that both factions were following Ahmad. Ḥāfiẓ Abū al-Faḍl Muḥammad ibn Nāṣir (1)—a renowned scholar who lived in the time of the jurist Abū al-Ḥasan ibn al-Zāghūnī and in the same city—compiled a treatise that rejects the assertion of those who say, “The sound that is heard is the voice of Allah.” He disproved that claim by several (2) distinct arguments. His effort in that particular place and period was undertaken solely to repel this innovation and denounce it. He was one of the notable adherents of Imam Aḥmad and his circle of scholars, and among the most knowledgeable people of his age in ḥadith and tradition.

Seventy-seventh point: It has become well-known among the scholars of the ummah and its common folk alike that, in essence, these people are saying, “The Qur’an is not the speech of Allah.” That is exactly what the ummah at large has understood from them, for they state explicitly that Allah never spoke the letters of the Qur’an at all. By that admission they concede that half of what is called “the Qur’an”—its wording, composition, and letters—was not uttered by Allah, and therefore cannot be His speech. Even though some of their later members have said that these letters are, in truth, called “speech” (3), they face a dilemma: if they acknowledge that it is really the speech of Allah while maintaining that it is created in something other than Him, their very premise—through which they tried to invalidate the Muʿtazilite contention that speech, when it inheres