The jesting of Allah’s Messenger (salallāhu ‘alaihi wasallam) with his Companions, the limitations of joking, and the age with which the people will enter Paradise, their beauty and forms.

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Imām Al-Bukhārī reported in Al-Adab Al-Mufrad (no. 265) with a sahīh chain of narration from Abu Hurairah (radiyallāhu ‘anhu) that the Companions said to the Messenger (salallāhu ‘alaihi wasallam), “Do you jest with us?” He responded, “Yes, but verily, I only speak the truth.”

This hadeeth shows that Allah’s Messenger (salallāhu ‘alaihi wasallam) would jest and banter with his Companions with words as a joke to make them happy – and he would do so with them as a group or with individuals from among them. However, he would not speak except the truth even when jesting.

An old woman came to the Prophet (ﷺ) and said, “O Messenger of Allāh! Ask Allah to let me enter Paradise!” He replied (in jest), “O Umm Fulān! Old women will not enter Paradise!” She turned away crying, so then he said, “Tell her that she will not enter it as an old woman for Allāh says:

إِنَّآ أَنشَأْنَـٰهُنَّ إِنشَآءً۝ فَجَعَلْنَـٰهُنَّ أَبْكَارًا۝ عُرُبًا أَتْرَابًا

“Indeed, We created the women of Paradise in a new creation. So We made them into virgins, devoted to the husbands (in love) and equal to them in age.” (Al-Wāqiʿah: 35-37, Mukhtaṣar al-Shamā’il al-Muhammadiyyah, no. 205, graded ḥasan by al-Albānī).

Meaning that they will be young in age. They will be made into young men and women, strong and very beautiful in their faces and bodies, something that cannot be truly imagined in this world. Mu’ādh Ibn Jabal (radiyallāhu ‘anhu) narrated that Allah’s Messenger (salallāhu ‘alaihi wasallam) said, “The people of Paradise will enter Paradise without having bodily hair or beards and their eyes will be lined with kohl. They will be young, aged 30 or 33 years.” (At-Tirmidhī, no. 2545, graded sahīh by Shaikh Al-Albānī) So there will be no old people in Jannah, all of them will be young, strong and beautiful. This age of thirty to thirty-three is the age at which the characteristics of youth come together: manhood and strength in males, beauty and excellence in women – and it is the age of virility in both. So regardless of what age a person dies, they will be entered into Jannah at this age. Al-Bayhaqī reported from Miqdām (radiyallāhu ‘anhu), and ascribed to the Messenger of Allāh (salallāhu ‘alaihi wasallam), that he said, “There is none that dies (from the Muslims) whether from a stumble or in old age, or whatever is between that except that they will be raised (in Paradise) at thirty-three years of age.”

So, this elderly woman who was initially saddened became joyous at these words (i.e. the verse) from the Prophet (salallāhu ‘alaihi wasallam) – words of happiness that replaced her sadness.

(See also, ‘Awnul-Ahadis-Samad Sharhul-Adabil-Mufrad of Shaikh Zayd Al-Madkhalī, 1/291)

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