Dāwūd al-Hāshimī, the imam—a peer of Ahmad ibn Hanbal—concerning whom al-Shāfi'ī said, “I left no one in Baghdad more discerning than these two men: Ahmad ibn Hanbal and Sulaymān ibn Dāwūd al-Hāshimī”:

“Whoever says that the Quran is created must accept that Pharaoh’s utterance is Allah’s speech, for Allah created in Pharaoh his saying:

‘I am your lord most high.’

According to them, Allah created in the tree the words:

‘Indeed, I am Allah. There is no deity except Me, so worship Me.’

If this is His speech because He created it, then the other utterance is also His speech.”

The Ash'arīs and others among Ahl al-Sunnah refuted the claim of the Mu'tazilīs and Jahmīs that He created His speech in another by saying: Any accident Allah creates in another is an attribute of that other, and it is that locus which is characterized accordingly; it is not an attribute of Allah, as explained above. This is “a sound and cogent argument.”

However, the Ash'arīs did not apply it consistently. The Mu'tazilīs therefore gained an argumentative advantage over them: they describe Him as Creator, Provider, Giver of life, Bringer of death, just, and beneficent, without any of these meanings subsisting in Him; rather, they subsist in another. For according to them, creation is the created thing itself, and giving life is the existence of life in a living being, without any act subsisting in the Lord. Thus, they have described Him as the Giver of life on account of life existing in another, and likewise described Him as the Bringer of death. This is one of the objections the Mu'tazilīs raised against them, to which they gave no sound answer.

But “the Salaf and the majority” hold that the act also subsists in Him. This “principle” provides them with an argument against both groups. Both groups divide attributes into attributes of essence and attributes of action, or into attributes of essence, qualitative attributes, and attributes of action. This is a fallacy, for according to them no act subsists in Him, nor is there