"Allah Laughs" Hadith

[Najeeb]

AsSalamu Alaikum Shaykh Yasir,

The last page in our binder notes had one of my favorite hadith of "Allah Laughs"


è Prophet (peace be upon him) said “Verily our Lord laughs at the despair that His servants feel, even though His Help is so close!” So Laqit bin Saburah said “O Messenger of Allah – may my mother and father be given as your ransom – and does our Lord laugh?” The prophet replied, “Yes!” Laqit said, “In that case, we will never give up hope of receiving good from a Lord that laughs!” [Ibn Majah]


My Questions:

1. What is the strength of this hadith? Is it Ahaad hadith?
2. I like to know how the people of kalaam defend themselves to this very explicit straight-forward hadith. I am sure there must be lot of refutations from them.

JazakAllahu Khair for your time.

FiAmaanillah.

Salaam Alaikum

Yes this particular wording is ahad, and as you probably guessed, that is the main reason it is dismissed by the Ash`arites: for them and the Mu`tazilites the Aristotelian principle of 'accidents' and 'bodies' trumps ahad hadith of the Prophet salla Allahu alayhi wa sallam.

However, there are almost a dozen hadiths about the Attribute of dahik (some of which we quoted in class), and so they are forced to reinterpret all of them to mean iraadah of Divine Pleasure.

Yasir

[Asha]

This just made me miss LUL very much! :S

JazakhAllahu Kheir Shaykh!