in a sense unknown in the language of the Arabs or any other people, whether literal or figurative. This is the position of those who say that the Quran is created, and it is one of the two views held by the Sabaeans who agree with the messengers that the world had a beginning. Although it constitutes disbelief in what the messengers brought, it is not equal in disbelief to the first view; for these people do not say that Allah intended to send a particular messenger and to send down to him this speech which He created. They denied that He speaks in the manner indicated by the divine scriptures and unanimously acknowledged by people of sound natural disposition.

Disagreement arose between these people, who are offshoots of the Sabaeans, and the believers who follow the messengers. These people rejected part of what the messengers brought concerning Allah’s speaking and addressing others. They differed over Allah’s Book, believing in some of it and disbelieving in some.

The believers, however, followed what had been sent down to them from their Lord: that Allah spoke the Quran, that He spoke directly to Moses, and that He speaks. They did not distort words from their proper places as the former group had done. Rather, they refuted those distortions through the insight afforded by faith, through which they understood what the messengers meant when conveying Allah’s message and His speech. They followed this Quran, the hadith, and the consensus of the early generations—the Companions and their successors—and all the other followers of the prophets. They knew that these people’s position was more vile than that of the Jews and Christians, to the point that Ibn al-Mubārak, the imam of the Muslims, used to say:

“We can indeed recount what the Jews and Christians say, but we cannot recount what the Jahmiyyah say.”