What Does Mathal (مَثَل) Mean in the Quran?
This page studies مَثَل as the written form shown in the mushaf. Attached letters and related inflections are studied separately so the examples stay precise.
Counted from Barakah’s bundled word-by-word Quran data for this exact written form after vowel marks are removed. Forms with attached letters or pronouns may have their own separate count.
Inside the Quran
مَثَل (mathal) means example, likeness, parable. It introduces comparisons and parables that make an unseen or difficult truth easier to grasp.
Read it inside the complete ayat below. The surrounding words decide the most natural English rendering, so the translation may use more than one English phrase for the same Arabic form.
“Rather, they say like what the former peoples said.”
“And We destroyed greater than them in [striking] power, and the example of the former peoples has preceded.”
“But if they turn away, then say, "I have warned you of a thunderbolt like the thunderbolt [that struck] ʿAad and Thamūd.”
Arabic quoted letter for letter from the Uthmani text of our Quran reader. Translation: Saheeh International.
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