Moreover, if it were indeed created, it would have to come into being within a locus, and that locus would necessarily precede it in existence—yet the outward sense of the Qur’an rejects this. For that reason Abū al-Hudhayl al-ʿAllāf asserted that it is created but exists in no locus at all.
As for the attributes and acts that inhere in the Lord—exalted is He—these are not among His created things, according to the majority who distinguish between “creating” (al-khalq) and “the created” (al-makhlūq). Whether they maintain that the very act of creating is eternal, or that it originates in time as a whole, or that its individual instances originate in time while its general kind is eternal, both of the latter positions make His creating contingent upon His will and power. For, in all of their statements, “His creating” refers to what He brings into existence, whereas what subsists in His Essence of His actions is not created—whether they say it depends on His will and power or declare it independent thereof.
Just as His words, “Allah is the Creator of all things” (Q 39:62), do not include the Creator Himself, they likewise do not encompass what is intrinsic to the very notion of the Creator: the attributes and actions that inhere in Him.
Those who cite this verse to prove that the Qur’an is uncreated divide into two opinions, and the controversy spans every school—among the followers of Aḥmad, al-Shāfiʿī, Mālik, and others. The first group holds that the specific utterance “Be” is eternal, whether in both word and meaning, as the Iqtirāniyyah claim, or in meaning alone without its wording, as the Ittiḥādiyyah assert. Their opponents press them with the divine statement, “that He says to it, ‘Be,’” pointing out that the imperfect verb denotes futurity, and with His words “and it is,” which necessitate that the thing come into existence immediately after His utterance “Be.”
As for those who say that He says “Be” by His power and will, and that He says, “Be”