Laughter is everything false that distracts from good and from what matters. And 'lahw al-hadith' refers to chatting about legends and stories that have no basis, talking about superstitions, jokes, and excessive speech, and what is not appropriate, and so on, such as singing and learning music. [The phrase 'learning music' is Greek. Its meaning is: the science of singing, and without the letter 'ra': that which is sung, as it has been said.] And it is said that it was revealed concerning al-Nadr ibn al-Harith, who used to trade to Persia, buying the books of the non-Arabs and narrating them to the Quraysh. He would say: 'If Muhammad tells you about the stories of 'Aad and Thamud, then I will tell you the stories of Rustam and Bahram and the kings of Persia and the kings of al-Hira.' They would find his stories permissible and abandon listening to the Qur'an. It is also said that he would buy female singers, and whenever he found someone wanting to embrace Islam, he would take him to his singer and say: 'Feed him, give him drink, and sing to him,' and he would say: 'This is better than what Muhammad invites you to, which is prayer and fasting and fighting in his presence.' In the words of the Prophet ﷺ: 'It is not permissible to sell female singers, nor to buy them, nor to trade in them, nor their prices.' [This was narrated by al-Tabari and Ibn Abi Hatim and others from the narration of Ubayd Allah ibn Zahr from Ali ibn Yazid from al-Qasim from Abu Umamah in this manner. It is also found with Ahmad, Ibn Abi Shaybah, al-Tirmidhi, and Abu Ya'la from this chain, which is weak. Al-Tabarani narrated it through Yahya ibn al-Harith from al-Qasim similarly. There is another narration in Ibn Majah from Ubayd Allah al-Afriki from Abu Umamah, who said: 'The Messenger of Allah ﷺ forbade the sale of female singers, their purchase, their earnings, and the consumption of their prices.' There are reports from Umar. Al-Tabarani and Ibn Adi narrated it from the narration of Yazid ibn Abd al-Malik al-Nufali from Yazid ibn Khusayf from al-Sa'ib ibn Yazid from Umar similarly, and Yazid ibn Abd al-Muttalib is weak, and regarding Ali, it was narrated by Abu Ya'la and Ibn Adi. In it is al-Harith ibn Nahan, who is weak, and regarding Aisha, it was narrated by al-Bayhaqi, and in it is Layth ibn Abi Sulaym, who is weak.] 'And from him ﷺ: 'There is no man who raises his voice in singing except that Allah sends upon him two devils: one on this shoulder and the other on this shoulder, and they continue to strike him with their feet until he is the one who stops.' [This was narrated by Abu Ya'la, Ishaq, and al-Harith from the path of Abu Umamah, and it is found with al-Tabarani from the narration of Yahya ibn al-Harith from al-Qasim in the previous hadith.] 'And it is said that singing is a waste of wealth, angering the Lord, and corrupting the heart. If you ask: What is the meaning of attributing laughter to speech? I say: Its meaning is clarification, and it is an addition meaning 'from,' and that something is added to what it is from, like saying: the description of a brocade, and the door of a tapestry. [The phrase 'like saying the description of a brocade and the door of a tapestry' may be a miswriting. Its original form is 'the description of a brocade,' then I saw in the dictionaries: the description of the house and the saddle: one of the descriptions, so perhaps the description of the saddle is from brocade.] The meaning is: whoever buys laughter from speech, because laughter can be from speech and from other things, so it is clarified by speech. And the intended speech is the false speech, as it came in the hadith: 'False speech in the mosque consumes good deeds just as a beast consumes grass.' [This was mentioned in al-Bara'ah.] And it is possible that the addition means 'from' in a partitive sense, as if it were said: 'And among the people are those who buy some of the speech that is laughter from it.' And the saying 'buys' is either from purchasing, as was narrated about al-Nadr: from buying the books of the non-Arabs or from buying the singers. Or from the saying: 'They exchanged disbelief for faith,' meaning they chose it over it. And from Qatadah: his buying is: his preference, choosing the false speech over the true speech. And it was read: 'to mislead' with the 'ya' being pronounced as a consonant and with it being opened. 'And the path of Allah' is the religion of Islam or the Qur'an. If you ask: The reading with the 'ya' pronounced as a consonant is clear, because al-Nadr's aim in buying laughter was to divert people from entering Islam and listening to the Qur'an and mislead them from it. What then is the meaning of the reading with it being opened? I say: It has two meanings. One of them is: to establish himself in the misguidance he was upon, and not to turn away from it, and to increase in it and to extend it, for the forsaken one was very strong in his enmity towards the religion and in turning people away from it.

The second is that it is placed to mislead, from the fact that whoever misleads is certainly misguided. This indicates by the one that follows the one that is followed. If you say: What is the meaning of His saying, 'without knowledge'? I say: When he made it a buyer of idle talk with the Qur'an, he said: It is bought without knowledge in trade and without insight in it, where he exchanges misguidance for guidance and falsehood for truth.

Similar to His saying, 'So their trade did not profit them, nor were they guided,' meaning: And they were not guided to trade with insight in it. And it has been read 'and he takes it' in the accusative and nominative, as an addition to 'he buys.' Or to mislead, and the pronoun refers to the path, because it is feminine, as in His saying, 'And you hinder from the path of Allah those who believe in it and seek to make it crooked.'

He turned away, arrogant, [UNTRANSLATED-LATIN: zamaa] not caring for it nor raising his head with it: His state in that is similar to that of one who has not heard it while he is listening, as if there is heaviness in his ears, meaning weight, and there is no heaviness in them. It has also been read with the dhāl being silent. If you say: What is the position of the two sentences that begin with 'as if'? I say: The first is a state of being arrogant, and the second is of one who has not heard it: It is also permissible for them to be independent sentences. The original meaning of 'as if' when it is lightened is 'as though,' and the pronoun is the pronoun of the matter.