—a concise reply suited to the questioner’s circumstances (1)—once the basic statements (2) founded upon explicit texts and consensus have been given, and while restraining them from delving into the fine details that lead to division and discord; for division and discord are among the gravest things that Allah and His Messenger have prohibited.
The brief elaboration (3) is this: Whoever believes that the ink in the muṣḥaf and the voices of human beings are eternal without beginning is misguided and in error, acting in opposition to the Book, the Sunnah, the consensus of the early generations, and all other Muslim scholars (4). No scholar of Islam has ever asserted that such things are eternal—neither among the followers of Aḥmad nor anyone else (5). Whoever attributes this view to any scholar from among the disciples of Imām Aḥmad is either mistaken in his transmission or deliberately lying. Rather, what is explicitly reported from Imām Aḥmad and the majority of his companions is their declaration of deviance (6) against anyone who says, “My articulation of the Quran is uncreated,” just as they branded as Jahmīs those who said, “The articulation of the Quran is created” (7).
(1) In the original: al-Masa’il. It is confirmed in S, T, and al-Majmū‘.
(2) In the original: al-Jumla. It is confirmed in S, T, and al-Majmū‘, where it reads: “wa-al-wājib amr al-‘āmma bi-l-jumal…”
(3) In S: al-mukhtaṣ.
(4) In S and T: al-Islām.
(5) In S and T: aṣḥāb al-imām.
(6) In S: bi-tabdī‘.
(7) In his Sharḥ I‘tiqād Ahl al-Sunnah wa-l-Jamā‘ah (vol. 2, p. 355), al-Lalaka’ī transmits from Muḥammad ibn Jarīr al-Ṭabarī, who said:
“As for the view that the expressions of the servants (alfāẓ al-‘ibād) are the Qur’ān, there is no known precedent from any Companion or early Successor, except from the author of al-Shifā’ and al-Ghinā’. Following him is guidance and true guidance, and whoever among us stands in the place of the earliest imams: Abū ‘Abd Allāh Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Ḥanbal. Abū Ismā‘īl al-Tirmidhī narrated to me that he heard Abū ‘Abd Allāh say: “Al-lafẓiyya are Jahmiyya.” Allah, Exalted, says: {ḥattā yasmaʿa kalām Allāh} (“until the Speech of God is heard”)—“Who then hears?” Ibn Jarīr added: “I also heard a group of our companions, whose names I do not recall, relate from him that he used to say: ‘Whoever says that the lafẓiyya in the Qur’ān are created is a Jahmī, and whoever says they are uncreated…’”