All Joking Aside

"There is no humor in Islam," a humorless Ayatollah once famously intoned. The Khalid bin Walid mosque, which serves Toronto's large Somali community, would appear to second that emotion, advising the faithful to knock it off with the yucks:

Resisting the urge to laugh as much as possible, as well as tying to stop others from laughing. There may be a gathering where the people are accustomed to laughing and chortling most of the time. So the Muslim must first suppress his own laughter, just as he suppresses a yawn, then he should advise the other people present and help them to control themselves. It takes a persuasive, determined and serious person to do this. There is a lot of goodness in people, praise be to Allaah, and they are ready to respond to the one who wants to reform them and improve them. This can be achieved in a number of ways, such as telling them how bad it is to laugh and make others laugh, because it can lead to lies and falsehood when the “comedian” cannot find a true story to tell, so he makes up a tale from his imagination to make people laugh. This is the kind of person who was warned by the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him): “Woe to the one who talks and tells lies to make people laugh… woe to him, woe to him!” (Saheeh al-Jaami’, 7136). It can also make him an unstable person who is held in low esteem by others, because the person who makes people laugh is despised by them, even if he thinks otherwise. They have no respect for him at all, and the same applies to the person who laughs too much.

Anyone else think that that's part of the trouble; that if "youts" were permitted the safety valve of laughter to let off steam they wouldn't be as tempted to, say, run off and join the jihad? We might want to build that into a strategy for combating radicalism--finding ways to make the lads "lighten up."