speech and the ability to benefit or harm. If each of the two is a deficiency, it is well known that they were led astray only by its lowing and the like. Yet Allah Most High argued against them on the grounds that it lacked speech and the ability to benefit or harm.

(The fifth argument): Nothing in the Quran indicates that its being a bodily form or its lowing is an attribute of deficiency. Rather, what the Quran indicates is that its failure to speak to them and its inability to benefit or harm them constitute a deficiency.

This is made clear by the fact that lowing is sound. A human being, too, produces sound—one says of a bull, “It lowed; it lows”—yet he speaks to others and may guide them to the way. Allah, glorified be He, made clear that the calf’s attributes fell short of those of a human being who speaks to others and guides them. Thus, the worshipper is more perfect than the object of worship.

This is further clarified by the fact that, had it spoken to them, it would also have produced sound. If sound had been mentioned to establish its deficiency, the argument conveyed by His words, Most High,

“Did they not see that it did not speak to them?”

would have been invalid. For had it spoken to them, it would only have done so through a sound they could hear from it. It is therefore clear that its producing sound was not mentioned because this was an attribute of deficiency. The same applies to the mention of its bodily form.

In short, whoever claims that the Quran identifies these two features as the fault for which Allah censured it and which He made evidence against its divinity has attributed to the Quran something it does not indicate. Indeed, it points more clearly to the opposite.