Yaser M. Haddara

Jazaakumullahu khayran to everyone that expressed interest in this subject and jazaakumullahu khayran for waiting (assuming you did ).

One disclaimer to begin with: this is a blog entry not a scholarly research paper . I will quote a given hadeeth if it was quoted in a credible source without myself attempting to check its authenticity. In general, the points I make below are not in need of specific textual backup: where they are references to the sunna they are self-evident; where they are references to other individual or communal practice they are argued based on appropriate sources.

That said, it is reported (e.g. in al-Tabaqat al-Kubra by ibn Sa’d) that Zaid ibn Thabit was once asked to describe the character of the prophet, may God’s peace and blessings be upon him. He said, “What can I say? I was his neighbor. When a piece of revelation would come to him he would call me and I would write it down. At the same time, he was with us – when we talk about dunya he would talk about it right along with us, when we talk about food he would talk about it right along with us. You want me to tell you everything such as that regarding him?”

The point of the hadeeth and others like it is that the prophet, may God’s peace and blessings be upon him lived his life as a man. He would joke when appropriate, laugh when appropriate, cry when appropriate, and he would console his companions when they needed it. Many of us have heard some of the stories where the prophet, may God’s peace and blessings be upon him would make a joke – but he was always careful to speak exactly the truth. Notwithstanding this, he was a man of his people, may God’s peace and blessings be upon him, and he would use the language and idioms of his people, sometimes subconsciously. For example it is narrated that he visited Umm Sulaym once and saw a young orphan girl that Umm Sulaym was raising. He had not seen her in a while and realized that she had grown. With characteristic gentleness and humor he remarked on it, but he used a phrase, common in the language of the Arabs, that literally was a du’aa against the girl! (In Arabic the phrase is لا كبر سنك. Unfortunately I am not sure exactly what it means or what its idiomatic usage was. Literally it is either a reference to teeth growing or to age increasing; i.e. a reference to growing up. And taken absolutely literally it would seem to be a du’aa that the person never grows!) The young girl was upset by this and went crying to Umm Sulaym. Umm Sulaym immediately got dressed and went after the prophet, peace be upon him, questioning him (some would say reproaching him) as to why he had made a du’aa against the young girl. The prophet, may God’s peace be upon him, realizing how the girl had taken it thought this was so funny and laughed hard! He then reassured Umm Sulaym that God does not bring to pass any supplication by the prophet, may God’s peace be upon him, intentional or otherwise against any individual unless that individual deserves it. Point being that even though the prophet, may God’s peace be upon him, put such a huge premium on the truth, every language has some leeway established through people’s customs where things are simply not meant literally.

The companions of the prophet, may God’s peace and blessings be upon him, certainly understood that they should enjoy their lives according to their customs without getting too picky about things. They joked with each other, both verbally and in practical jokes. The prophet, may God’s peace be upon him, on one of his travels was sitting in a small tent when one of his companions asked for permission to enter. When the prophet, may God’s peace and blessings be upon him, told him to enter he jokingly asked (because the tent was so small) “All of me?”

In terms of practical jokes, the most famous companion for this is An-Nu’ayman ibn Amr. His many stories are told in al-Isaba by ibn Hajar (a book of biographies of the companions). Some of the stories happened during the time of the prophet, may God’s peace and blessings be upon him. For example the man was traveling in a trade caravan led by Abu Bakr (ra). In the absence of Abu Bakr (ra) he had a small argument with one of his friends, another companion named Suwaybit. The biographers actually differ on which of the two played the trick on the other, but to keep it simple I’ll stick with the version where An-Nu’ayman (ra) played the trick. He went off and found a group of people and told them that he owned a good hard-working slave that he wanted to sell and were they interested? They were so he warned them this guy is a smooth talker and quite argumentative. You come to pick him up after the sale he’s gonna swear up and down that he’s a free man. If you’re gonna listen to his protest and abandon him you’re just making it harder for me to control the guy and I don’t need this kind of headache. If you’re gonna buy him you pick him up and ignore what he says. They fell for it. So they come and pick the guy up and pay a price to al-Nu’aymaan and no matter how much Suwaybit protests they just ignore him. When Abu Bakr returns to the caravan people tell him what happened and he goes after those folks, explains the situation, and compensates them for their trouble. The narrator says that when the caravan returned to Madeena and the story spread, the prophet, may God’s peace and blessings be upon him, and his companions kept telling the story and laughing about it for a year after! It is said that the prophet, may God’s peace and blessings be upon him, so appreciated the fun that an-Nu’ayman introduced that he prayed to God to bring happiness to an-Nu’ayman because he was so keen to bring a laugh to the prophet, may God’s peace and blessings be upon him.

His most audacious episode comes during the khilafa of Uthma (ra). An old blind man walking into the masjid was looking for the proper place to urinate. He was about to do so right in the masjid when people shouted out at him to let him know where he was. Al-Nu’ayman sprang up and ran to the man. He took his hands as if to guide him to the proper place. What he actually did was to take him to the other side of the prayer hall and told him, “Here! Go ahead and urinate!” Of course, as the man is about to do so people shout out again, he’s a little embarrassed, but mostly he’s angry. He asks the identity of the young man who treated him with such disrespect and learns his name. He swears that if he ever comes across al-Nu’ayman he would beat him up!

Well, al-Nu’ayman waits until he sees the old man coming into the masjid one day and he goes right up to him and asks if he’d be interested in finding al-Nu’ayman to beat him up. When the man agrees that he’d like that very much, al-Nu’ayman takes him by the hand and leads him right up to where the khaleefa Uthman is praying. He stands him behind Uthman and tells him this is al-Nu’ayman. The man lifts his walking stick above his head and starts beating up Uthman as hard as he can until people rush to stop him .

For those of us expecting the sahaba to be all prim and proper this may be a little unexpected. Ibn Hajar says these stories and others were documented in a book called “Humor and Jokes” written by Az-Zubayr ibn Bakkar (as best as I can tell this appears to be the grandson of Abdullah ibn Az-Zubayr and Asmaa bint Abi Bakr). These stories and others are cited in this fatwa by Dr. Yusuf al-Qaradawy on the subject of humor. (Among the other stories he mentions is literally a food-fight between Aisha and Sawda with the prophet, may God’s peace and blessings be upon him, sitting between them and laughing!)

So far we have just scratched the surface. We’ve only talked about jokes as practiced by the prophet, may God’s peace and blessings be upon him, and his companions. As for how our scholars looked at this we’ve only seen a hint so far. Apparently there was an early scholar that saw fit to compile a book just about jokes and humor. Apparently also other scholars saw fit to quote this book widely (it is cited by Imam Ghazzaly in the Ihya and by Imam ibn Hajar in al-Isaba, among others). Also, we can see that the jokes had something of a range, from the tamest pun, to the more playful as in the food fight I just mentioned, to the vicious type of practical joke that al-Nu’ayman (ra) was famous for. Finally, the hadeeth of Zayd (ra) and others like it indicate that we don’t know every joke told or heard by the prophet, may God’s peace be upon him. There is simply every indication that the prophet, may God’s peace and blessings be upon him, lived and promoted and encouraged and maintained an atmosphere of normalcy where people could simply go about their lives as normal, generally easy-going human beings who knew when they needed to be serious, when they needed to rise up to a challenge, and when they needed to make sacrifices, but who also knew that you needed a bit of fun in your life and that you just had to be normal!

We still need to take this further and see how it develops, but this particular post is already getting too long. So I hope it whets your appetite just a little . . . if there is interest inshaa Allah there will be part 2.