and likewise the children of Adam did not speak until He created (1) speech for them. You have therefore (2) combined disbelief with anthropomorphic comparison; far exalted is Allah—magnified be His praise—above such a description.

Rather, we say: Allah—sublime be His praise—has always been speaking whenever He wills. We do not say that He existed without speaking until He created [speech] (3) and then spoke; nor do we say that He lacked knowledge until He created and then came to know (4); nor do we say that Allah (5) was without power (6) until He created power for Himself (7).

These words of his make it clear that those who declare His speech to be created mean that He was not a speaker until He created speech, for this is the import of their claim: “He may speak, but His speech is created.” What is created is something that inheres in certain bodies; hence, in their view, His speech resembles some created entity, and for that reason they hold it impossible that He was a speaker before its creation. Aḥmad refuted them by stating that this likens Allah to a human being who, owing to infancy, is incapable of speech until Allah creates speech for him. Anyone who passes through a period during which he is not described as “a speaker whenever he wills, able to speak” is deficient; such a view entails disbelief, for it denies (8) the perfection of the Lord and His attribute and likens Him to a powerless human.

That is why he said: “Rather, we say that He has never ceased to be speaking whenever He wills,” thus combining two propositions: first, that He has always been a speaker, and second, that His speech is dependent on His will. It is therefore impermissible to deny speech of Him until (9) He creates speech, just as it is impermissible to deny Him knowledge and power.