the view of al-Ashʿarī, Ibn al-Bāqillānī, and a number of other scholars.
Others have said that the preference concerns the reward and recompense attached to a passage rather than the passage itself; this was the position of a group of scholars, among them Ibn Ḥibbān (1).
Still others maintained that the preference rests on two considerations (2):
- It is the very speech of Allah.
- It contains meanings of varying rank; whatever affirms pure monotheism and declares Allah’s transcendence is greater than what merely reports the stories of earlier communities or mentions Abu Lahab and the like.
This was the view of Isḥāq and many other scholars and theologians, and it is the sound opinion supported by authentic textual proofs.
The second virtue is that nothing comparable to it has ever been revealed in the Quran, the Torah, or the Gospel. ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd ibn Jaʿfar narrated from al-ʿAlāʾ ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, from his father, from Abū Hurayrah, from Ubayy ibn Kaʿb, that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: “Allah has not sent down in the Torah or the Gospel anything like the Mother of the Quran; it is the Seven Oft-Repeated Verses.” This was recorded by ʿAbd-Allah ibn