Al-Mujadila · Madani · ayah 8 of 22

Al-Mujadila 58:8

أَلَمْ تَرَ إِلَى ٱلَّذِينَ نُهُوا۟ عَنِ ٱلنَّجْوَىٰ ثُمَّ يَعُودُونَ لِمَا نُهُوا۟ عَنْهُ وَيَتَنَـٰجَوْنَ بِٱلْإِثْمِ وَٱلْعُدْوَٰنِ وَمَعْصِيَتِ ٱلرَّسُولِ وَإِذَا جَآءُوكَ حَيَّوْكَ بِمَا لَمْ يُحَيِّكَ بِهِ ٱللَّهُ وَيَقُولُونَ فِىٓ أَنفُسِهِمْ لَوْلَا يُعَذِّبُنَا ٱللَّهُ بِمَا نَقُولُ ۚ حَسْبُهُمْ جَهَنَّمُ يَصْلَوْنَهَا ۖ فَبِئْسَ ٱلْمَصِيرُ

“Have you not considered those who were forbidden from private conversation [i.e., ridicule and conspiracy] and then return to that which they were forbidden and converse among themselves about sin and aggression and disobedience to the Messenger? And when they come to you, they greet you with that [word] by which Allāh does not greet you[1643] and say among themselves, "Why does Allāh not punish us for what we say?" Sufficient for them is Hell, which they will [enter to] burn, and wretched is the destination.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Told plainly to stop their exclusionary whispering, they returned to it, then greeted the Prophet with a courtesy twisted into an insult.

A reflection

Told to stop, and going right back to it

A group had already been asked, plainly, to stop a specific habit: drawing aside into secret counsel in a way that unsettled the believers nearby, who could only watch and wonder what was being said about them. The correction was given once. This ayah describes what happened next: thumma yaʿūdūna li-mā nuhū ʿanhu, then they went right back to the very thing they had been told to stop.

This pattern is worth examining on its own terms, apart from who first did it. Being corrected rarely fails because the correction was unclear. It fails because the behaviour being corrected is serving some need strongly enough that a clear instruction, even one genuinely heard and understood, is not enough to compete with it. Whatever this secret counsel was giving its participants, a sense of shared power, the thrill of excluding someone, control over who gets to feel uneasy, it was apparently worth more to them than complying with a direct request to stop.

This shows up in far smaller forms constantly: the colleague who keeps having the same side conversation in the same tone after being asked to stop, the friend group that resumes excluding someone the moment the adult supervising has left the room. The return itself is the real information. It tells you the first conversation never actually reached the reason the behaviour existed.

Anyone trying to correct a pattern like this, in a team, a family, a friendship, would do well to ask what the behaviour is actually giving the people doing it, rather than assuming a second, firmer instruction will succeed where the first clear one did not. A rule repeated more loudly rarely outcompetes a need that was never actually addressed the first time round.

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.