His speech. For when an attribute or act subsists in something, the corresponding description applies to that thing, not to another. Thus, if He creates knowledge, power, or speech in a locus, it is an attribute of the locus in which He creates it. That locus is therefore what knows, has power, and speaks. If He creates speech in a locus, that created speech is the speech of that locus, not His speech.
Thus, if He creates in the tree the words:
“Indeed, I am Allah, Lord of the worlds.”
(al-Qasas: 30)
while no speech subsists in Him, those words would be the tree’s speech. The tree would then be the one saying:
“Indeed, I am Allah, Lord of the worlds.”
This is false; speech must therefore subsist in Him. Moreover, to hold that He is unable to speak and does not speak what He wills, but that speech is inseparable from Him just as life is—and that His addressing others consists merely in creating perception—implies that one who is capable of speech and speaks by choice is more perfect than He. For if we present to reason one who speaks by his own choice and power, and another whose speech occurs without his choice and power, the first is more perfect. It must therefore be affirmed that He speaks by His power and will, with speech that subsists in His essence.
The same applies to His coming, His arrival, His rising above, and the like. If we suppose these to be things separate from Him, it follows that He cannot be described by them. If we suppose them to be inseparable from His essence, without occurring by His will and power, it follows that He is incapable and that another is more perfect than He. He must therefore be described as having the power to perform these acts that subsist in Him, which He performs by His will and power.
This is what the negators mean when they say, “Temporally originated events do not inhere in Him,” just as they mean to negate knowledge, power, and similar attributes when they say, “Accidents do not inhere in Him.”
Furthermore, the same grounds on which the attributes subsisting in Him are established also establish the acts subsisting in Him