He replied—may Allah Most High have mercy on him:

Praise be to Allah, Lord of all creation.

If the man who swore this oath meant that people’s voices when reciting the Quran, and the ink with which its letters are written, are eternal and without beginning, then he has broken his oath. I know of no one who says this, although discussing the ink in the written Quran and the servant’s voice on their own may be disapproved of, lest this be used as a means of asserting that the Quran is created. Some people have discussed the servant’s voice, although we know that what we recite is truly Allah’s speech, not anyone else’s, and that what lies between the two covers is truly Allah’s speech. Yet I know of no one who has declared that the writing ink and the servant’s voice when reciting the Quran, taken together, are eternal.

However, those among the followers of desires whose hearts harbour deviation understand nothing from the words of Allah, His Messenger, the earliest forerunners, and those who followed them in righteousness concerning “Allah’s attributes” except meanings befitting created beings, not the Creator. Then, when they find such expressions in the words of Allah and His Messenger, they seek to distort the words from their proper places. If they find them in the words of those who follow the early generations, they fabricate lies against them and report their words according to their own false understanding, or add to their wording and alter it in both extent and character, as we hear from their tongues and see in their books.

Then someone who thinks well of these transmitters may attribute this doctrine to those to whom they ascribed it, censuring and debating someone who does not exist. His censure falls upon someone so described who does not