His Laughter and Humour

Mostly a Smile

ʿAbdullāh ibn al-Ḥārith said simply, “I never saw anyone who smiled more than the Messenger of God ﷺ.”¹ ʿĀʾishah said she never saw him laughing so fully that the inside of his throat could be seen — “he would only smile.”² Jābir ibn Samurah, asked whether he used to sit with his companions after the dawn prayer, said yes, and that they would talk about the affairs of the days of ignorance and laugh, “and he would smile.”³

He Joked, and Told the Truth

The Companions asked him directly: “O Messenger of God, you joke with us!” He answered, “Yes — but I only say what is true.”⁴ That single sentence is how the scholars framed all of it: the humour was real, and it was bounded.

An old woman asked him to pray that she enter Paradise. He said, “O mother of so-and-so, no old woman will enter Paradise.” She went away weeping, and he asked that she be told that she would not enter it as an old woman — for God says, “Indeed, We have produced them in a [new] creation, and made them virgins.”⁵ To a man who asked him for a mount, he said, “I will give you the child of a she-camel.” The man said, “What shall I do with the child of a she-camel?” And he said, “Does any camel give birth except to the offspring of a she-camel?”⁶

He teased by name. He called Anas “O possessor of two ears.”⁷ He said to a woman about her husband, “Is it the one with whiteness in his eye?” — and when she protested that there was no whiteness in her husband's eye, the point was that every eye has white in it.⁸ Al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, asked whether the Companions joked, answered: yes, and “faith in their hearts was like mountains.”

With Children

The reports about his play with children are among the most attested details of his private life. He would visit a small boy, Abū ʿUmayr, the young brother of Anas, who had a pet nightingale, and would ask him: “O Abū ʿUmayr, what happened to the little bird?”⁹

He carried his granddaughter Umāmah on his shoulder while leading the congregation in prayer, setting her down when he prostrated and picking her up when he rose.¹⁰ He prostrated long one day because al-Ḥasan or al-Ḥusayn had climbed onto his back, and he would not hurry the child off.¹¹ He shortened prayers on hearing a child cry, “fearing to cause distress to his mother.”¹²

And when al-Aqraʿ ibn Ḥābis saw him kiss a grandson and said he had ten children and had never kissed one of them, the Prophet ﷺ looked at him and said, “Whoever does not show mercy will not be shown mercy.”¹³

When He Did Not Laugh

The same reports that record his smiling record what stopped it. When a wind blew hard or a cloud gathered, the change was visible in his face; ʿĀʾishah asked him about it, since people are glad when they see a cloud that might bring rain. He answered, “O ʿĀʾishah, what assures me that there is no punishment in it? A people were punished with the wind — and a people saw the punishment and said, 'This is a cloud bringing us rain.'”¹⁴

And in his last illness, with the congregation praying behind Abū Bakr, he drew back the curtain of ʿĀʾishah's chamber and looked out at the rows of Muslims praying — and smiled. It is the last smile the sources record, and Anas, who was watching, said they were nearly overcome with joy at the sight of him, thinking he was returning to them.¹⁵