some fools have accepted this consequence.” He said, “Laughter arises only from astonishment, and astonishment is a state that occurs in a person when he does not know the cause. This is impossible for the Knower of the unseen and the seen.”

He went on to say, “Once this is established, we say that this may be interpreted in several ways. First, just as a verbal noun may properly be attributed to its object, so too may it be attributed to its agent. Thus, his statement, ‘I laughed because of the Lord’s laughter,’ means: because of the laughter that arose within me through the Lord’s creating that laughter.

“Second, the intended meaning may be that if He, Most High, were among those who laugh, as kings do, this statement would have made Him laugh.”

He mentioned this interpretation after quoting the wording of the hadith found in