Al-Kahf · Makki · ayah 70 of 110

Al-Kahf 18:70

قَالَ فَإِنِ ٱتَّبَعْتَنِى فَلَا تَسْـَٔلْنِى عَن شَىْءٍ حَتَّىٰٓ أُحْدِثَ لَكَ مِنْهُ ذِكْرًا

“He said, "Then if you follow me, do not ask me about anything until I make to you about it mention [i.e., explanation]."”

Saheeh International

Essence

The condition has its own ending written into it: do not ask, until I bring the mention of it into being for you.

A reflection

The condition contains its own end

Read as a gag order, this verse is ugly. Follow me and stop asking questions.

The second half makes that reading impossible.

Until I make mention of it to you. The silence has a stated end, and the end is not a reward for good behaviour. It is a promise.

So nothing is being withheld permanently. What is being set is an order of events. The act first, the explanation afterwards, and the explanation coming from him rather than extracted from him.

And he keeps it exactly. Every one of the three acts is explained, in detail, before he leaves. Nothing is left as a mystery for the reader either.

This matters because the shape of the instruction is identical to the shape of every bad arrangement people get caught in. Trust me. Do not ask. You would not understand.

The difference is visible in one place only, and it is the place to look every time. Was an end named, and did it arrive.

A shearer will tell a new helper not to speak until the fleece is off. The animal is held in a particular way and the hand knows where it is going. A question at the wrong second costs the sheep a cut.

Five minutes later he will answer anything. The instruction was about the five minutes, not about the asking.

So the test of this condition is not whether it feels controlling while you are inside it. It will. The test is whether the man who set it tells you afterwards, unprompted, without being made to.

This one does, at the end, for all three, in order.

The full entry has 5 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.