Q:

Assalaamu’alaikum Warahmatullaah.

What’s the ruling on laughing at a joke (whether it’s from other people or from my own inner thought) that are considered as a mockery to Islam, and thinking that such thing (mockery) is funny BUT without accepting such mockery and believing that doing such thing is not allowed? Is such action considered as a Nullifier of Islam?

A:

Wa `alaykum As-Salamu wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuh.

In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.

All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.

The Quran strongly warns against deriding and making mockery of Islam or/and Islamic sanctities considering this as a sign of disbelief and hypocrisy. In Surat At-Tawbah we read what means, “Yet if you ask them [about their slander of the Prophet and the believers], they will, most surely, say: We were only indulging [in idle-talk] and playing. Say [to them]: Then, is it Allah and His [revealed] signs and His Messenger of which you were making mockery? Offer no excuse! For you have truly disbelieved after your belief.” (At-Tawbah 9:65-66)

The Quran even prohibits being in a situation where such mockery is made as we read in the following injunction to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), “Thus, whenever you see those who fall to [vilifying] Our [revealed] signs, then turn away from them until they take up some other discourse. And if Satan should [ever] cause you to forget [this command], then do not [continue to] sit with the wrongdoing people after remembering [this].” [6:68] The Quran also warns, “Moreover, He has already sent down to you [a commandment] in the Book that when you hear the verses of Allah being belied and mocked at, then do not sit with them until they take up some other discourse. [For], indeed, you would then be like them. Indeed, Allah shall gather the hypocrites and the disbelievers in Hellfire, all together.” (An-Nisa 4:140)

It is untenable thus for a Muslim to laugh at jokes that derides of Islam. He should instead feel angry and jealous for the sanctities of his religion.

Allah Almighty knows best.