the argument would not even stand; how much more so when the verified Salafi consensus is squarely against him.

Third Point:
The man (1) openly concedes that there is no disagreement between him and the Muʿtazilah concerning the meaning of created speech in the sense asserted by the Muʿtazilah. The dispute, he says, is merely verbal: the Muʿtazilah label that created entity “the speech of Allah,” whereas he and his cohort refuse to call it the speech of Allah.

Yet it is absolutely self-evident that when the Jahmiyyah—whether they belonged to the Muʿtazilah or to other factions—innovated the claim that “the Quran is created,” or that “the speech of Allah is created,” the early generations and the leading scholars of this Ummah rose up against them. They declared, “The Quran is the speech of Allah, uncreated; from Him it emanated and to Him it shall return.” Had the thing that the Muʿtazilah described as created truly been created in their sight as well, and had their only divergence been over whether to designate it the speech of Allah or not, such a massive conflict and such sweeping declarations of unbelief would never have erupted over a purely verbal quarrel.

Indeed, he himself maintains that the matter is minor, unworthy of protracted treatment, for it is a linguistic investigation, not a question of substantive intelligibles. If, then, the Muʿtazilah differed from others only in a linguistic usage, they ought not to have been anathematized, declared deviant, and boycotted on that account—just as he and his followers do not brand them deviant over their figurative interpretations even though they dispute the wording. A mere verbal disagreement is neither disbelief nor misguidance in the religion.

Fourth Point:
He has treated lightly the inquiry into what is meant by the term “speaker,” asserting that it does not merit extended discussion because it is a linguistic issue. This is the height of ignorance regarding the very foundations of this