He said:

“Allah has clarified this point in His Book, leaving no room for ambiguity, when He said:

‘And when your Lord called Moses’ (al-Shu‘arā’: 10).

The Arabs know no calling except by sound, and Moses has been reported as confirming this. If they deny the plain meaning, they commit disbelief. If they say, ‘Calling is not sound,’ they contradict Arabic usage. If they say, ‘The ruler called out’—meaning that he ordered someone else to call out—they negate the distinction unique to Moses, peace be upon him: that Allah spoke to him without an intermediary or interpreter. Sound proceeding from Allah Most High does not imply any likeness to creatures from whom sound proceeds, just as affirming speech for Him does not imply any likeness to His creatures who speak. How could it, when, according to al-Ash‘arī, both His speech and that of His creatures are a meaning subsisting in the speaker’s essence, with no difference between them? Thus, it is he who necessarily likens Allah to His creation.”

He said:

“As for us, we say that Allah’s speech consists of letters and sound, on the authority of the revealed text.”

He said:

“This is not through a bodily organ or instrument. Our speech consists of letters and sounds, which we can produce only through an instrument. Allah, glorified and exalted be He, speaks whatever He wills; no one thing distracts Him from another. A speaker among us can utter two letters only by finishing one before beginning the other. Since the Quran is Allah’s speech, it is inimitable, whereas the speech of created beings is not. Allah’s speech contains an exposition of what has been and what will be