As for the claim that He created it as something subsisting independently, this too is plainly false, because attributes do not subsist independently. Yet the Jahmiyya say that He created knowledge without a locus in which it subsists. The Basran Mu‘tazila say that He created will and power without a locus, while a group among them say that He created through one act of creation after another, without a locus. These and similar assertions are known to be false by clear reason.

As for the first possibility—that He, glorified be He, created it within Himself—Abd al-Azīz also refuted it. However, what is within Allah Most High may be understood in two ways.

The first is to say that, by His power, He brought speech into being within Himself after He had not been speaking. This is the position of the Karrāmiyya and others who say that Allah’s speech arises and is brought into being within the Essence of Allah Most High; that Allah began to speak after not speaking at all; and that it is impossible to say of Him that He has always been speaking. This is among the views rejected by Imam Ahmad and others.

The second is to say that Allah has always spoken whenever He wills, as the leading scholars stated. Neither of these two groups says, “What is within Allah Himself is created.” Rather, in their view, anything created must be separate from Allah Most High Himself, while His acts and attributes that subsist in Him are not created.

There is no doubt that Bishr and others who maintained that the Quran was created said that He created it separate from Himself, just as He created other created things. As for the Lord’s act of creation itself