nor did they give striving against the enemy of Allah and His Messenger its due. Allah Most High has said:

“The believers are only those who have believed in Allah and His Messenger, then have not doubted, and have striven” (The verse, al-Hujurāt: 15).

Yet they claim to possess greater knowledge and faith, a firmer grasp of the fundamentals of religion, and greater zeal in striving against its enemies through arguments than the Companions. In this, they are no different from certain kings who did not strive against the enemy, but merely seized some of their lands, and did not administer among the Muslims the justice Allah prescribed for His servants—if one of them were to claim that he was more firmly established in power and more just than ʿUmar ibn al-Khattāb and his companions, may Allah be pleased with them.

[Various views concerning the speech of Allah Most High]

As a result, they became divided over the fundamentals of their religion, as illustrated by their disagreement concerning Allah’s speech, whether the Quran or otherwise. They split into factions over it. One faction said, “It is created.” What their position really means is that Allah did not speak it, as their predecessors used to say. The Muʿtazilah, however, came to use the wording that Allah truly speaks, while meaning precisely what was meant by those who said, “Allah has not spoken and does not speak.” As Ahmad mentioned, they sometimes deny speech, and sometimes say, “He speaks with created speech,” which amounts to the same thing as the first position.

In reality, this is a rejection of the messengers as liars, for what they conveyed to the nations was the speech of Allah that He had sent down to them.

Then the philosophers who held that the world is eternal likewise said, “He speaks, and His speech is what emanates from the active intellect into the souls of the prophets.”