Islamic Values: Travelling through the Last Laugh

Abstract

According to Ahmad Rafiki and Kalsom (2014), religion is one of the most influential social institutions that is significantly associated with people’s attitudes, values, and behaviours. In Islam, values are every single thing Allah has prescribed as good, true, and useful. The two main sources and references of Islamic values are al-Quran and Hadith. In the light of faith, the purpose of this paper is to analyse the Islamic values in The Last Laugh. This fiction is written by Kris Jitab in his compilation of short stories entitled ‘Victor’s Last Wish and More Yarns’ published in 2004. The author portrays his literary skills in the form of writing. Since he was born in the setting of place of his short story, Sarawak, he successfully shares his knowledge of the environment, culture, and identity. He combines the emotions of desire, ambition, love, rejection, and self-deception through the characters’ eyes. He is witty and brilliant enough as he signals the dark sides of following the tradition blindly especially when it is harmful towards the society. Hence, travelling through The Last Laugh to highlight the Islamic values will be of a great help to Muslim readers in understanding and digesting the story from the Islamic perspectives