The Qur’ān frequently states that God communicates his message through amthāl , often translated as “parables.” It defends this (e.g., Q 2:26), and “seems to indicate deliberate intent about its use of them” (Afsar 2005, 485). Given that amthāl are referred to without any explanation as to what they are, it is likely they were part of the qur’ānic milieu before the revelation of the Qur’ān. They would therefore have been familiar to at least part of the Qur’ān’s audience, even if many of them failed or refused to understand them, as the Qur’ān often laments (Q 2:26; 16:75; 17:89; 18:54; 30:58; 39:29; cf. Q 29:43; 30:28). Despite this, the most comprehensive study of qur’ānic amthāl is now nearly 60 years old (Lohman 1966). More recent contributions to their study have focused on particular aspects (Al-Ali 2003; Afsar 2005), or mention them because they overlap with other areas of study (Stewart 2022). This appears to be partly due to the fact that Arabic mathal (pl. amthāl), has a wide range of meanings. In addition to “parable,” in the Qur’ān, it also refers to proverbs (e.g., Q 18:64; 28:25; 7:175; 29:41); similitudes (e.g., Q 62:5), and exemplums (e.g., Q 36:13-32; 66:11-12) (Stewart 2022, 13; Al-Ali 2003, 81). Qur’ānic amthāl are also diverse, ranging from a single sentence that compares two things, to complete narratives (Afsar 2005, 483), making them difficult to define. The result of this is that there is still no consensus as to what constitutes a parable in the Qur’ān, and thus no overarching study of them as a linguistic feature intrinsic to the Qur’ān’s pedagogical goal. This paper will identify, categorize, and analyze amthāl in the Qur’ān, and compare their didactic use to that of parables in the three gospels in which they appear, especially those which are similar in content. It will seek to understand amthāl against their late antique background, while also aiming to uncover how the Qur’ān may use this genre in innovative ways. References Afsar, Ayaz. 2005. “A Literary Critical Approach to Qur’ānic Parables.” Islamic Studies 44 (4): 481–501. Al-Ali. 2003. “Analyzing the Generic Structures and The Rhetorical Patterns of the Qur’anic Narrative Parables.” Al-’Arabiyya 36: 81–106. Lohman, Theodor. 1966. “Die Gleichnisse im Koran.” Mitteilungen des Instituts für Orient Forschung 12: 75–118; 241–87. Stewart, Devin 2022. “Approaches to the Investigation of Speech Genres in the Qur’an.” JQS 24 (1): 1–45.