“Until, when fear is removed from their hearts, they say, ‘What has your Lord said?’ They say, ‘The truth.’ And He is the Most High, the Most Great.”
He cited evidence that Allah speaks with a voice. That is the extent of the point. Just as this is the recognized position among the “people of the Sunnah and hadith,” it is also the position of the great majority of the Muslim community’s groups. Most of these “groups” affirm that Allah speaks with a voice, despite their disagreement over whether His speech is created or subsists in Him; whether it is eternal or originated in time; or whether He has always spoken whenever He wills.
This is the position of the Muʿtazilah, the Karrāmiyyah, the Shīʿah, most of the Murjiʾah, the Sālimiyyah, and others among the Hanafīs, Mālikīs, Shāfiʿīs, Hanbalīs, and Sufis.
Among the Muslim groups, none denied that Allah speaks with a voice except Ibn Kullāb and his followers. Likewise, none maintained that speech is a single meaning subsisting in the speaker except him and his followers. Nor did any Muslim group maintain that people’s voices when reciting the Quran are eternal and beginningless, that an eternal voice is heard from people, or that we ourselves hear “the Quran” from Allah, except a small group claiming affiliation with the people of hadith among the followers of al-Shāfiʿī, Ahmad, Dāwūd, and others.
No Muslim maintains that the written letter formed by the ink in copies of the Quran is eternal and beginningless. Thus, affirming “letters and voice” in the sense that the ink and people’s voices are eternal is a false innovation that none of the imams espoused. Likewise, denying that Allah speaks with a voice and treating His speech as a single meaning subsisting within Him is a false innovation that none of the early generations or the imams espoused. What the “early generations and the imams” agreed upon is that the Quran is Allah’s speech, sent down and uncreated