the possibility of possessing attributes of perfection, and the lack of any capacity for them, constitute an even greater affliction, defect, and deficiency. Glory be to Allah! Exalted is He, far above what the wrongdoers say.

The Eighth Argument

It may be said:

“Allah’s speech” is either something created and separate from Him, with no speech subsisting in His essence—as the Jahmiyyah, including the Muʿtazilah and others, maintain—or His speech subsists in Him. The first possibility is false by the consensus of the early generations of the Muslim community, its leading scholars, and all Ahl al-Sunnah wa-l-Jamāʿah. There is abundant scriptural and rational evidence of its falsehood, as has been explained at length elsewhere.

If His speech subsists in Him, there are only two possibilities: either meaning alone subsists in Him, as Ibn Kullāb and his followers maintain, or both meaning and letters subsist in Him. The first possibility is false.

First, “a single meaning” cannot constitute command, prohibition, and statement, nor can it be what is signified by the Torah, the Gospel, and the Quran.

Second, abstract meaning cannot be heard, whereas scriptural texts and consensus establish that Allah’s speech is heard from Him, as Moses son of ʿImrān heard it. For this reason, the more rigorous proponents of the view that speech consists solely of meaning maintain that it cannot be heard. However, “a group among them” claimed that it can be heard, basing this on their view that hearing can apprehend anything that exists, that sight can apprehend anything that exists, and that smell, taste, and touch can apprehend anything that exists. Most rational thinkers hold that the falsehood of this is rationally self-evident. This is one of the points for which the majority most strongly criticized Abū al-Hasan al-Ashʿarī and those who agreed with him among the followers of Ahmad and others.