He said to it, “Write.”
It replied, “What shall I write?”
He said, “Write everything that will occur until the Day of Resurrection.”

Several chains from Ibn ʿAbbās likewise report that the first thing Allah created was the Pen; these are the narrations acknowledged by the hadith scholars. As for the report that says, “The first thing Allah created was the Intellect; He said to it, ‘Come forward,’ so it came forward,” it is fabricated. Even supposing it were authentic, its wording is merely, “When He first created something He said to it…,” and nowhere in the knowledge transmitted from the prophets—neither from our Prophet nor from any other—does it state that the Intellect was the first of created beings, as the philosophers claim and as some theologians, mystics, and others have adopted from them.

Whoever alleges that the Intellect is called a “pen” because it inscribes knowledge upon the tablet of the soul, and therefore calls the soul a “Tablet,” must first realize that it is self-evident this terminology is not part of the Arabic language, nor has any Qur’an or hadith exegete ever used it. Then it may be said: