# Is it wrong to joke about people who are seriously ill with covid? *Covid as Russian roulette: a neighbour's death and a plea not to mock the sick* - URL: https://muftiabulayth.org/r/626jfce_j_8/s/1/ - Date: 2021-11-29 · Kind: lesson · Transcript tier: machine · Recording: Sheikh Asrar Was In Hospital | Mufti Abu Layth (0:14–5:31) - Status: latest answer on its topic; general teaching - Watch from the start of the segment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=626JfCE_j_8&t=14s - Recording page: https://muftiabulayth.org/r/626jfce_j_8/ **Topics:** Covid-19; Facing death; Gratitude, giving and contentment **Summary (not a quotation; machine-made, unchecked):** Do not make fun of people who are ill with covid: it is a roll of the dice, as a neighbour's sudden death showed, and it should make us grateful. **Checked position (checked by two independent reviews, not by the channel):** Mufti Abu Layth says he advises people not to make fun of those who are hospitalised or ill with covid. **Evidence, his words at 4:41:** “this is why i i advise not to kind of make fun or this a lot of people who are hospitalized and or ill with this” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=626JfCE_j_8&t=281s) ## Longer summary Mufti Abu Layth prays for the recovery of a shaykh who had been hospitalised, saying he had sent him a sincere message offering help although it went unanswered. He likens covid to Russian roulette: it may pass you by, feel like a cold or flu, bring pneumonia, or kill. He recounts the death of a father from his neighbourhood: after weeks on a ventilator the doctors woke him to say the machine would be switched off, he texted his young daughter a farewell asking her to look after her mother, and he died soon after. Mufti says the story shook him to his core, prays for the family and for everyone who is ill, advises people not to make fun of those who are hospitalised or ill, and closes on gratitude. ## Sources and names cited - the coronavirus pandemic - shifa (cure) ## Transcript (machine tier, 0:14–5:31) [0:14] come on i've said actually previously that look may allah grant him shifa and everyone you know it is it's sad honestly it is i'm not i mean not just i'm not saying just with sheikh with anyone with swear i personally sent him a message although he didn't respond but i was genuine in my message i would you know if he needed anything i would help him if i could with something or but yeah you know this covet thing it is um it's it's like russian roulette isn't it [0:53] it could do nothing it could be brush past you don't even know maybe you get you look like you've got a cold maybe you look like you've got a flu maybe you're kind of knocked out with it quite serious like you've got pneumonia maybe you're dead it's just like a roll of the dice there's a i don't know if i mentioned this before but there's a family that are in the neighborhood and i don't i mean i don't i know of them i don't personally know them so well but the the [1:33] they've got a a little daughter who just one daughter who's was a class uh friend of leila so she's 10. and so it's just this daughter and it's the husband and wife and the wife that too was from abroad um although i i i believe she's been here several years now but the father this this person he got covered and this is just in the last few months and it developed and he seemed to be [2:11] i'm pretty sure he must have he was only in his late 30s and it just developed and it just kind of progressed rapidly and he deteriorated and he went to you know then his breathing got impacted and he thought it's don't worry and then he went to hospital yet he was hospitalized and and oxygen and it wasn't working and then on the ventilator with the kind of artificial lung they had him on that and he was there for weeks on end i think maybe um five weeks six weeks or something i [2:48] don't know and they said the doctor said that he he he can't you know the lungs are not responding so they said we're going to switch it off the you know we're going to remove him from the apparate the apparatus because it's not working and the equipment so uh so what they did was they woke him up and because he was comatose whilst on the equipment they woke him up and told him that you know we're gonna switch this off [3:25] and and in that time he he kind of sent a text message to his daughter who is layla's age and leila's friend and just you know just bidding farewell and just asking her to take care of her mother and stuff like this and it you know this this and then he in the coming hours or maybe the coming day or something just passed away because lungs weren't responding they were too weak and it really was so so shocking to hear this [4:04] especially the the the details of it and especially i don't know the the fact that they woke him up i ah i just found it like is that i don't know like i get it that there's the he got to write a text message but i don't know if that's what you'd want to be woken up to because it's um it's a sheer helplessness you know may allah make it easy for their family may allah bless his afterlife and may allah make it easy for anyone battling these things and this is why you know i we have to [4:41] this is why i i advise not to kind of make fun or this a lot of people who are hospitalized and or ill with this may allah grant them all shifa i mean but yeah it was a very i have to say really i mean i was shaken to my core with the details of this story and i i suppose because i kind of it was real because you know you know i've seen their daughter with layla and i've seen this so it just made it so much more sent shivers and but it reminds us people once again every moment what we are grateful for [5:21] comes back to that thing and if we're grateful give forward because we we have this yeah ## Cite Mufti Abu Layth Archive, segment 626JfCE_j_8/s/1. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/626jfce_j_8/s/1/ Not a fatwa: these answers were given to specific people at specific times. 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