The leading imams of the Muslims—and, indeed, the great majority of them—have declared:

“The Qur’an is the Speech of Allah, uncreated; from Him it issued.”

Concerning the Messiah He also said: “and a spirit from Him” (an-Nisāʾ 4:171).

It is therefore said: this follows the same rule that applies to everything annexed to Allah. If the thing annexed is a self-subsistent entity or an attribute inherent in such an entity, then it is created. But if it is an attribute ascribed directly to Allah—such as His knowledge, His speech, and the like—then the annexation denotes an attribute, not creation.

By the same token, whatever is described as “from Him,” when it is a self-subsistent entity or an attribute inhering in something else—like the heavens, the earth, the blessings, and the spirit He sent to Mary, who said, “I am only a messenger of your Lord” (Maryam 19)—is created. Yet if it is an attribute that has no independent existence and with which no creature can be described, such as the Qur’an, then it is uncreated, for it subsists in Allah, and whatever subsists in Allah cannot be created.

The purpose here is to demonstrate the falsity of the Christians’ argument: they possess no proof, explicit or implicit, in the Qur’an or in any of the other Books of Allah. Rather, they have clung to ambiguous verses and abandoned the unequivocal ones, just as Allah has told of them: “It is He who has sent down to you the Book; in it are verses that are precise in meaning—they are the foundation of the Book—while others are ambiguous. Those whose hearts are deviant follow what is ambiguous therein, seeking discord and seeking its interpretation” (Āl ʿImrān 3:7).

This verse was revealed about the Christians; they are unquestionably the ones intended by it. Allah then said: “But none knows its interpretation except Allah; and those firmly grounded in knowledge say, ‘We believe in it; all of it is from our Lord’” (Āl ʿImrān 3:7).