and they vilify anyone who declares others to be disbelievers, saying, “What we say is exactly what the Kharijites said.”

Abū ʿAbd Allāh then smiled, as though irritated, and remarked, “These are an evil people.”
He next said to ʿAbbās, “That Sijistānī you have down in Basra—that vile fellow—I have been informed that he too has put something forward on this matter, saying, ‘I do not say “created” nor “uncreated.”’ He is a wretch, that cross-eyed man.”

ʿAbbās replied, “At one time he voiced Jahm’s doctrine, but he has now come to this position.”
Abū ʿAbd Allāh said, “I had not heard until this very moment that he ever espoused Jahm’s view.”

Thus Imām Aḥmad’s statement—“If they claim that the Quran is created, they have claimed that the names of Allah are created and that the knowledge of Allah is created”—makes clear (1) that the knowledge contained in the Quran is included within the very term “Quran.” We have already pointed out that every true utterance rests, at its root, on knowledge. Although feelings such as love and hatred may be joined to that knowledge—for speech consists of khabar (informative statement) (2) and ṭalab (request)—the meaning of a truthful report is undeniably knowledge, and even a directive such as a command or prohibition is preceded by a conceptualization of the addressee, the act commanded, and so on; knowledge, therefore, is likewise its basis. The designation “Quran,” as well as the word “speech,” embraces all of this.

Consequently, the assertion “The Quran is created” entails that the knowledge of Allah is created. Likewise, Allah’s names are found within the Quran; so whoever says that it is created—understanding the created element to be the sound that inheres (3) in some body—is really claiming that this body is the one that bestowed those names upon Allah, and that before the existence of that body and its voice, Allah had no name at all. Rather, that body would have fabricated those names for Him.