Good Muslim = Sad Muslim?!

What is humor? Is an ideal Muslim a sad one? Is laughing forbidden in Islam? This is an interview with Hossein Eghbali Nasab, psychologist and Quran researcher. Follow the interview to find the answer to this question and a lot more. 

Psychologically speaking, what is humor? Well, humor is a state of mind happening when an unexpected or interesting matter makes a person laugh. 

How does Islam define humor? There is not a straightforward definition for humor in Islam but my understating is that humor is a paradox in mind that makes a person pause, reflect and then laugh. Can we combine these two definitions and reach a psycho-Islamic definition of humor? Yes, we may say humor is a pleasant state in of mind and takes place when an unexpected or interesting matter makes a person laugh provided that it doesn't trespass Islamic rules. 

What's Islam's approach to humor? Are we encouraged to be humorous? 

Yes, there's a hadith saying "the faithful's sadness is in his heart and his happiness in his complexion". Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) says "play with each other, entertain and have fun since I don't like any violence in your religion". A psychological aspect to this hadith is that humor is a psychological issue and facilitates life. One of the signs of social relationships is to trust people and entertain them. Avoiding struggles and intimacy is another advantage of humor. However, bear in mind that we shouldn't exceed limits. Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) says: "excessively joking devaluates one". There is also another hadith saying "God will not scorn the person who is honest in his jokes". Humor should be for the sake of entertaining rather than fault finding, mocking or labeling.

But Islam doesn't advocate all types of humor.
Islam forbids some reasons to laugh. When humor turns into a negative feature it is not recommended. One of the unpleasant causes of laughing is mocking. An instance of mocking happens when one has some qualities that make someone envious, and that person mocks the appearance or family of that person to make up for the desire to have some features he lacks. Holy Quran forbids this.

While Solomon and his army were passing, an ant told the other ants to rush to their houses since Solomon and the group may step on them. Solomon smiled and then laughed. (Naml Surah - 18, 19)
Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) once told an old woman that there is no heaven for old people. The old woman started to cry and was astonished by the prophet's laugh. He said old people don't go to heaven since first they become young and then they enter heaven. The difference between mocking and scoffing is that scoff targets the speech, not the action. ''Scoff'' has been repeated in Quran for 14 times and all the God messengers were scoffed for what they preached.

Another unpleasant cause of laughing is labeling. It's directly mentioned in Quran not to label friends and people. (Hojurat - 11)

Fault-finding is the third bad reason to laugh. Some people make fun of people's disorders and bad habits to laugh at. God is very angry with this group, since He doesn't like His creatures be mocked by another creature of Him. And the fourth bad reason to laugh is blaming someone.

What are some antitypes of humor?
Humor is produced by a mental paradox; however it shouldn't be produced necessarily by mocking or faultfinding. One may ask how's that possible? I'll elaborate it with an example. What is the main cause of divorce? Marriage!! But be careful to keep paradoxes interesting!

How many types of humor do we have?
Psychological humor which is the mental paradoxes; and religion has interesting points regarding this topic.
Para-psychological humor refers to a sort of spiritual joy. The difference between psychology and religion in this respect is that psychology can't move toward this end, however religion can.

As a last question, do we have any recommendations regarding the position of humor in the relation between boys and girls?
Look, we have two kinds of relation. In the work place for example one might say something which is funny and doesn't address a specific person. There is nothing wrong with it. But if the humor is limited to smaller groups, religion doesn't approve it. According to Quran, the relation between men and women should follow a pattern and structure. (Maedeh - 5)
This is noticeable to those who think religion, especially Islam is confined to melancholy. No, Islam is a religion of joy and happiness. Our prophet likes to see us happy. We can be happy, provided that we observe the limits.