and what does not subsist in itself; besides, to deny it any locus is to deny its exclusive attribution—(1) for is it not more fitting that it be exclusively His, exalted be He, (2) rather than allotted to another? Should it instead arise in some other locus and subsist there, it would be the speech of that locus; and that locus would thereby become a speaker, a commander, and a forbider. For whatever inheres in a locus is distinctively tied to it, and whenever we speak of it we must ascribe it to that locus by its most specific description. One may derive a term for it—or for the composite of which the locus forms a part—either from its most specific description or from a more general one, (3) or from its very meaning, (4) or one may validly annex it to that locus by its most specific qualifier. Since none of these possibilities applies, it is impossible that His Speech be created in any locus; and once all these alternatives are ruled out, the claim that it is originated collapses altogether.
A group of scholars have maintained this view—among them the two judges, Abū ʿAlī ibn Abī Mūsā (5),
(1) In Ṭ: “idh laysa.”
(2) The text enclosed in parentheses has been omitted in the original.
(3) In the original: ikhtaṣ. The reading confirmed in S and Ṭ.
(4) The text enclosed in parentheses is an addition from S and Ṭ.
(5) The space enclosed in parentheses is left blank in all the copies; what I have supplied is likely correct.
He is the judge Abu Ali Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Abi Musa al-Hashimi al-Baghdadi, one of the Hanbali jurists. He was reliable, and he authored works on the madhhab of Imam Ahmad. He held that the Qurʾan is the speech of Allah and an attribute of His essence, neither created nor brought into existence. He died in 428 AH.
See: Tarikh Baghdad by al-Baghdadi, vol. 1, p. 354; Tabaqat al-Hanabila by Ibn Abi Yaʿla, vol. 2, pp. 182–186; al-Wafi bil-Wafayat by al-Safadi, vol. 2, pp. 63–64.
The Shaykh—may Allah have mercy on him—mentions in Durʾ Taʿarud al-ʿAql wa-l-Naql (vol. 8, p. 98) that many of the mutakallimun among the Ahl al-Hadith, such as Abu al-Hasan ibn al-Zaghuni and Abu Bakr ibn al-ʿArabi, report a consensus on the impossibility of accidents subsisting in it. He says, “And I suppose that Abu Ali ibn Abi Musa mentioned that, and this is among the so-called consensuses that those who assert them assert based on their supposition.”
He will also state on p. 492 that Abu Ali and Abu al-Hasan al-Zaghuni supposed that the entire Ummah agreed that accidents do not subsist in it, and they made that the principle on which they relied. This is akin to the spurious consensuses alleged in kalam and elsewhere, and this is more likely =