[Al-Rāzī’s Position on the Quran and Allah’s Acts]

The point here is that Abū ‘Abd Allāh al-Rāzī, in most of his books, did not base his treatment of the Quran on al-Ash‘arī’s familiar approach: that speech cannot originate within Allah because He is not a locus for originated events. Having called this principle into question, he could not build his argument upon it. Instead, he established his position through a composite consensus, arguing that speech has a meaning distinct from knowledge and will, contrary to the Mu‘tazila and others like them.

If that is so, everyone who affirms this also maintains that speech is a single, beginningless meaning subsisting in Allah’s essence, exalted is He. To maintain otherwise would therefore contradict consensus.

This is the principal argument upon which he relied in Nihāyat al-‘Uqūl. It is weak, however, because there are numerous positions on this question besides those of the Mu‘tazila and the Kullābiyya.

One could have said to him: If it is established that nothing connected to Allah’s will and power can subsist in Him, then the familiar approach could establish that Allah’s speech is beginningless. For it would be impossible for Him to bring it into being as something subsisting either in Himself or in another locus; and if its originating within Himself is impossible, its beginninglessness necessarily follows.

If, however, this is not established, and something connected to His will and power can indeed subsist in Him, then the position of the Karrāmiyya remains possible here, as does that of the scholars of hadith, who maintain that theirs is the position of the early generations and the leading scholars. The position of the Kullābiyya would therefore not be the only possible conclusion.

In Nihāyat al-‘Uqūl, he thus presented the argument that he and others habitually mention: either speech means will and knowledge, or a request is distinct from will, and a mental judgment is distinct from knowledge.

The first alternative is false, because