and it affirms something that sensory experience shows to be false. For he said: “His statement, ‘I laughed at the Lord’s laughter,’ means: ‘at the laughter occurring within me because the Lord Most High created that laughter.’” Yet the wording entails two instances of laughter: his own laughter and the laughter at which he laughed. He thus portrays the speaker as laughing at his own laughter when he says, “I laughed at the laughter occurring within me.” He thereby posits two instances of laughter within him: one is the act of laughing, and the other is what he laughs at. This contradicts sensory experience. Even if this were so, on what grounds would one be the object of laughter rather than the other, when both are created by Allah Most High?

But someone who argues that Allah does not laugh because He causes laughter and weeping offers an argument against the meaning of the text that is of the same kind as this interpretation of it. For, consistently applied, the argument he has offered would mean that if He teaches another and makes him ignorant, He would not Himself be knowing; if He enables another to speak and silences him, He would not Himself speak; if He enables another to hear and makes him deaf, He would not Himself hear; if He enables another to see and makes him blind, He would not Himself see; if He gives another life and causes him to die, He would not Himself be living; and if He makes another pleased and makes him angry, He would not be