if what He created as speech in something else were thereby to count as His own Speech—and the impossibility of that is self‐evident—it would follow that disbelief, falsehood, the sheep’s words, “I have been poisoned, so do not eat me” (1), the cow’s words, “We were not created for this; we were created only for plowing” (2), and the testimony of skins, hands, and feet would all be Allah’s Speech, with no distinction (3) between His speaking directly and His causing another to speak.
Moreover, Allah, Exalted is He, has said:
“It is not for any human being that Allah should speak to him except by revelation, or from behind a veil, or by sending a messenger who then reveals, by His permission, whatever He wills.” (4)
Thus He has made it clear (5) that no human being is addressed by Allah except through these three modes. If, however, His addressing were not speech intrinsic to Himself but merely consisted of His creating words in a tree or some other creature, the requirement of these specific modes (6) would be meaningless
(1) He may be referring to the term al-dhir‘ (arm-span), as it appears in the aforementioned hadith. She asked, “Who informed you?” He answered, “This is in my hand,” meaning the dhir‘; some narrations even quote him: “This dhir‘ in my hand has informed me.” See: Jami‘ al-Usul by Ibn al-Athir, vol. 11, pp. 327–328, hadith no. 8888.
Alternatively, the reference may be to one of the limbs of the poisoned sheep, as reported by al-Bayhaqi in Dalail al-Nubuwwa, vol. 4, p. 260, where the Prophet (peace be upon him) said: “…Hold it, for one of its limbs informs me that it is poisoned…”.
(2) This is part of the hadith narrated by al-Bukhari from Abu Huraira (may Allah be pleased with him), who said: The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) performed the dawn prayer, then turned to the people and said, “A man was driving a cow when he mounted it; it struck him and said, ‘We were not created for this; we were created for plowing….’” See: Sahih al-Bukhari, vol. 4, p. 149, Book of the Prophets, chap. 54. Muslim also records it in his Sahih, vol. 4, p. 1857, Book on the Virtues of the Companions, chapter on the Virtues of Abu Bakr (may Allah be pleased with him), hadith no. 2388, with similar wording.
(3) In the S and Ṭ editions: “wa’illa…” (“otherwise…”).
(4) Surah ash-Shura, verse 51.
(5) In the Ṭ edition: “bi-annahu.”
(6) In the base text: “fa-laysa,” as confirmed by the S and Ṭ editions; this restores coherence to the passage.