like the voice of ordinary people; it was not distinguished from theirs in any way that would oblige us to claim that they had heard the speech of Allah just as Moses son of ʿImrān did.

The ninth angle:

When a jinn takes up residence in a human being—as happens with a possessed person—and speaks through his tongue, the speech itself changes. Those present immediately realize that what they are hearing is not the human’s own speech, even though it issues in the human’s language and by the movement of his organs. They perceive that the sound results from the motion of the human body while also recognizing that it has altered in a way that departs from the familiar pattern of human discourse. In addition, the person in whom the jinn has settled becomes unaware and feels nothing of what the jinn is saying through his tongue.

If, hypothetically, the Lord of all worlds—exalted and transcendent—is He—were to indwell a human, unite with him, and speak with His own speech so that the audible words were truly the speech of Allah received from that person, the difference between that and ordinary human speech would be utterly manifest, and the human’s state would change to the extreme. When the Almighty revealed Himself to the mountain, He leveled it to dust, and Moses collapsed unconscious. If a human body cannot withstand His manifestation to a mountain, how could it withstand His indwelling in it and His speaking through its tongue without any alteration in the body?

Moreover, whenever revelation and the angels descended inwardly upon the prophets, visible change appeared in their bodies. The Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—would grow so heavy when revelation came to him that the camel he was riding would sink to its knees, and if his thigh happened to rest upon someone, it would weigh down on him almost to the point of crushing him.