and light; and this is (1) the perfection of speech: that the speaker speak whenever he wills. As for the one who is unable to speak, he is deficient and blameworthy, while the one for whom speech is compulsory yet in no way connected to his will and choice is likewise powerless and deficient—like someone who produces sounds involuntarily, or like the continual noises that cling to inanimate objects without their choice, such as the nawāʿīr (2).

Once he had established the proof that Allah Most High spoke to Moses, that He did—and does—speak, and that this is possible without any need for an inner cavity, a mouth, lips, or a tongue—since (3) among created beings there are those (4) that speak and Allah enables them to do so without any such organs—the Creator, exalted be He, is even more independent of them than the creature. For every attribute of perfection, such as independence, that is affirmed for the creature, Allah is more deserving of it; thus Allah, glorified be He, is far worthier of dispensing with what creatures themselves can dispense with in their speech. He related that when the Jahmi, strangled by the proofs, said (5), “Indeed, Allah spoke to Moses, but His speech is other than Him,”

we replied, “Is that ‘other’ created?”
He said, “Yes.”
We said, “This is exactly your earlier claim; you are merely trying to fend off the disgrace from yourselves (6) by the way you word it.”