and grant us a share of Your mercy and ample provision to sustain us in Your world, and sufficiency from Your bounty.”

I said: Understood in the sense explained above, this accords with his statement, “He speaks when He wills,” thus making speech dependent upon power and will. If, however, he takes “saying” here to mean the swiftness of bringing things into being, without actual speech, this runs contrary to the argument Ahmad advanced on this issue in his book al-Radd ‘alā al-Jahmiyyah (Refutation of the Jahmiyyah). For he cited this verse as evidence that speech does not depend upon a tongue or instruments.