What is the purpose of the Spider in the Quran, and what does Surah Al Ankaboot have

What is the purpose of the Spider in the Quran, and what does Surah Al Ankaboot have to do with you?

It spins a web and catches 72 virgins.

I have heard a story before of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) being chased by people who wanted to kill him. He hid in a cave, and God told the spiders make thick webs to hide him. When the people came to the cave to search for him, they could not see him.

So i would guess that spiders are followers of God? :P

Salam Alaikum

Its a parable about those who take protectors other than Allah. A spider builds itself a flimsy house but its strong and nothing escapes its. Likewise, nothing escapes Allah. And the parables are set for those who have knowledge.

There is no given purpose of spiders in the Quran. It's habit of spinning a web is used as a parable to illustrate the futility/weakness of setting anything other than God up as a supreme authority.

See Al Quraan 29:41

The Eadith story about Muhammad and the spider is an adaptation from a Talmudic one about David.

He (David) was compelled to change his mean opinion of the spider in his flight before Saul, when he was hiding in a cave, and his pursuers, seeing a spider's web across the front of the cave, thought it useless to enter; for God had commanded the spider at that moment to give a proof of its usefulness (Ben Sira, l.c.; partly in Targ. to Ps. lvii. 3; compare Levy, "Chal. W?rterb." i. 48).

http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=82&letter=D#257