Seerah Series | Part 2: Specialties of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) | Shaykh Yasir Qadhi

Along with all of these, the Prophet actually was also a person who was blessed with a great sense of humor. He was blessed with a great sense of humor. And having humor shows your humanity. Having humor shows your humanity. It shows you’re down to earthliness as they say. And there are so many instances of the jokes of the Prophet and all of the jokes of the Prophet , they are pure, and they are clean, and they are truthful. Even his jokes are true. Even when he caused people to laugh, it is something true. And there are many instances of this.

And of the instances is an old lady coming to the Prophet , an old lady coming to the Prophet saying “Oh Messenger of Allāh, make duaa that Allāh causes me to enter jannah.” And she’s an old lady…you can tell, like 70 years old, very old lady. So the Prophet looked at her and said, Oh my aunt, haven’t you been informed that old ladies cannot enter jannah? Didn’t you study theology, I mean don’t’ you know? Old ladies cannot enter jannah.” And she began wailing and crying, “what am I going to do now?” And then he told her that, “Don’t cry, don’t cry, fa wAllāhi old ladies cannot enter jannah but Allāh will make her into a young fair maiden, and then she will enter jannah.” It’s a joke. Give her glad tidings…you’re not going to be an old lady when you enter jannah, you’re going to be young. You’re going to go back to your days as a lovely maiden, that’s how you’ll enter jannah. And then he recited the verse: We bring them forth with a new beginning. We’re going to take them back to that beginning.

And the story of A’ishah when the Prophet was on his death bed, he was on his death bed! He literally has four, five days to live. Of course the sahabah don’t know this, they’re hoping that this is just a fever; it’s going to go away. He’s literally on his death bed and it so happened that A’ishah herself felt a little bit sick on one of the days and she had a severe headache. She had a severe headache. And so she was crying out, “Oh my head, oh my head.” So the Prophet said, “Rather, oh my head. I have a worse headache than you. Oh my head.” And so A’ishah , to calm her down, the Prophet said, because he understands he’s about to die, he understands, he has a premonition if you like, and perhaps he even knew that he’s about to die in a few days, so to calm her down, to crack some jokes, in the days of his death he says, “Oh A’ishah, and what would you lose if you died right now and the one to do ghusl for you and to bury you and to pray your janazah would be me”. In other words, what a great honor. Now he’s probably doing this to basically break the ice and you know, bring the topic of death up…saying ‘what would you lose?’ He’s the one that’s about to die, right. So he’s saying ‘what would you lose?’ And so A’ishah , she smirks back at him and she says, “I’m sure you would like that to happen because then you would be free to go to your other wives.” Because A’ishah was that woman who had the grasp on him, right. So she’s saying I know when I go away, khalas you will have free access to all of them after that.

Now this joking that he’s doing on his death bed, right, subḥānAllāh, scholars of fiqh have derived fiqh from this and they have talked about the permissibility of a spouse doing ghusl for his or her spouse. From this joke, they derive fiqh. Because he never spoke except the truth, right. From this joke they derive fiqh and Ash Shawkani as a chapter, the chapter concerning the permissibility of a husband giving his wife the ghusl of the death and vice versa and then he mentions this hadith. Fiqh is derived from a joke of the Prophet .

And a very beautiful story repeated in Tirmidhi as well, that there was a young man by the name of Zahid, by the name of Zahid, whom the Prophet used to love a lot. And we don’t know much about him wAllāhi I looked up as much as I could, we don’t know much about this person Zahid. We don’t know hardly anything about him. This is his most famous story. But there was something about him that caused the Prophet to love this man. And he would have an immense amount of affinity for him. He was a simple sincere believer. We don’t know much about him for his jihad, for his knowledge, for his ghazawaat, he just simply seems to be a nice guy that the Prophet liked. Once the Prophet saw him in the sooq, in the marketplace, selling some things. And he’s screaming ou,t “Who’s gonna buy this from me, who’s gonna buy this from me.” So in those days they had the sooq and in the market they mention what they have, “Who’s gonna buy this from me?” And so the Prophet came from behind quietly, he’s literally playing a practical joke on Zahid. He came quietly from behind and he grabbed him, Zahid is standing up, he grabbed him from behind and he basically locked him, he gave him a lock, a bear lock, a hug, right. So Zahid is trying to see who is this, what are you doing, let go of me, I’m trying to sell my stuff here. And when he saw it was none other than the Prophet , immediately he became limp and he touched as much of the chest of the Prophet as he could, to get the barakah from his body. As soon as he recognized him he went limp and he began to touch the body of the Prophet and then the Prophet began joking and crying out in the sooq, “Who is going to buy this from me? Who is going to buy this ‘abd from me, this slave from me?” So Zahid was crying out, “Who’s going to buy this merchandise?” Now he’s being caught and the Prophet is saying, “Who’s going to buy this ‘abd?” Now in a marketplace in those days when you’re saying who’s going to buy the ‘abd, you mean the slave, right. But of course even the Prophet was true, Zahid was not an ‘abd to mankind but he was an ‘abd of Allāh. So even in this joke, he’s not saying any lie. Even in this joke he’s not lying. So who will purchase this ‘abd from me? So Zahid says, “Ya Rasul Allāh, in that case you’re going to get a very bad bargain if you’re going to sell me…I’m not going to be very expensive.”  And the Prophet said, “You are very expensive in the eyes of Allāh .” SubḥānAllāh! It’s a beautiful story here that shows us the humanity of the Prophet .

And as for his love for his ummah and inshā’Allāh with this we will conclude…we have so much more to conclude but unfortunately we have to save things for other lessons and what not and open time for Q & A, and as for his love for his ummah, as for his love for his ummah, and this is a point of theology as well, that the Prophet had an immense amount of love for his own ummah. And Allāh azza wajjal says in the Qurʾān: There has come to you a messenger from amongst you. He finds it difficult to bear your hardships. He finds it difficult to bear your hardships.  He’s ever eager for you. He’s harees – it’s like how you describe how a mother is or a parent is. He’s harees for the child. He’s eager to bring good for you. Allāh uses two words which are actually names of Allāh with the alif laam. Ar Rauuf Ar Raheem, right. Strip away the alif laam then you can use it on a human being. So the Prophet is described by Ar Rauuf and Ar Raheem, that he is Rauuf and Raheem. To whom? To the believers. Bil mu’mineena rauuf ur raheem.

To the believers he is Rauuf. Rauuf means “full of compassion” Rauuf is a type of tenderness in mercy. And raheem is general mercy, as you know. So ra’fa is a type of compassionate mercy. It’s a special type of mercy and it is very appropriate that a mother and father have this for the child. This is what ra’fa is. That you want the best. So Allāh azza wajjal who is Ar Rauuf is describing the Prophet as being rauuf for the believers. Bil mu’mineena rauuf ur raheem.