created or uncreated. Some withhold judgment concerning forbidden deeds. Others say: “Rather, all the deeds of Allah’s servants are uncreated, or eternal.” Such a person says: “By deeds I do not mean bodily movements; rather, I mean the reward that will come on the Day of Resurrection.” He argues that divine decree is uncreated and divine legislation is uncreated, identifying the servants’ deeds with divine decree and legislation. He does not distinguish between the decree and what is decreed, or between legislation and what is prescribed. Divine legislation, meaning Allah’s commands and prohibitions, is uncreated; the deeds commanded or forbidden, however, are undoubtedly created. Likewise, divine decree, meaning His knowledge, will and speech, is uncreated; but the things decreed—lifespans, provisions and deeds—are all created. These views and their proponents have been discussed at length elsewhere.
The point here is that Imam Ahmad, the imams of the Sunnah who preceded him, and those who followed him are all free of these innovated doctrines that contradict revealed law and reason. None of them said that the Quran is eternal—whether as a meaning subsisting in the Divine Essence, or that He uttered it in pre-eternity with letters and sound, or that He uttered it in pre-eternity with eternal letters. None of them said any of these things. What they agreed upon is that Allah’s speech is revealed and uncreated, that Allah, exalted is He, has always spoken whenever He wills, and that His speech has no end. As Allah, exalted is He, says:
“Say, ‘If the sea were ink for the words of my Lord, the sea would be exhausted before the words of my Lord were exhausted.’”
It is eternal in the sense that Allah has always spoken by His will, not in the sense that any particular sound is eternal. Elsewhere I have discussed at length the differing views of the people of the earth concerning the speech of Allah, exalted is He. Some regard it as an emanation from the Active Intellect upon