Post date: 11-Nov-2010 13:48:05
During a Hawza class discussing the attributes of Allah (swt), many years ago, a fellow student asked, “Does Allah (swt) have a sense of humour?” The teacher exploded with over-heated righteous indignation, threatened punishments and closure of the class if such heresy was ever repeated. Allah (swt) is omniscient, has heard all the jokes before and cannot be surprised by a punch-line or double-take. However, teachers and students can be caught by surprise and jokes have a role in teaching and learning, as I was reminded by an email.
“salaam, brother sheikh amin.
s, r and i are "doing" prophet ibrahim as because coming up to Hajj time.
i had been reading surah ambiya and decided to do about the idols he broke. we had already done about star, sun and moon and Islam is the religiom of Ibrahim. ancestors. etc.
when i was reading it in the Arabic on my own in the morning, and he said about the broken idols what he said, it made me laugh, or at least chuckle out loud. because it was really a riposte.
when we were reading it together in our lesson, we all noticed that earlier when he was criticising them worshipping the idols, they asked him if he was joking or not. clearly some of them knew what he was like. so he was not telling a lie, he was saying something everybody knew was nonsense and clearly it was "what he was like" to address issues in this way. so then the people were embarrassed.
anyway when we were reading it from quran explorer and previously there had been a slightly unsatisfactory mention of telling a lie,. S exclaimed "It was a Joke!!" so then i was able to say, yes, and look Allah has prepared us for this, because a few ayats earlier the people had asked Ibrahim AS if he were joking. SO then S and R said "OOh yes!"
Dear brother sheiklh, it was lovely.”
My answer,
“Well spotted! Allah (swt) tells us elsewhere in the Qur'an that He uses all kinds of analogies and metaphors, and what is a joke but an analogy of the absurd? Muhammad (saw) and the Imams (as) used jokes to teach the hard lessons softly or to bypass the listeners pride. Jokes topple tyrants which is why they are frowned upon by so many maulanas, lol.”
The verse I referred to is 17:89 “And We have explained to man, in this Qur'an, every kind of similitude: yet the greater part of men refuse (to receive it) except with ingratitude!” The jokes that are forbidden in Islam are those which good taste and humanity forbid, the heartless and abusive but not those which increase friendship or illustrate folly.