command, prohibition, statement, and inquiry. It is the very meaning of the Torah, the Gospel, the Qur’an, indeed of everything Allah (1) has uttered; it is the meaning of āyat al-kursī (the Throne Verse) and āyat al-dayn (the Verse of Debt). The majority of rational human beings say that the falsity of this notion is self-evident to reason and to mankind’s natural disposition. According to these people, it is the angels who articulate the meaning that subsists within Allah’s Essence, while Allah Himself does not articulate about Himself. In one respect, this resembles a mute person who holds ideas within himself and must have someone else convey them for him. In this they share the view of the Jahmiyyah, who let someone other than Allah speak on His behalf without Allah Himself speaking (3). Yet whereas these liken Him to a mute by positing a meaning that subsists in Him, the Jahmiyyah liken Him to an idol in which neither meaning nor expression subsists.

Opposing them (4) was another faction (5) who said that the Qur’an is nothing but letter and sound—or, more precisely, letters and sounds. They asserted that the reality of speech consists solely of letters and sounds, refusing to include meanings in the very definition of speech. In this they agreed with the Mu‘tazilah and the Jahmiyyah, who likewise maintained that speech is only letters and sounds, although the Mu‘tazilah do not claim that Allah spoke a speech subsisting in Him (6).