diff --git a/lib/ansible/module_utils/basic.py b/lib/ansible/module_utils/basic.py
index 64d536d262..2dcb9cd545 100644
--- a/lib/ansible/module_utils/basic.py
+++ b/lib/ansible/module_utils/basic.py
@@ -884,6 +884,9 @@ class AnsibleModule(object):
         for encoding in ("utf-8", "latin-1", "unicode_escape"):
             try:
                 return json.dumps(data, encoding=encoding)
+            # Old systems using simplejson module does not support encoding keyword.
+            except TypeError, e:
+                return json.dumps(data)
             except UnicodeDecodeError, e:
                 continue
         self.fail_json(msg='Invalid unicode encoding encountered')