is the One who spoke it and sent it down. He thus made it an Arabic Quran through an act subsisting in Him: He spoke it and chose to speak it in Arabic—rather than any other language—and sent it down in that language.
For this reason, Ahmad said that making, on Allah’s part, may be creation or may be something other than creation. Making is an act, and an act may extend to an object distinct from the agent, as with creation. An act may also be intransitive; even if it takes an object in grammatical usage, its object subsists in the act itself, as with speaking. Speaking is an act that subsists in the speaker, and speech itself also subsists in the speaker. Thus He, glorified is He, made it an Arabic Quran: the making subsists in Him, and the Arabic Quran subsists in Him.
“Speech” encompasses two things: the act of speaking, and the ordered letters and sounds produced by that act. Hence utterance is sometimes treated as a kind of action, and sometimes as a category distinct from action. These matters have been explained at length elsewhere. And Allah knows best.
I have mentioned elsewhere that whenever anyone adduces evidence from revelation or reason in support of falsehood, that very evidence—when given its due, and when what it establishes is distinguished from what it does not—proves to demonstrate the falsity of the position of the person invoking it. It proves instead to be evidence for the people of truth. Sound evidence can establish only truth, and truth does not contradict itself; rather, its parts confirm one another. And Allah knows best.
The Sixth Question:
His perpetual possession of power, without beginning or end. For He has power and never