letters and sounds. Their fundamental premise is that these sounds, with their segmentation and succession, have existed from eternity, subsisting in the essence of the Creator, Most High. Their doctrinal principles rest on rejecting what is self-evident.”

Thus, of the positions of the Mu‘tazila, the Kullābiyya, and the Karrāmiyya, Abū al-Ma‘ālī mentioned only this one.

It is well known that no rational person who understands what he is saying would hold this position. We know of no Muslim recognized for his learning who held it; we have neither seen it in any Muslim writings nor heard it from Ahmad among their number.

We have never heard anyone say, or seen in anyone’s book, that newly originated ink became eternal, or that the ink used to write the Quran is eternal. Rather, we have found that writers among Ahmad’s followers and others generally reject this position and accuse those who attribute it to some of them of lying.

Abū al-Ma‘ālī and others like him are above deliberately lying. A reported position, however, may have been heard from someone who did not grasp it accurately. The speaker himself may not have formulated their position precisely, but may instead offer an ambiguous statement encompassing two contradictory meanings, without distinguishing the implications of one from those of the other. The reporter then presents it in detail rather than preserving the speaker’s ambiguity. In doing so, he mentions the implications of only one meaning, omitting what opposes and contradicts them, even though the statement encompasses both contradictory meanings or admits both interpretations. The reporter may also present the position in terms of implications that the speaker himself never accepted.

Not everyone who states a position accepts its implications. Indeed, most people do not accept the implications of their own positions. Thus, the reporter treats what