An-Najm · Makki · ayah 43 of 62

An-Najm 53:43

وَأَنَّهُۥ هُوَ أَضْحَكَ وَأَبْكَىٰ

“And that it is He who makes [one] laugh and weep”

Saheeh International

Essence

He alone opens the face into laughter and the eyes into tears; neither your joy nor your grief is out of His reach.

A reflection

The comedian who cannot make himself laugh

A stand-up comedian tells the same joke on two nights in the same club. On Tuesday it dies; a cough in the dark, a glass set down. On Wednesday the room roars and a man at the front has to wipe his eyes. Same words, same timing. He walks home on Wednesday feeling like a master of laughter. On Tuesday he had learned that he is not.

The ayah is built to say exactly this. Wa-annahu huwa aḍḥaka wa-abkā: and that it is He who made laugh and made weep. The Arabic places huwa, He, before the verbs, and repeats the subject. The commentators note that this placing restricts it: He did this, and no one else.

One classical scholar made a striking argument from this ayah. Many things in the body can be traced to a cause, he said. But try to explain why a human being laughs. Say it is wonder, and you meet people struck dumb by wonders who never smile. Say it is joy, and you meet people full of joy who do not laugh. Then a grieving person at the very depth of sorrow is made to laugh by someone's remark. Why tears flow from the eye at particular moments, he said, no expert can truly account for.

That is humbling, and it is meant to be. We like to think we own our moods. We plan the perfect holiday to be happy, and sit on the balcony flat. We brace for a sad goodbye, and find we cannot cry. Something in us decides, and it is not quite us.

Does it diminish us, that He claims even our laughter? A classical scholar answered carefully. Allah is truly the One who makes laugh, he wrote, and the servant truly laughs. Both are real. Your laugh is still yours. It was simply given.

So the comedian has a choice. He can feel robbed, or he can feel relieved. He does not have to carry the whole room on his shoulders. He tells the joke well, and the laughter is from Allah. His pride shrinks. His work gets lighter.

The full entry has 5 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.