says, “The term ‘speech’ applies to both this and that as a shared designation,” thereby invalidates his argument against the Mu‘tazilah. For the argument rests on the principle that if He creates speech in a locus, that speech is an attribute of that locus. Thus, if the Arabic Quran were speech created in a locus, that locus would be what speaks it, and it would not be Allah’s speech.

For this reason, some said, “It is called speech only figuratively,” seeking to avoid affirming real speech subsisting in something other than its speaker. But when people vehemently denounced this position, and since linguistic usage makes it self-evident that this is literally called speech, those seeking to defend them tried to treat the term ‘speech’ as a shared designation. They thereby undermined the very principle on which they had founded their position.

By denying this principle, those among the Mu‘tazilah, the Shī‘ah, the Khawārij, and others who maintain that the Quran is created gained the upper hand against them. For when followers of Ibn Kullāb’s approach debated these groups—an approach whose substance is that Allah has no power to speak, does not speak whatever He wills, and does not speak by His own choice and will—their opponents became emboldened against them. Most people know that a speaker speaks by his own will and choice, has the power to speak, and speaks whatever he wills.

Yet the source of both groups’ confusion is their shared assumption that nothing can subsist in Him that comes about