“the Qur’an,” he meant the meaning alone, holding that the Qur’an’s meaning is simply knowledge and therefore part of Allah’s own knowledge, and that by “Qur’an” he did not intend the articulated letters and verbal expressions. Whoever thus reduces the whole Qur’an to nothing but “knowledge” is in error.
As for the one who claims that the verses Ahmad cited as proof merely signify knowledge—because they are all (1) instances of khabar (declarative statement), and the essence of a khabar is knowledge (2)—this view is closer to the first. If it were sound, it would imply that kalām (speech) may sometimes denote the inner meaning and at other times the articulated letters.
But to suggest that Ahmad held Allah does not speak with letters is flatly contrary to his own explicit statements. What might be said, rather, is that the Qur’an which is eternal and not contingent on His will is the meaning that Allah has called “knowledge,” and it is regarding this that whoever says it is created is declared a disbeliever.
Al-Khallal said in his work al-Sunnah (3): “The rebuttal of the misguided Jahmiyyah that Allah
By analogy, the Zahirite literalists have gone to extremes in denying the divine attributes and reducing them to mere knowledge, even though “knowledge” itself cannot be established as an attribute.
He says in al-Fasl (3/8): “We also say that the Quran is the speech of Allah, exalted be He, and it is His knowledge, and it is not something other than the Creator, exalted be He. The evidence for this is Allah’s words: {And if not for a word that preceded from your Lord to an appointed term, their affair would have been judged} [Quran 42:14]. And He said: {And the word of your Lord has been fulfilled with truth and justice; none can change His words} [Quran 6:115]. And every person of understanding knows with certainty that by ‘a word that preceded’ He meant His prior knowledge by which He executes and decrees.”
He also says on p. 9: “As for the knowledge of Allah, exalted be He, it has always existed, and it is the speech of Allah, exalted be He, and it is the Quran, and it is uncreated, and it is not other than Allah, exalted be He, at all. Whoever says that something besides Allah, exalted be He, has coexisted eternally with Allah, exalted be He, has made a partner with Allah, exalted be He.”
(1) The text enclosed in quotation marks is an addition found in manuscripts S and T.
(2) Same as note (1).
(3) I did not find this passage in Kitab al-Sunnah, “al-Musnad min Masa’il Abi Abdullah Ahmad ibn Hanbal,” due to the obscurity of some of its folios despite my efforts. The Shaykh—may God have mercy on him—mentions it in his book Dar’ Ta‘arud al-‘Aql wa al-Naql (vol. 2, p. 38).