“This is Labīd’s poetry and Labīd’s speech,” they do not mean that the reciter’s voice is Labīd’s voice. Rather, they mean that this composition—both its wording and its meaning—is Labīd’s, while this person is reciting it.

Thus, whoever says, “This Quran is created,” or, “The revealed Quran is created,” or uses similar expressions, is like someone who says, “This speech is not Allah’s speech” ن. He is also like someone who says of a hadith heard from its narrator, “These are not the words of the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, did not speak this hadith”; or someone who says, “This poetry is not Labīd’s poetry, and Labīd did not speak it.” It is well known that all of this is false.

Then these people began saying, “This revealed Quran that is heard is the recitation and reading of the Quran, and the recitation of the Quran is created, and the reading of the Quran is created.”

They also say, “Our recitation of the Quran is created, and our reading of it is created,” including within this the very speech that is heard. And they say, “Our utterance of the Quran is created,” including within this the Quran itself as uttered, recited, and heard.

Imam Ahmad and other imams of the Sunnah rejected this, saying, “The Lafziyyah are Jahmiyyah.” They also said, “The Jahmiyyah split into three groups: one group said, ‘The Quran is created’; another said, ‘We withhold judgment, saying neither that it is created nor that it is uncreated’; and another said, ‘The recitation of the Quran and the utterance of the Quran are created.’”