the verbal noun or the actual utterance and speech produced by that action. Thus, “recitation” and “reading” may refer to the Quran itself that is read and recited, just as they may refer to the action denoted by the verbal noun.

The point here is that when someone says, “These actions are Allah’s act,” or “They are the servant’s act,” if he means that they are Allah’s act in the sense denoted by the verbal noun, this is false by the consensus of the Muslims and according to clear reason. But if someone says that they are Allah’s act, meaning that they are produced and created by Allah, like all other created things, this is true.

Some who hold this view say that Allah has no act subsisting in Him. They therefore make no distinction between His act and what He produces, or between His act of creation and what He creates. The majority, however, who distinguish between these things, say: These actions are created and produced by Allah; they are not His act itself. As for the servant, they are his act, subsisting in him. They are also something he produces, if “act” is used to mean the thing produced.

Thus, when someone who does not distinguish, with respect to the Lord, Exalted is He, between the act and the thing produced says that these actions are Allah’s act, the expression “Allah’s act” has no two distinct meanings for him. Consequently, they cannot be the servant’s act, still less something produced by him. Some of these people say that they are an act of both the Lord and the servant, thereby affirming one effect produced by two agents.

Most of the Muʿtazilah agree with these people that the act of the Lord, Exalted is He, can mean only what He produces, although they distinguish, in the servant’s case, between the act and the thing produced. For this reason, the dispute became intense