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Part of
Humour in the Beginning: Religion, humour and laughter in formative stages of Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Judaism
Edited by Roald Dijkstra and Paul van der Velde
[Topics in Humor Research 10] 2022
► pp. 156–182

A laughing God, between Sunni approval and Shi’ite rejection

In the Sunni Ḥadīth (henceforth: Hadith) collections a number of distinctive narrations describe the Prophet laughing, while telling his community about various instances when God himself laughs. The reasons for God’s laughter vary, but mostly reassure the believers that there is nothing to fear from a ‘laughing God’. God’s laughter is generally interpreted in the commentaries to the Hadith to mean mercy and benevolence. Though two traditions are narrated on the authority of ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib, the first Shi’ite imam, they are not preserved in the Shi’ite Hadith corpus, except to challenge its veracity along with the authenticity of all the other traditions mentioning a ‘laughing God’. This essay attempts to determine why they are rejected.

Keywords: God’s laughter, laughter, ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib, Sunni vs Shi’ite Ḥadith, anthropomorphism, humour
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • The first narration
  • Reasons for God’s laughter
  • Shi’ite rejection
  • Historical development
  • Anthropomorphism revisited
  • Conclusion
  • Notes
  • Bibliography
  • Appendix
Published online: 27 October 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/thr.10.13ami
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