“The Quran comes in the form of a pale young man. Its companion comes, and it says, ‘Do you recognize me?’ He asks, ‘Who are you?’ It replies, ‘I am the Quran that made you thirsty by day and kept you awake at night.’ He said: ‘Then Allah brings him forward, and he says, “My Lord!”’”

They therefore claimed that the Quran is created. We replied to them: The Quran does not come; the meaning is illustrated by the report:

“Whoever recites ‘Say: He is Allah, the One’ will receive such-and-such.”

Do you not see that when someone recites “Say: He is Allah, the One,” it does not come to him? Rather, its reward comes. For we recite the Quran and say that it does not come or change from one state to another.

Ahmad thus explained that it is the reward that comes, and that this is the created result of the deed. What, then, of the punishment for deeds, which changes from one state to another? If this is the reward for “Say: He is Allah, the One,” and thus the reward for the Quran, what, then, of the reward for anything else?

As for the argument that deeds are Allah’s decree, the response is this: The term “decree” can mean either the act of decreeing or what is decreed. If you mean that people’s deeds are Allah’s very act of decreeing—which is His knowledge, speech, will, and other such attributes—then this is mistaken and false. People’s deeds are not any of Allah Most High’s attributes. But if you mean that they are decreed—that Allah Most High has decreed them—then this is true. They are decreed, just as all other created things are decreed. It is established in the Sahīh:

“Allah decreed the destinies of all creatures fifty thousand years before He created the heavens and the earth.”

All those things decreed are created.