Since the Ashʿarīs stipulated without qualification that speech must subsist in the speaker, they denied without qualification that the speaker produces speech. Since the Muʿtazilah stipulated without qualification that the speaker must produce speech, they denied inner speech.

Each group’s position contains some truth and some falsehood, as has become clear to you from our explanation.”

The reply to him is:

What you have stated is neither the position of the Ashʿarīs nor that of the Muʿtazilah, nor a combination of the two. Rather, it is the position of the philosophers and the Sabians, who are worse than the Jews and Christians.

For although the Muʿtazilah say that speech is produced by the Lord, they do not regard it as something originated within the speaker himself. Rather, they say that it is produced in a body separate from the listener and is one of the signs Allah creates. If anyone professed your view, the Muʿtazilah would declare him an unbeliever.

As for the Ashʿarīs, although they say that speech is a meaning subsisting within the speaker himself, they do not regard it as mere knowledge. Rather, in their view, speech is an attribute distinct from both knowledge and will, and speech may be either a statement or a command.

Although others have disagreed with them over this notion, saying that nothing can be conceived other than knowledge