such as Dāwūd ibn Alī al-Asbahānī—the founder of the school. However, Ahmad is reported to have denounced this, and his denunciation may be cited in support of one of the two views held by our companions.
Al-Marwadhī reported that Abū Abd Allāh said:
“Who is Dāwūd ibn Alī al-Asbahānī? May Allah grant him no relief! I received a letter from Muhammad ibn Yahyā al-Naysābūrī stating that Dāwūd al-Asbahānī had falsely declared that the Quran is newly originated.”
Abū Bakr al-Khallāl recorded this report in his Book of the Sunnah.
Abd Allāh ibn Ahmad said: “Dāwūd sought permission to visit my father, who said, ‘Who is this? Dāwūd? May Allah’s love never mend his heart, and may Allah fill his grave with worms!’ He subsequently died infested with worms.”
Unqualified expressions may suggest something other than the intended meaning. One should therefore say:
“If, by ‘newly originated,’ you mean that it is something created and separate from Allah, as the Jahmiyya, Mu'tazila and Najjāriyya maintain, then this is false, and we do not affirm it. But if you mean that it is speech which Allah uttered by His will after not having uttered that particular speech—although He had uttered other speech before it, and has always spoken whenever He wills—then we do affirm this.”
This is what the Quran and Sunnah indicate, and it is the position of the early generations and the hadith scholars. The opposing position was an innovation introduced by the Kullābiyya and Ash'ariyya. Those who affirm the former position, however, hold two views.
The first is that He began speaking after not having spoken, although He had been capable of speech—just as He created the heavens and the earth after not having created them, although He had been capable of creating them. This is the position of the Karrāmiyya and others who say that newly occurring events come to subsist in Him after not having subsisted in Him. The statement that His speech is ‘newly originated’ can bear this meaning, and Ahmad’s denunciation can be understood as directed at it.