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Jokes: The Humor of Getting Old

The older you get, the longer your arms have to get to read

The older you get, the longer your arms have to get to read

Zawaj.com’s Islamic Humor Files:

The Humor of Getting Old

Of course as Muslims we have the greatest respect for our elders. But there’s humor in everything, so I’d like to share some of these light-hearted jokes about getting old.

Romance?
Karl and Milly were lying in bed one night. Carl was falling asleep but Milly was in a romantic mood and wanted to talk. She said, “You used to hold my hand when we were courting.”

Wearily Karl reached across, held her hand for a second, and rolled over to try to fall asleep.

A few moments later she said, “Then you used to kiss me.”

Mildly irritated, he leaned across, gave her a peck on the cheek and settled back down to sleep.

Thirty seconds later she said, “Then you used to bite my neck.”

Angrily, he threw back the bed clothes and got out of bed.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“To the bathroom to get my teeth,” he replied.

***

Just before the funeral services, the undertaker came up to the very elderly widow and asked,

‘How old was your husband?’
’98,’ she replied, ‘Two years older than me’
‘So you’re 96,’ the undertaker commented.
She responded , ‘Hardly worth going home, is it?

***

Caution: senior crossing ahead

Caution: senior crossing ahead

Reporter interviewing a 104-year-old woman:

‘And what do you think is the best thing about being 104?’ the reporter asked.

She simply replied, ‘No peer pressure.’

***

 

Not exactly how to use an abs roller

Not exactly how to use an abs roller

Hard of Hearing
An old man decided his old wife was getting hard of hearing. So he called her doctor to make an appointment to have her hearing checked. The doctor said he could see her in two weeks, and meanwhile there’s a simple, informal test the husband could do to give the doctor some idea of the dimensions of the problem.
“Here’s what you do. Start about 40 feet away from her, and speak in a normal onversational tone and see if she hears you. If not, go to 30 feet, then 20 feet, and so on until you get a response.”

So that evening she’s in the kitchen cooking dinner, and he’s in the living room, and he says to himself, “I’m about 40 feet away, let’s see what happens.”

“Honey, what’s for supper?”

No response.

So he moves to the other end of the room, about 30 feet away. “Honey, what’s for supper?”

No response.

So he moves into the dining room, about 20 feet away. “Honey, what’s for supper?”

No response.

On to the kitchen door, only 10 feet away. “Honey, what’s for supper?”.

No response.

So he walks right up behind her. “Honey, what’s for supper?”

“For the fifth time, CHICKEN!”

***

Adjusting to retirement

Adjusting to retirement

I sure have gotten old! I’ve had two bypass surgeries, a hip replacement, new knees, fought prostate cancer and diabetes. I’m half blind, can’t hear anything quieter than a jet engine, take 40 different medications that make me dizzy, winded, and subject to blackouts. Have bouts with dementia… Have poor circulation; hardly feel my hands and feet anymore. Can’t remember if I’m 89 or 98. Have lost all my friends. But, thank goodness, I still have my driver’s license.

***

Can't stand on their own two feet

Can’t stand on their own two feet

Getting a Workout

I feel like my body has gotten totally out of shape, so I got my doctor’s permission to join a fitness club and start exercising. I decided to take an aerobics class for seniors. I bent, twisted, gyrated, jumped up and down, and perspired for an hour. But By the time I got my leotards on, the class was over.

***

My memory’s not as sharp as it used to be. Also, my memory’s not as sharp as it used to be.

***

Know how to prevent sagging? Just eat till the wrinkles fill out.

***

It’s scary when you start making the same noises as your coffee maker.

***

These days about half the stuff In my shopping cart says, ‘ For fast relief.’

***

Three Elderly Sisters

Three sisters, ages 92, 94, and 96, live in a house together. One night the 96-year-old draws a bath. She puts one foot in a pauses. She yells down the stairs, “Was I getting in or out of the bath?”

The 94-year-old yells back, “I don’t know. I’ll come up and see.” She starts up the stairs and pauses. Then she yells out, “Was I going up the stairs or down?”

The 92-year-old is sitting at the kitchen table having tea and listening to her sisters. She shakes her head and says, “I sure hope I never get that forgetful.” She knocks on the wooden table for good luck. She then replies, “I’ll come up and help both of you as soon as I see who’s knocking at the door.”

***

What you measure as you get older

What you measure as you get older

The Senility Prayer

Grant me the senility to forget the people I never liked anyway, the good fortune to run into the ones I do like, and the eyesight to tell the difference.

"They never call", updated

“They never call”

 

Entertainment for seniors: movie and pharmacy combined

Entertainment for seniors: movie and pharmacy combined

Now, I think you’re supposed to share this with 5 or 6, maybe 10 others. Oh heck, give it to a bunch of your friends if you can remember who they are! Always remember this: You don’t stop laughing because you grow old, you grow old because you stop laughing!

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Invest in your family: a poem

A lovely blue flower called Jacob’s Ladder

I ran into a stranger as he passed by,
“Oh excuse me please” was my reply.

He said, “Please excuse me too; I wasn’t watching for you.”

We were very polite, this stranger and I.
We went on our way and we said good-bye.

But at home a different story is told,
How we treat our loved ones, young and old.

Later that day, cooking the evening meal,
My son stood beside me very still.

When I turned, I nearly knocked him down.
“Move out of the way,” I said with a frown.

He walked away, his little heart broken.
I didn’t realize how harshly I’d spoken.

While I lay awake in bed,
God’s still small voice came to me and said,

“While dealing with a stranger, common courtesy you use, but the family you love, you seem to abuse.

Go and look on the kitchen floor,
You’ll find some flowers there by the door.

Those are the flowers he brought for you.
He picked them himself: pink, yellow and blue.

He stood very quietly not to spoil the surprise; you never saw the tears that filled his little eyes.”

By this time, I felt very small,
And now my tears began to fall.

I quietly went and knelt by his bed;
“Wake up, little one, wake up,” I said.

“Are these the flowers you picked for me?”
He smiled, “I found ’em, out by the tree.

I picked ’em because they’re pretty like you.
I knew you’d like ’em, especially the blue.”

I said, “Son, I’m very sorry for the way I acted today; I shouldn’t have yelled at you that way.”
He said, “Oh, Mom, that’s okay.
I love you anyway.”

I said, “Son, I love you too,
and I do like the flowers, especially the blue.”

FAMILY

Are you aware that if we died tomorrow, the company that we are working for could easily replace us in a matter of days. But the family we left behind will feel the loss for the rest of their lives.

And come to think of it, we pour ourselves more into work than into our own family, an unwise investment indeed, don’t you think?

Reprinted from Ummah.com’s archives
Author unknown
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Is it okay to disrespect non-Muslims and steal from them?

A drunk man passed out on the sidewalk in San Francisco.

A drunk man passed out on the sidewalk in San Francisco. How should Muslims treat such people?

(From Ummah1): This is a true story. Two Muslim brothers saw a non-Muslim man lying down on the sidewalk too drunk to even get up. They took his wallet and took all his money from him.

Later they laughingly told this story to a friend of mine (another Muslim). They thought it was a great joke. My friend was horrified and told them that this was wrong and they had no right to do this. They stated that since he the fellow on the sidewalk was a kafir and drunk, that there was no wrong in it and that it was okay. In vain, my friend tried to convince them that this was wrong but they never saw it that way.

Click here to read more… “Is it okay to disrespect non-Muslims and steal from them?”

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Failed Marriage Proposals and Unrealistic Expectations

Marriage is something I have had the intention to do for a while, probably since I was about sixteen or so. I will admit that it was partly to do with seeing two of my friends get married in close proximity to each other. It was strange being seventeen and seeing that happen, especially as one friend was a year younger than me. I am actually happy that I didn’t get married as a teenager. I wasn’t immature or anything, but I do think you need some life experience in order to fully understand what you are getting yourself into. I am now almost twenty two, this is just how it has happened for me. I now feel I am more ready than ever, so I hope the right man comes along soon!

Failed Proposals

Obviously none of my proposals have worked out so far, which is why I am still unmarried.

Read more here…

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Joke: Woman goes shopping at the husband store

Joke: wife goes shopping at the husband store

Joke: wife goes shopping at the husband store

Zawaj.com’s Islamic Humor Files

Shopping at the Husband Store

I first spotted this joke on Ummah1 and then looked it up and found that it’s widely circulated on the internet. I have adapted it slightly for a Muslim audience:

A brand new store has just opened that sells husbands. When women go to choose a husband, they have to follow the instructions at the entrance:

You may visit this store ONLY ONCE! There are 6 floors and the value of the husbands increase as you ascend the flights. You may choose any husband from a particular floor, or may choose to go up to the next floor, but you CANNOT go back down except to exit the building.

So, a Muslim woman goes to the Husband Store to find a Muslim husband.

  1. The 1st floor sign on the door reads: Floor 1: These men have good Islamic character.
  2. The 2nd floor sign reads: Floor 2: These men have good character and good jobs.
  3. The 3rd floor sign reads: Floor 3: These men have good character, jobs, and love children.
    • “Alhamdulillah,” the woman thinks, “These are some good prospects.” But she thinks she can do better and and she feels compelled to keep going. She goes to the 4th floor and the sign reads:
  4. Floor 4: These men have good character, jobs, love children and are extremely handsome.
    • “Oh, SubhanAllah!” she exclaims, “I can hardly stand it! I have to see what else is up there!”
  5. She goes to the 5th floor and sign reads: Floor 5:  These men have good character, jobs, love children, are extremely handsome, help with the housework, and are romantic and tender.
  6. She is so tempted to stay, she doesn’t want to settle if there’s something even better. She goes to the 6th floor and the sign reads: Floor 6: You are visitor 1,500,012 to this floor. There are no men on this floor. This floor exists solely as proof that you are impossible to please. Please exit on your right.

To avoid gender bias charges, the store’s owner opens a New Wives store just across the street.

The 1st first floor has wives that are beautiful and love sex, but have no other redeeming qualities.
The 2nd, 3rd,4th, 5th and 6th floors have never been visited.

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One quarter of the world is Muslim, new study finds

Map of the Muslim world showing countries with more than 1 million Muslims

Map of the Muslim world showing countries with more than 1 million Muslims

Reprinted from BBC News Online
Thursday, 8 October, 2009

A report from an American think-tank has estimated 1.57 billion Muslims populate the world – with 60% in Asia.

The report, by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, took three years to compile, with census data from 232 countries and territories.
It showed that 20% of Muslims lived in the Middle East and North Africa.

The data also showed that there were more Muslims in Germany than in Lebanon, and more in Russia than in Jordan and Libya together.

“Higher Than I Expected”

Researchers analysed approximately 1,500 sources including census reports, demographic studies and general population surveys.

Senior researcher Brian Grim told CNN that the overall figure was a surprise and said: “Overall, the number is higher than I expected.”

MUSLIM POPULATION BY REGION
Asia and the Pacific: 61.9%
Middle East – North Africa: 20.1%
Sub-Saharan Africa: 15.3%
Europe: 2.4%
Americas: 0.3%

The report, published on Wednesday, also found that Ethiopia has nearly as many Muslims as Afghanistan.

Amaney Jamal, an assistant professor of politics at Princeton University, told the AP news agency: “This whole idea that Muslims are Arabs and Arabs are Muslims is really just obliterated by this report.”

Instead the report found that more than 300 million Muslims live in countries where Islam was not the majority religion.

Of the total Muslim population, 10-13% are Shia Muslims and 87-90% are Sunni Muslims. Most Shias live in Iran, Pakistan, India and Iraq.

Muslims praying at a mosque in London.

Muslims praying at a mosque in London.

Europe is home to 38 million Muslims – around 5% of its population with European Muslims making up slightly more than 2% of the world’s Muslim population.

More than half of the 4.6 million Muslims in the Americas live in the US – however they make up just 0.8% of the population there.

The Pew Forum has said the findings will lay the foundation for a forthcoming study that will look at how Muslim populations worldwide have grown and what they may look like in the future.

It also plans to compile figures for the other major world religions. According to internet-based group, Adherents, there are currently 2.1 billion Christians, 900 million Hindus and 14 million Jews worldwide.

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Zawaj.com Humor Files: Mullah Nasruddin makes a beggar climb

Templo V Mayan pyramid in Mexico,

Okay, so these stairs really go up the Templo V Mayan pyramid in Mexico, but they illustrate this story well!

Zawaj.com’s Islamic Humor Files

Mullah Nasruddin Makes a Beggar Climb

Editor’s Note: Some call him Goha or Joha, the Turks call him Hodja, while the Persians and Afghanis call him Mollah, Nasrullah or Mullah Nasruddin. Regardless of what you call him, this wise, mysterious and sarcastic figure has been a fixture of Middle Eastern stories for centuries.

One day Nasruddin was up on the roof of his house, repairing some broken tiles that were letting the rain leak through. He was not happy about being on the roof, as he was afraid of heights, and he worried about climbing on his rickety ladder.

As he was working, a stranger knocked on the door. Nasruddin heard the knock and shouted out, “What do you want?”

“Come down please” replied the stranger. “I wish to talk to you in person.”

“Just tell me!” said Nasruddin.

“Please won’t you come down,” the man said. “I only need a moment.”

Nasruddin slowly and fearfully climbed down the ladder, grumbling to himself.

“Well,” Nasruddin said when he got to the bottom. “What’s so important?”

“Could you give a little money to this poor old man?” said the stranger. “You can see that I am hungry and poor.”

Exasperated, Nasruddin started to climb up the ladder and said, “Follow me up to the roof. But be careful, as the ladder is old and rickety.”

With some hesitation, and looking quite worried, the beggar climbed the ladder. When both Nasruddin and beggar were upside, on the roof, Nasruddin said, “No.”

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Islam held in high esteem in Rwanda

Many Rwandans turned to Islam after the genocide

Many Rwandans turned to Islam after the genocide because of the good example given by Rwandan Muslims during the genocide. This is a photo of a Muslim Rwandan girl visiting a mosque for a wedding.

Courtesy Arab News

DUBAI, 30 September 2007 — The life story of Umugwaneza Sulaiman, a contestant for the Dubai International Holy Qur’an Award, is truly inspirational since he has risen from rubble to create a renaissance.

Even though he is only 19, this young man from Rwanda has survived a life of hardship. As a young child he survived the genocide in Rwanda in 1994. He still has horrific memories of hiding in forests from militias that were killing people. The rivers and roads they walked through were littered with bodies. Later on he lost his father and had to lead a harsh life in one of the poorest countries in the world.

Despite all his hardships, Sulaiman was determined to become a hafiz and was rewarded by becoming the first Rwandan to take part in the Dubai International Holy Qur’an Award competition. Sulaiman’s quest with the sacred book started when he converted to Islam at the age of 11.

“Even though my family were Catholics I was never interested in the church. The Azan from the mosque in my neighborhood fascinated me and I started attending classes there,” he said.

When asked if he faced any resistance from his family, Sulaiman said that his family had no issues with him becoming a Muslim, as Islam is a held in high regard in Rwanda after the 1994 genocide. His whole family followed him a few years later and converted to Islam.

Since the genocide, Rwandans have converted to Islam in huge numbers. Muslims now make up 14 percent of the 8.2 million people in Africa’s mostly Catholic nation, twice as many as before the killings began. The reason behind the conversions lies in the fact that Rwandan Muslims did not take part in the genocide and played a key role in the humanitarian efforts that followed.

Muslims have been honored by the national government for their roles in saving the lives regardless of their faith. Many people attribute the recent spread of Islam to these humanitarian acts.

It took years of dedicated work for Sulaiman to memorize the Qur’an. The lack of qualified teachers in Rwanda made him make up his mind to travel to Kenya as there are good Qur’anic schools there.

“I was 15 when my five friends and I decided to travel to Kenya to seek knowledge. Two of my friends were converts like me,” he said.
The six young men packed their bags and traveled to the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, to find the school. They enrolled themselves in a free boarding school, which accepts students from all over East Africa. There they studied under the tutelage of Qur’an scholars. It took Sulaiman two years to memorize the whole Qur’an.

Now back home in Rwanda, Sulaiman works as a part time Imam and Qur’an teacher to supplement his income while studying at the only Islamic seminar in Kigali.

Masha Allah, there are so many Muslims now in my country. We are working hard at teaching the Qur’an to the new generation of Muslim children,” he said.

After finishing his education, Sulaiman hopes to get a scholarship to study Islam. “We get Muslim scholars coming from Uganda to spread the word of Islam in Rwanda. I hope that through my knowledge of Islam I will be able to help spread peace in my country,” he said.

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Are You Ready for Children? A Quick Test

Are you ready for this? Children can make HUGE messes.

Are you ready for this? Children can make HUGE messes.

From the Zawaj.com Humor Files:

Are You Ready for Children? A Quick Test

MESS TEST:

Smear peanut butter on the sofa and curtains. Now rub your hands in the wet flower bed and rub on the walls. Cover the stains with crayons. Place a fish stick behind the couch and leave it there all summer.

TOY TEST:

Obtain a 55-gallon box of Legos. (If Legos are not available, you may substitute roofing tacks or broken bottles.) Have a friend spread them all over the house. Put on a blindfold. Try to walk to the bathroom or kitchen. Do not scream (this could wake a child at night).

GROCERY STORE TEST:

Borrow one or two small animals (goats are best) and take them with you as you shop at the grocery store. Always keep them in sight and pay for anything they eat or damage.

DRESSING TEST:

Obtain one large, unhappy, live octopus. Stuff into a small net bag making sure that all arms stay inside.

FEEDING TEST:

Obtain a large plastic milk jug. Fill halfway with water. Suspend from the ceiling with a stout cord. Start the jug swinging. Try to insert spoonfuls of soggy cereal (such as Fruit Loops or Cheerios) into the mouth of the jug while pretending to be an airplane. Now dump the contents of the jug on the floor.

Little girl fell asleep while eating

Little girl fell asleep while eating

NIGHT TEST:

Prepare by obtaining a small cloth bag and fill it with 8 to 12 pounds of sand. Soak it thoroughly in water. At 8:00 PM begin to waltz and hum with the bag until 9:00 PM. Lay down your bag and set your alarm for 10:00 PM. Get up, pick up your bag, and sing every song you have ever heard. Make up about a dozen more and sing these too until 4:00 AM. Set alarm for 5:00 AM. Get up and make breakfast. Keep this up for five years. Look cheerful.

PHYSICAL TEST (WOMEN)

Obtain a large beanbag chair and attach it to the front of your clothes. Leave it there for 9 months. Now remove 10% of the beans.

PHYSICAL TEST (MEN):

Go to the nearest drug store. Set your wallet on the counter. Ask the clerk to help himself. Now proceed to the nearest food store. Go to the head office and arrange for your paycheck to be directly deposited to the store. Purchase a newspaper. Go home and read it quietly for the last time.

FINAL ASSIGNMENT:

Find a couple who already have a small child. Lecture them on how they can improve their discipline, patience, tolerance, toilet training, and child`s table manners. Suggest many ways they can improve. Emphasize to them that they should never allow their children to run riot. Enjoy this experience. It will be the last time you will have all the answers.

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Dear Wael: she is three years older than me, is it wrong?

“Dear Wael:  I’ve known this girl for a few years now and I wish to marry her. But the problem is that many think it’s wrong that she is 3 years older than me. I love her very deeply and I believe she does too, but she’d never betray her family and friends. What i want to know is that is it lawful for a Muslim girl who is 3 years older to marry a Muslim boy?”  – Matt

Click here for Wael’s answer to this question.

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Dear Wael: Is it okay to marry a policeman?

Question: Is it okay to work for the police in this country? I’m looking to get married and the person that im interested in works for the metropolitan police response team. – Sister Shaima

Click here to read Wael’s answer to this question.

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