and took possession of them, they called Him Owner; and when He did something, they called Him Doer. He likewise said, ‘Some of them have a beginning, while others are eternal.’ Before creation, however, according to their claim, Allah had no name and was like an unknown thing, neither recognized nor known for what it was, until He created. They then devised His names. According to their claim, Allah knew no names for Himself until He created the creatures, who then lent Him these names, without Allah Himself uttering any of them and saying:

‘I am Allah, Lord of the worlds’ [al-Qasas 30], and ‘I am the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful,’ and ‘I am the Accepter of Repentance, the Most Merciful’ (160) [al-Baqarah 160].

Thus they denied all of this of Allah Most High, along with denying His speech. Jahm went so far as to claim that the central point of his test was the denial of Allah’s speech. He said, ‘Once we deny Him speech, we have denied Him all the attributes—a self, two hands, a face, hearing, and sight—for speech belongs only to one who has a self, a face, a hand, hearing, and sight. Nor can speech be affirmed of any speaker except one in whom all these attributes are combined.’

Jahm and his followers lied in denying Him speech, but spoke the truth in claiming that speech cannot be affirmed