together with their attributes and speech, belong to Allah,’ then this is an absurdity beyond which there is no greater absurdity, quite apart from its being disbelief. For Allah, Mighty and Majestic, has not attributed any speech to Himself as His own except the Quran and what He revealed to His messengers. If you carry your assertion through and commit yourselves to it, you must call poetry, all singing and wailing, and the speech of wild beasts, livestock, and birds Allah’s speech. Those who pray do not disagree that this is false and impossible.

What distinction, then, does the Quran have in your view over singing, wailing, and poetry, if you claim that all of it is Allah’s speech? How, then, was the Quran singled out as Allah’s speech, while each utterance was attributed to its speaker? It is sufficient evidence of a people’s misguidance that they advance a claim whose falsehood and impossibility those who affirm Allah’s oneness do not doubt.

What further demonstrates the falsehood and impossibility of your claim, and strengthens the faith and conviction of those who believe in Allah’s speech, is that Allah has distinguished between the messengers to whom He spoke in this world and those to whom He did not, and between those of His creation to whom He will speak in the Hereafter and those to whom He will not. He said:

“Of those messengers, We have favored some over others. Among them were those to whom Allah spoke, and He raised some of them in rank.”

(Al-Baqarah: 253)

He thus distinguished between those whom He singled out by speaking to them and those to whom He did not speak. Then He named Moses as one of those to whom Allah spoke, saying:

“And Allah spoke to Moses directly.”

(Al-Nisā’: 164)

Thus, if He did not speak to him Himself except according to the interpretation of what