Ashʿab looked at a shaykh with an ugly face and exclaimed: "Did Sulaymân b. Dâwûd not forbid you to come out by day?".
Humor is a process related to pleasure and joy, discovering them, savoring them, and creating them. Greek philosophers and doctors believe that the balance of fluids in the human body; It controls health and human emotions, including laughter. But are Arabs or Muslims laughing?
We present to the Arab reader the Arabic translation of Franz Rosenthal's book entitled "Humor in Early Islam." This study aims to dispel the opinion held by many people in the Western world that Islam hates humor. This book contains Arabic stories about a character who has become the subject of many jokes and tales, namely the greedy Ashʿab, a singer who lived in the second century A.H./eighth A.D. But his literary and imaginative life continued for a long time. These stories are preceded by research chapters on the textual materials related to humor in Islam, and also on the historical and legendary figures of Ashʿab. The book ends with a short appendix on laughter. Whether the humor will make the modern reader laugh or not; This book is a valuable resource for those seriously interested in the culture of humor in early Islam.
Franz Rosenthal (1914-2003) Ph.D. (1935) was appointed Professor Emeritus of Arabic and Semitic Studies at Yale University, and a researcher in Arabic literature and Islam. Rosenthal was prolific. His writings varied between Islamic studies, Arabic literature, Epistemology, the biblical Aramaic language, and others.
Abdulkarem Mohammed Abdullah Al-Wadhaf Ph.D. (2013). He works as an assistant professor of comparative Islamic jurisprudence at Sana'a University. He holds a B.A. in Sharia and Law (1997), a B.A. in Islamic Studies (2000), a M.A. in Comparative Islamic Jurisprudence (2000), and a B.A. in Translation (2017).
General readers; considering that humor literature is in demand among all segments of society, in addition to being a study in humor literature that is of interest to researchers in Arabic literature, both in prose and poetry, this book can serve as a basis for historical studies of the social, political, and economic situation in the days of the Rightly Guided Caliphs, and the days of the Followers, in particular. So it is of interest to historians as well.