Educational Objectives in Qur’anic Stories: Why Allah Tells Stories

Occasion: transcript of a lecture delivered in Woodbridge on April 30, 2026, the opening session of a new weekly series Source: transcript of a recorded lecture by Dr. Ahmed Abou Seif, watch the original video on YouTube

My dear brothers and sisters, it is my pleasure to be with you every week, God willing, at the same time, unless I am traveling or sick. Tonight we are supposed to start a new journey with the Qur’an. You have heard the topic: the educational principles we can draw from the stories of the Qur’an.

Which road shall we take?

Before starting, Dr. Ahmed handed the choice to the room. There are two or three ways to begin, he said. One is to start with the short sūrahs at the end of the Qur’an, because we repeat all of them every time we pray. Another is to start with the stories of the Qur’an: people love a story, we can picture what happened, and we can go deeply into the words and verses where Allah describes the position and situation of those people. The third is to begin a journey with one of the famous sūrahs, such as Sūrat Yūsuf, or whatever the listeners would like. "I have no problem starting any way," he said. "Whatever you decide, I am here for you." (The first minutes were taken up with the echo and the microphone, and with the technology giving everyone a hard time.)

The stories it was. And if we are going to start with the stories, he said, the first question that comes to mind is: why is Allah giving us these stories in the Qur’an? A second follows: what is the difference between the stories in the Qur’an and every other kind of story in our world? And a third: what is the most beneficial thing we can take from them?

Why does Allah give us stories?

The answer to the first question comes when we ask what the role of the Qur’an is in our lives. The Qur’an is our main and first guidance. Allah told us that it is there to warn those who are still alive, people who still feel life running through their bodies and minds.^[1] And when Allah gives stories to people like that, he is speaking to people who already have consciousness and understanding, people who can take a meaning out of the details a story gives them.

The shapes the stories take

He wanted the class to notice how varied the stories are.

Sometimes Allah gives us a snapshot of something that happened very quickly. There is the story of one man in Makkah who tried to attack the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ in one way after another. Allah tells us what He did with this man and how many blessings He gave him. Yet with all of that, the man wanted more and more, and used it to attack the Prophet ﷺ. Even with that much money and those children, he was foolish enough to think wrongly of the Prophet ﷺ and to accuse him of something.^[2]

Sometimes we find a long story, like Sūrat Yūsuf, which runs for pages and goes through the details. Who stood where; what he asked and how they answered; what he told his father and what the father replied (be careful); what the elder brother said and what the younger brother said. Even someone who cannot understand the Arabic words, he said, can feel the details in the text and imagine what is going on, what those people are doing here and there.

Then there are the stories of the prophets, told with the vision of the call to Allah: what each one started with, the reply that came to him, the struggle he faced, the solution, and how Allah protected him. Sometimes Allah gives us a short account of a prophet whose long story He has already told us somewhere else. He asked how many times Allah tells us the story of one prophet. When we read the story in one place, it is completely different from the story in another.^[3] Each comes with its own methodology, its own route, its own dimension, and its own way of making us think deeply. All of them together, he said, come to build the vision of the call to Allah.

Our vision: why are we here?

And what is our vision in our life? Why are we here? "I have a question," he said, "but I do not have an answer until I hear from you. Why are you here? Why are you in America, in Europe, in different places?"

Our mission goes back to the beginning, he said, and it is found in the first story in the Qur’an, repeated for emphasis: the story that tells us the position of the human being in this world. We are here to reflect what Allah said about us, and to avoid what was said about us. He asked whether that was understood, and went on to repeat it as a picture.

Imagine we have a serious meeting and we call the whole community. Everybody comes; it is an important meeting. And Allah is the one who opens that meeting, and the first thing He tells them is that He is going to create a human being. Which came first, he asked, the creation of the whole universe, the heavens and the earth and all that space, or the human being? (The answers from the room are not clear in the transcript.) Allah did not say, "I am going to create the universe." Why does He ask them about the creation of the human being? Is He asking their permission to go ahead or not? Glory be to Him, it does not make sense that He would be. But Allah is telling them the most important thing that will happen until the Day of Judgment, and it is going to happen right now, when He creates the human beings.^[4]

And the conclusion of the announcement came in one word. What is that word? Khalīfah. What is the meaning of khalīfah? He asked someone to help with a translation. "Vice." "Viceroy." "Vice president, so, like a successor, or not a successor but..." He took the answers one after another: vice, viceroy, leader, guardian, successor, caretaker. "Do we have something else? All of those words come to tell us one thing: we are going to implement what Allah wanted from us. Am I clear? I am going to implement what Allah asked me to do."

Why create us at all?

Here he raised a question. When Allah announced it, were the angels not already implementing what Allah asked of them? At that time they were doing it. So why do we need another creation? Why do we need somebody else?^[5]

The question is wrong in itself, he said, because Allah does not need anybody to do anything. He is far above any request or need, or whatever word you want to use. Allah creates people for a mission because He wants them to do something, or because He wants them to show that they can do it.

Is our creation against us or for us?

Then he took up the objection that this raises, an issue he said he was coming to. Perhaps someone says: Allah created me in order to punish me at the end of the day. He knows I am going to make mistakes, and He put me surrounded by all these desires and these problems. So why am I here? Am I here to have a problem?

"You are not here to have a problem," he said, and answered with an example. Think of the student who went to medical school, a doctor. He was different from the rest of the people who said that high school was enough for them: "I am going to start working, I am going to McDonald’s, I will get ten dollars an hour." The doctor suffered, up to the point where he stands in front of a patient and understands the situation, what the case is. He has a patient in his hands and he is going to make a decision about the life of this person. The most important thing in this person’s life is in his hands. Without that struggle, he could not have come to that position. In the same way, he said, without that I could not enter Paradise. Somebody may say: Allah can give me the chance to enter Paradise without anything. That is against the rules of this world.

Why is the reward delayed?

He said he has heard a related question from many young people: why do we receive our rewards in the Hereafter, after all that time, and not in this world? "Do you believe in that? Say inshā’ Allāh." His usual answer goes like this. An employee comes to work for a big company. Will the company give him his salary before he starts work or after? He has had the interview, he has been accepted, he signs the contract and goes to work on the first day. He does not ask for the paycheck then. The salary comes after fifteen days or a month, either way after the work.

But, he added, he had another question, and said he was sorry for the interruption, because that is not the right answer. They do not pay him after one month. Take the doctor: how many years did he spend in medical school? Without that time, could he apply for the job? If they gave him a salary after one month, how many years came before that one month? He could not enter the college or university without high school, and high school comes after middle school, and middle school after primary school. All of that time came first. "Do not tell me they give you the salary after one month. They give you the salary after all of that age, all of that time." You are not qualified without all those talents and skills.

To make a long story short, he said, when we try to act wisely in this role, Allah assigns us that position.^[8] He did not want to take a long time at the first meeting or bore the listeners. In the coming weeks, God willing, the series will continue with the stories of the Qur’an, the secret behind their words, what is said about each of them, and the lessons of each one.

What is our role in this country?

But for tonight, at least, he asked the room to decide together: what is our role in this country, and why are we here? If we are here for the money, he said, America will not give you money; they know how to get back as much as they give, and the money from here, as far as one can tell, stays here.^[9] If we are here for education, then, thank God, AI works everywhere now and you can learn from anywhere. If we are here to raise our children in a comfortable lifestyle, we can do that anywhere too.

"Our mission over here is the religion of Allah." You are messengers of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. Between you and Allah there is only the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, and between the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ and Allah there is only one more link. That is the chain you hold, all the way up to Allah.^[6]

One question on the Day of Judgment

He closed by saying that he would conclude with an āyah. Allah will gather us on the Day of Judgment for a reason, and He has shown us that reason. Imagine: the only reason Allah gathers all the people, every nation and every human being from the beginning to the end, is to ask one question. Did you deliver the message of Allah or not? If you say yes, you pass. If not, you stop right there and are held to account for everything you did.^[7]

Once we have a mission in our minds, he said, we will never give our attention to anything else. We will treat every blessing Allah has given us as a tool for delivering the call. My wife will be part of the call. My children will be part of the call. My money will be part of the call, and my car, and my computer, and everything I have will be for that cause. Otherwise, I am losing my dignity when I come back to stand in front of Allah, and He is watching what that man did. Am I going to confirm the opinion they had from the beginning: are you creating somebody who will cause all this corruption and spill blood?

He asked Allah to reward the listeners and to accept from them and from him, and ended the session there, saying it was an introduction to what the series will do, God willing.

--- ^[1]: Editor’s documentation: the speaker seems to be alluding to Yā-Sīn 36:70, "that he may warn whoever is alive" (لِيُنذِرَ مَن كَانَ حَيًّا). The transcript has only a broken paraphrase and does not name the verse. ^[2]: Editor’s documentation: the man is not named in the transcript. It may be the man of Sūrat al-Muddaththir, but that is not stated by the speaker and is not asserted here. ^[3]: Editor’s documentation: the name of the prophet is garbled in the transcript (apparently Mūsā told in different sūrahs); the article therefore leaves him unnamed. ^[4]: Editor’s documentation: the speaker does not recite any verse here and does not name the sūrah. His description (Allah announcing to the angels that He will create a human being, and the word khalīfah) matches al-Baqarah 2:30, ﴿وَإِذْ قَالَ رَبُّكَ لِلْمَلَائِكَةِ إِنِّي جَاعِلٌ فِي الْأَرْضِ خَلِيفَةً﴾ (“And when your Lord said to the angels: ‘I am placing on the earth a vicegerent’”). The angels’ question he voices at the end of the lecture is found in the rest of al-Baqarah 2:30, ﴿أَتَجْعَلُ فِيهَا مَن يُفْسِدُ فِيهَا وَيَسْفِكُ الدِّمَاءَ﴾. ^[5]: Editor’s documentation: the subject of this sentence is garbled in the transcript ("do you think the is implementing…"); "the angels" is inferred from the context of the announcement and from his closing words about corruption and bloodshed. ^[6]: Editor’s documentation: the word after "between the Prophet and Allah is…" is garbled in the transcript. It is most likely Jibrīl (peace be upon him), but the article leaves him unnamed because the speaker’s words are not clear. ^[7]: Editor’s documentation: the speaker said "let us conclude with this āyah", but no verse is recited in the transcript, so none is supplied. The question as stated is his own wording. ^[8]: Editor’s documentation: the phrase after “when we try to implement or act like a wise…” is garbled in the transcript (“wise joy”); the article does not supply a word for it. ^[9]: Editor’s documentation: the sentence (“the money from here is coming for here”) is garbled in the transcript; this rendering is tentative.