claim that the recitation, reading, and very utterance of the Quran are created. The foremost scholars of their age counted such people among the Jahmiyyah, making it clear that their statement necessarily entails declaring the Quran itself to be created; indeed, in many of their remarks they even pronounced them disbelievers. The same condemnation applies to anyone who maintains that this Quran is not the speech of Allah but merely a narration or paraphrase of it, or who alleges that what is found in the muṣḥafs (written codices) and committed to hearts is no more the speech of Allah than the references to Allah and His Messenger recorded in those same muṣḥafs and hearts, and the like. This stance is preserved from Imam Ahmad, Ishaq, Abu ʿUbayd, Abu Musʿab al-Zuhri, Abu Thawr, Abu al-Walid al-Jarudi, Muhammad ibn Bashshar, Yaʿqub ibn Ibrahim al-Dawraqi, Muhammad ibn Yahya ibn Abi ʿAmr al-ʿAdani, Muhammad ibn Yahya al-Dhuhli, Muhammad ibn Aslam al-Tusi, and a host of others—so numerous that only Allah could count them—among the Imams and guides of Islam.¹