is the act of making something a name for something else. It is the verbal noun in sammaytuhu tasmiyatan (“I named it”), used when you give something a name. A “name” is an utterance that signifies the thing named. The word ism (“name”) is not itself the thing named, though the thing named may be intended by it, because it conveys a judgment concerning that thing and points to it.

Moreover, they went to these strained lengths in order to say that Allah’s name is uncreated, meaning that Allah is uncreated. Yet this is something that neither the Jahmiyyah nor the Mu‘tazilah dispute. For the former said that names were created only when these people said that they were acts of naming. Thus, they agreed with the Jahmiyyah and the Mu‘tazilah in meaning, and with Ahl al-Sunnah in wording. By that wording, however, they intended something no one before them had asserted: that the word ism, spelled “alif–sīn–mīm,” means, when used without qualification, the very essence of the thing named. Rather, this word means the utterances that serve as names for things, such as Zayd, ‘Amr, “learned,” and “ignorant.” The word “name” does not indicate that these names are themselves the thing named.

It is also well known that when a name occurs within connected speech, what is intended is the thing named. Hence, when someone asks, “What is this person’s name?” the answer is “Zayd.” The answer is given with the utterance. One does not answer the question “What is this person’s name?” by saying, “He is himself.” The examples they cited are, in fact, evidence against them.

As for His words:

“We give you glad tidings of a boy whose name will be John; We have never given this name to anyone before,”

followed by His words:

“O John,”

the name Yahyā (John) is this utterance, composed of the letters (yā’, hā’, and yā’). This is his name; his name is not his very self. To claim otherwise is sheer obstinacy.

Then, when He addressed him, saying:

“O John,”

the intention in calling out the name was to address the person named, not the utterance. But a speaker cannot address the person being called except by mentioning his name and calling it out; so he understands