that the messengers never affirmed either of the two propositions, so their claim finds no support in the words of Allah or His Messenger. Allah has never said about His own speech, “It is Myself,” nor has He said, “It is something other than Me,” such that someone could argue: “If He has called His speech ‘other than Himself,’ and He has told us that He creates everything besides Himself, then His speech must be created.”

If their appeal is to revelation, revelation offers them no proof; and if their appeal is to reason, the issue must be settled by examining the underlying meanings, not by clinging to wording.

So, when someone asks, “Are His speech and His knowledge other than Him?” and by “other” intends separation and detachment, then in that sense they are not other than Him. But if he means that the very realities of speech and knowledge are not the same as the One who speaks and knows, then in that sense they are indeed other than Him. When a term is ambiguous, it is impermissible to let it stand in a way that fosters a false understanding.

Those, on the other hand, who have turned self-subsisting entities into so-called attributes are the philosopher-theologians who negate the divine attributes and those who follow in their wake. They claim that the Lord of the worlds is ʿaql (intellect), the one who thinks, and the thing thought. By the word “intellect,” although they say it is a substance that exists in and of itself, they openly state that it is, itself, His very knowledge—indeed, they have declared that the Lord of the worlds is knowledge. Ibn Rushd and others have said this explicitly, tracing it back to Aristotle.