'an (Bilingual Arabic-English)","description":"\u003cp style=\"font-size:1.05em;line-height:1.7;\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWhen the Qur'an describes the hypocrites, it says their fire \u003cem\u003eradiated\u003c\/em\u003e — \u003cem\u003eaḍāʾat\u003c\/em\u003e. It does not say it \u003cem\u003eilluminated\u003c\/em\u003e — \u003cem\u003eanārat\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003c\/strong\u003e One word means the fire lit everything around the man and nothing inside him. The other would have meant he was changed by it. God chose the first.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThat distinction disappears entirely in English translation. There are forty like it in this book.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eAbout the Book\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eForty Parables of The Holy Qur'ān\u003c\/em\u003e is Shaykh Dr. Ahmed Saad al-Azharī's study of the \u003cem\u003eamthāl\u003c\/em\u003e, the similitudes God sets forth throughout His Book: the fire that goes out, the smooth rock beneath a layer of soil, the garden on a hill, the spider's house, the mirage in the desert, the panting dog, the Lamp that gives light.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eMost books on the parables explain what they mean. This one goes further and asks why they are worded as they are. Why \u003cem\u003eẓulumāt\u003c\/em\u003e, darknesses in the plural, rather than a single darkness? Why does God say the devourers of an orphan's wealth \u003cem\u003eare\u003c\/em\u003e consuming fire, rather than saying it is \u003cem\u003eas though\u003c\/em\u003e they were? Why the word \u003cem\u003eṣarṣar\u003c\/em\u003e for the wind that ruins the disbeliever's charity, when that single word carries both howling and freezing at once?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThese are the questions of \u003cem\u003ebalāgha\u003c\/em\u003e, the classical science of Qur'anic eloquence, and they are almost never asked in English. Shaykh Ahmed Saad asks them forty times, and answers them in language any reader can follow.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cdiv style=\"border-left:3px solid #b8973a;padding:0.75em 0 0.75em 1.25em;margin:1.75em 0;font-style:italic;\"\u003eThese are the parables We set forth for humanity, but none will understand them except the people of knowledge.\u003cdiv style=\"font-style:normal;font-size:0.9em;margin-top:0.5em;color:#7a6a45;\"\u003eQur'ān 29:43\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eA Complete Bilingual Edition\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eEvery English page in this volume faces the author's original Arabic, fully vowelled, set in classical Qur'anic type. Nothing is abridged and nothing is summarised. Read the English alone, read the Arabic alone, or read them together and watch the argument move between the two languages.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFor students of Arabic, this is a rare thing: a contemporary scholarly text of real substance, presented in parallel, on a subject that rewards close reading of the original.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eInside Each Parable\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe verse, in Arabic and English\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eIts context within the sūra and what it depicts\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eA numbered breakdown of its rhetorical features, word by word\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eSupporting testimony from the classical exegetes, among them al-Qushayrī, Ibn ʿAjība, Ibn ʿĀshūr and al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eḤadīth, and verse from the great Muslim poets, drawn in where they illuminate the image\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eEach parable runs four to six pages. You can read one after Fajr, or one a night through Ramadan, and finish the book without ever feeling hurried.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eOrigins\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThese reflections began as talks delivered before the Tarāwīḥ prayer in Ramadan 1437, thirty of them, one for each night of the month. Shaykh Ahmed Saad later extended the collection to forty and spent the following years deepening it from works of tafsīr, language and taṣawwuf. The number is deliberate: forty carries its own weight in the Islamic tradition, and the author draws the parallel with the forty nights appointed to Mūsā, peace be upon him.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eContents\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAuthor's Introduction\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003col\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe State of the Hypocrites\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eHow Showing Off Annuls Good Deeds\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe Charity of the Sincere\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe Biting Wind\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe Orphan's Property Brings Terrible Torment\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe Muḥammadan Light\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe Victims of Delusion\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eBetween Life and Death\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe Expansion of Faith\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe Narrowness of Unbelief\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eGood Land and Bad Land\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe Panting Dog\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe Weight of Pleasures\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe Reality of Life in This World\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eAn Apt Comparison\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eHolding On to Water\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe Likeness of Truth and Falsehood\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe Good Word and the Bad Word\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe Powerless Idols\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eBreaking Promises\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe Eternal Value of Deeds\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eMercy to Parents\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eBetween Miserliness and Extravagance\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe Rolled-Up Pages\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eWorshiping Upon the Brink\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe Light of the Heavens and the Earth\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eA Mirage in the Desert\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe Waves of Darkness\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eToo Late for Regret\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eA Spider's House\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe Slave Partners\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe Illuminating Lamp\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eIn the Service of Partners\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe Lifestyle of Livestock\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eLike a Sapling that Grows Stout\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe Backbiter\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe Goodly Loan\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe Effects of Neglecting the Revealed Law\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eRemembrance is the Life of the Heart\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eForm Without Substance\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ol\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eConclusion · Bibliography\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eWho This Book Is For\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eReaders who have long suspected that something is lost in translation, and want to see exactly what\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eStudents of Arabic working toward reading the Qur'an in the original\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eAnyone looking for a structured Ramadan companion: forty parables, one a night\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eStudy circles and halaqāt, where each parable stands alone as a session\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eTeachers and students of tafsīr, Qur'anic studies and Arabic rhetoric\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eThe Author\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eShaykh Dr. Ahmed Saad al-Azharī\u003c\/strong\u003e is a British-Egyptian scholar, imam, and founder of the Ihsan Institute for Arabic \u0026amp; Islamic Studies in the United Kingdom. A descendant of the Prophet ﷺ, he memorised the Qur'an by the age of ten and took his BA (Hons) in Islamic Studies from al-Azhar University in 2001, followed by a PhD from the University of Birmingham in 2024 on traditional Muslim engagement with modernity.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eHe holds one of the shortest chains of transmission in the narration of Ḥafṣ, at twenty-nine links, and carries ijāzāt in Qur'anic recitation, ḥadīth, fiqh, theology, Arabic grammar and taṣawwuf from more than eighty-five scholars across the Muslim world. A former imam in Canada and the United Kingdom, he teaches and lectures internationally, and is the author of \u003cem\u003eContemplating the Qur'an\u003c\/em\u003e along with several collections of poetry.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eTranslation and Editing\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eTranslated by \u003cstrong\u003eKhalid Williams\u003c\/strong\u003e, whose renderings of the classical Islamic tradition are widely read in English. Edited by \u003cstrong\u003eMuhammad Isa Waley\u003c\/strong\u003e, formerly Lead Curator of Persian and Turkish manuscripts at the British Library.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eSpecifications\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/strong\u003e Shaykh Dr. Ahmed Saad al-Azharī\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eTranslator:\u003c\/strong\u003e Khalid Williams\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eEditor:\u003c\/strong\u003e Muhammad Isa Waley\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/strong\u003e Ihya Publishing, 2025 \/ 1447\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eFormat:\u003c\/strong\u003e Paperback, bilingual Arabic–English on facing pages\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 236\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 6 × 9 in (152 × 229 mm)\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eISBN:\u003c\/strong\u003e 978-1-939256-24-9\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\n\u003cp style=\"font-size:0.9em;color:#7a6a45;\"\u003eIhya Publishing is a non-profit 501(c)(3) publishing house.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Ihya Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49262095368500,"sku":"IYP017","price":24.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0832\/5031\/5572\/files\/forty-parables-front-cover.jpg?v=1787193307","url":"https:\/\/www.meccabooks.com\/products\/forty-parables-of-the-holy-quran","provider":"Mecca Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}