Others said: “Rather, Ahmad said this to hold them to the implications of their own argument.” His point was:

“If He has spoken of Himself as coming, and this does not prove that He is created—rather, you have interpreted it to mean that His command comes—then likewise say that the reward of the Quran comes, not that the Quran itself comes. Such an interpretation is even more compelling here, since the purpose here is to speak of the reward of the Quran’s reciter, and his reward is a deed of his. The intention was not to speak of the Quran itself. Thus, if the Lord has spoken of His own coming and you have interpreted this as referring to His command, then when He speaks of the coming of the Quran’s recitation, you have all the more reason to interpret it as the coming of its reward.”

If Ahmad said this to hold them to the implications of their own argument, it does not follow that he agreed with them on it. Nor does he need to commit himself to this interpretation. This hadith has many parallels concerning the coming of people’s deeds. What is meant is the coming of the reciter’s recitation, which is his deed; people’s deeds are created, and their reward is created.

For this reason, Ahmad and other early scholars said that it is the reward of the Quran that comes. Reward pertains only to people’s deeds, not to the Lord’s attributes and acts.

A “third group” of Ahmad’s followers held that Ahmad did say this at that time, and they treated it as an opinion transmitted from him. Those among them who favor figurative interpretation—such as Ibn ‘Aqīl, Ibn al-Jawzī, and others—then make this their principal support. Abū al-Faraj ibn al-Jawzī even cites it in his Quran commentary without mentioning the statements of Ahmad and the early scholars that contradict it.