Meeting Muhammad
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When He Joked With You | Meeting Muhammad ﷺ Episode 10
When the Prophet ﷺ jokes with you, you may be taken aback at first. Here’s how the Prophet ﷺ joked with others, and the lessons we can learn from his etiquette.
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. The way that you joke actually says a lot about you. And joking is something that we should really take serious in terms of the ethics that surround it. Right? Sometimes jokes can actually really humiliate someone. Sometimes they can honor someone. Sometimes jokes can take away from your own dignity. Right? Because they display something about you that's actually not that pleasant. And sometimes jokes can be used to bring joy. So it's really about how you're using the joke, who you're joking with and what the intention of the joke actually is. Now, the first time the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam would joke with you, it would probably take you aback. Why? Because he's Rasulullah SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam. Right? So you hold him in such high esteem as you should SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam. You've seen him in such a noble way as you should SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam. And the first time he jokes with you, you're going to be taken aback. And the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam had that experience with some of the companions. So he would tell a joke SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam. And some of the Sahaba said, Ya Rasulullah, you're joking with us? Like, are you really joking with us? And the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam said, I joke, wa laa aqoolu illa sidqa. I joke, but I only speak the truth, even when I joke. So the first thing about the joking of the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam is that the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, As-sadiq al-ameen, the honest and trustworthy one, the truthful one, would not tell a joke with a lie in it. Meaning he wouldn't deceive you with a joke. And so the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam set that standard. And by the way, he also guaranteed Alayhi Salaatu Wasallam a home fee wasatil jannah, a home in the middle of paradise. Leman tara kal kadhib wa in kaana maazihan For someone that leaves off lying, even if they are telling a joke. Now, when you actually start to get to the specific jokes of the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, I don't want you to feel bad if you don't find them funny.
Why? Because jokes usually don't translate well across culture and language, right? So your parents' jokes are probably not funny to you. And your jokes are certainly not funny to your parents, right? It's kind of all over the place. So when you start talking about jokes across culture and language, and you're talking about 1400 years ago, obviously there's a context to it. There's something that people would have found funny that you would not find funny. But at the same time, it's just the idea of how the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam used to joke that was so beautiful. And it starts off with his family. Aisha radiAllahu ta'ala anha, she tells us that if it wasn't a serious matter, the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam always found a way to tell a joke about it. kaana maazihan fee bayti So first and foremost, he was a jokester in his own home SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam. He was pleasant in his own home. He used to joke with his family all the time SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam. So he brought joy with him to the house. And that's something that is consistent with his overall demeanor at home SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam. And the jokes that he would tell, they were intelligent, they were truthful. And he had a goal with his jokes. One, the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam would use jokes as a means of bonding with you or relating to you. So he bonds with his family SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam. He bonds with the youth in the community. He bonds with the children Alaihi Salatu Wasallam. Or he relates to people that he otherwise could not relate to. So it removes a sense of formality that perhaps allows for a more authentic relationship when the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam jokes with you. The second thing the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam does with his jokes is he diffuses tense situations. And that's something that's part of his genius Alaihi Salatu Wasallam. So when Fatima radiAllahu Anha and Ali radiAllahu Anhu got into an argument because that's what married couples do. They have arguments. The Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam comes to her house, Fatima's house and says, where's Ali? She said that he's upset, he's in the masjid. The Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam goes to the masjid and he finds Ali radiAllahu Anhu sleeping in the dirt. And the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam starts to dust the dirt off of him and says,
qum ya aba turab, stand up, oh father of dirt. So he's doing that SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam to diffuse the situation, right? And that's something that jokes can do. The Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam would also use jokes to convey a concept, right? That might have made you nervous before, but he would do that SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam so that you could understand something more beautiful. So to unlock a greater beauty. So for example, the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam telling the old woman, do any old women enter into paradise? And she was grieved. And then the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam said, no, the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam says, no woman will enter paradise elderly, right? Because everyone enters paradise youthful. So the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam was making her feel better. The Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam was doing away with her anxiety. And the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam was really conveying a greater beauty. The fourth thing is he would show you that he was paying attention to you, right? And it means something when the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam jokes with you, right? And so most of his jokes were actually with the downtrodden. Most of his jokes were actually with those that were overlooked. And most of those jokes were with people that others would not even have conversations with. Right? So you find with Zahir radiAllahu ta'ala Anhu for example. Zahir radiAllahu ta'ala Anhu who was a young man who did not have the best appearance, who did not have a tribe, who did not have anyone to really uplift him in that society. The Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam would always joke with Zahir radiAllahu ta'ala Anhu. So he'd make sure to point out Zahir in the gathering and he'd tell a joke with Zahir radiAllahu ta'ala Anhu. He'd inflate the importance of Zahir radiAllahu ta'ala Anhu. And one time the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam even goes to the marketplace. And in this beautiful story, the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, he grabs Zahir radiAllahu ta'ala Anhu and he starts to scream, Man yashtari hadhal abd, man yashtari hadhal abd, man yashtari hadhal abd. Who's going to buy this one from me? Who's going to buy this slave? Who's going to buy this slave? And Zahir radiAllahu Anhu did not know that it was the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam behind him. So he said that when I knew it was the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam,
I didn't fight back so I could get the barakah of his closeness SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam. So I just submitted myself to the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam carrying me and holding me and laughing with me. And then the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam as he was doing that, Zahir was so down on himself that Zahir radiAllahu ta'ala Anhu, he said, Ya Rasulullah, who would want to buy me anyway? Even if I was a slave for sale, who would want to buy me? Who would want me anyway? And the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam turns Zahir radiAllahu ta'ala Anhu around and he looks at him and he says, walakinnaka aindallahi ghal You are priceless in the sight of Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala. Who do you think you are? Right? You're an amazing person. You are priceless in the sight of Allah. So his jokes were with the downtrodden SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam. His jokes showed you that he was paying attention SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam and he was establishing a relationship with you at such an intimate level, even if others were not even having conversations with you. So it's really important for us to appreciate for a moment. You know, when you look at the rules, like the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam does not allow people to joke in a way that mocks others. The Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam does not allow you to joke in a way that frightens others. So he wouldn't let you take someone's belongings and scare them. He wouldn't let you jump out at someone SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam. He prohibited all of those things. The Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam would actually tell jokes that would honour people instead of humiliate them. And in that process, he was building greater bonds instead of offending people and making a more cohesive community where you felt connected first and foremost to him SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam.
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