Thirtieth Point
(1) It is not permissible for you to relate of the Muʿtazilah that they declared the Quran to be created and the Speech of Allah to be created in the very way the Salaf and the leading scholars of ḥadith and sunnah have transmitted from them—and as the Muʿtazilah themselves openly affirm. Should you nevertheless report this from them, it is not lawful for you to censure them for it as the Salaf did; rather, you would have to praise them for it just as they praise themselves. Thus you are compelled either to oppose both the Salaf and the Muʿtazilah together, or to oppose the Salaf while siding with the Muʿtazilah.
(2) The reason is that what the Muʿtazilah pronounce to be created is exactly what you, too, pronounce to be created, and you deem this judgment obligatory. Whoever holds that it is uncreated, in your view, is misguided or even an unbeliever. (3) The Muʿtazilah nonetheless call it the Speech of Allah and say, “The Speech of Allah is created,” whereas the Salaf call it the Speech of Allah and maintain that it is uncreated. (4) As for you—while asserting that it is created—do you even allow it to be called the Speech of Allah
= (1) Now to a third position, which asserts the createdness (hudūth) of the letters and words, while affirming the eternality (qadīm) of the speech itself and the realities signified by the expressions.
The salaf (early generations) held to the eternality and everlastness of these words, without pursuing any attribute beyond them.
The Muʿtazila, by contrast, affirmed the createdness and origination (khuluq) of these letters and sounds, likewise without addressing any further reality behind them.
Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī then formulated a third stance, declaring the letters created—in so doing breaking consensus—and ruled that what we recite as kalām Allāh (the Speech of God) is metaphorical rather than real, which amounts to pure innovation.
See: Muḥaṣil Afkār al-Mutaqaddimīn wa-al-Mutaʾakhkhirīn by al-Rāzī, p. 174, where he explains that only the proponents of this view ascribed intrinsic (dhātī) existence to meaning.
Footnotes:
(1) In the original reading: taḥakkamū (“they ruled”), a scribal error; the corrected reading is confirmed by manuscripts S and Ṭ.
(2) The variant kadhā (“thus”) appears in all copies—a linguistic mistake; the correct term is dhammuhum (“they censured them”).
(3) In manuscripts S and Ṭ the phrase reads yaqūlūna (“they say”).
(4) The word kalām is repeated in manuscript S.