and from the tone of their speech what they did not intend to disclose.

According to Muslims, Allah’s speaking cannot belong to this category—except in the view of the Qadariyya, who say that knowledge arising in a person may arise without Allah’s will.

The third degree is an indication intended by the one giving it. This includes conveying information without an audible address, as when someone sets up signs for another person to indicate what he wants, or through the gestures of someone unable to speak, and the like.

Allah Most High may impart knowledge to His servants through many kinds of evidence and means of communication. This is what the aforementioned writer affirmed. Yet this necessarily implies that everyone who learns anything has been spoken to by Allah, for He has set up evidence to make it known to that person; Allah knows it and has willed what took place.

Hence he said that what Allah imparts to scholars through demonstrative proofs may be a form of His speaking. Yet some people are conscious that Allah has guided them to this knowledge and taught it to them through the evidence He has established. Others may disregard this and consider only what led them to that knowledge. Such knowledge may also arise within a person without his knowing any particular evidence for it.

It is clear that treating Allah’s speech as consisting solely of this kind is an error. Indeed, this kind is not the revelation mentioned in the Quran, for that revelation conveys what one is commanded to do.