Whoever studies the works of the dialectical theologians who oppose this view will discover that, for the most part—or perhaps in every single instance (1)—they engage only with this very position, even though we know of no one who has ever actually held it.

Now, if the intention of the one who swears an oath is that the Qur’an sent down by Allah to Muhammad—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—is precisely these one hundred and fourteen surahs, together with their letters and their meanings; that the Qur’an is not letters without meanings, nor meanings without letters, but rather the totality (2) of both letters and meanings; and that our recitation of its letters and our grasp of its meanings does not prevent those letters and meanings from having existed before we ourselves existed—then this is the doctrine of the Muslims, and his oath is not broken.

Likewise, if his purpose is to affirm that this very Qur’an which Muslims recite and record in their muṣḥafs is, in truth and not by metaphor, the speech of Allah—exalted is He—and that it is impermissible to deny that it is Allah’s speech (for speech is ascribed in reality to the one who originates and is characterised by it, even if another conveys and transmits it; it is speech that belongs to the originator, not to the transmitter (3)), then we know—by the undeniable testimony of the religion of the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and the religion of the early generations of this ummah—that were someone to say, “These letters—the letters of the Qur’an—are not part of the Qur’an; rather, ‘the Qur’an’ is a name for meanings alone,” they would repudiate him in the strongest possible terms, and he would, in their estimation, be on a par with one who says, “The body of the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace—"