What follows are my provisional translations (in other words, not official or authorized; see here for more) of selected passages on humor, taken from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh.
In a Tablet to Jamál-i-Burújurdí, Bahá’u’lláh states:
Verily, thy Lord loveth humor on certain occasions and speaketh in jest.[1]
And in a Tablet to Ḥájí Amín, He has said:
Humor in speech is like unto flavor in food.[2]
Sources for Further Reading:
- Provisional translation of a Writing of Bahá’u’lláh known as the Lawḥ-i-Bismí al-Mazzáḥ (A Tablet beginning with “In My Name, the Humorist”)
- “Humor and Laughter,” a compilation prepared by the Research Department of the Universal House of Justice
- Anecdotes on Bahá’u’lláh’s relationship with humor, as recounted by Adib Taherzadeh (The Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh, vol. 4, pp. 244–245)
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[1] Available as an authenticated typescript on the Baháʼí Reference Library at this link and cataloged in version 3.01 of the Partial Inventory (June 2023) under the ID number BH00041.
[2] INBA 15:167, available on the Afnán Library Online at this link and cataloged in version 3.01 of the Partial Inventory (June 2023) under the ID number BH00758. The word translated here as “flavor” is milḥ (ملح), which literally means “salt.”
Typescripts of the original Persian and Arabic texts of these passages appear below (all short vowel marks are mine).
Adib Masumian 