36.13 – Strike a parable for them: the companions of the town, when the envoys came to it
Three men bring Allah’s message to a city, but the people resist the messengers and threaten to stone them. Just then, however, a man comes running from the other side of the city and urges the people to listen to the messengers (vv. 13–25).
No place, time, or names are given in this parable, but classical Muslim commentaries asserted that the city is Antioch and the messengers are apostles sent by Jesus. In the book Jesus and the Muslim , Kenneth Cragg wonders whether the parable could possibly be an echo of the reception of Paul and Barnabas at Iconium in Acts 14:1–5.