[Continuation of Ibn Rushd’s discussion of the attribute of speech and Ibn Taymiyyah’s response]

Ibn Rushd said:

“Some of Allah’s speech may be what He conveys, through demonstrations, to the scholars who are the heirs of the prophets. It is on this basis that scholars have established that the Quran is Allah’s speech.

“I mean that the Quran contains demonstrations beyond the capacity of human reason, so their author must necessarily be Allah.

“Anyone who examines a demonstration knows with certainty that its author is one who speaks.”

I say:

He bases this on his earlier contention that addressing someone is nothing more than imparting knowledge. Thus, whatever a scholar comes to know through proof belongs to this same category. This is among the things that reveal his error, for it is self-evident that Allah’s speaking to His prophets through revelation exclusive to them is something scholars do not experience. The substance of his statement about the Quran is that it contains demonstrations beyond the capacity of human reason, and therefore, he claims, it must be something produced by Allah.

He and the Mu‘tazilah say that it is something produced, which Allah brought into being in something separate from both the Messenger and Gabriel. These people, however, hold that it can only be brought into being within the soul of the Messenger or of Gabriel—that is, according to those who concede that Gabriel is an angel distinct from the Prophet and subsisting in his own right. Only those among them who are closer to Islam say this. Their leading authorities do not say it; they recognize no Gabriel other than what exists within the Prophet’s soul by way of imagination, or