something created and separate from Him. He, glorified be He, speaks by His will and power. His speech subsists in His essence; it is not something created and separate from Him. He speaks by His will and power. None of the early generations of this community said that Allah’s speech is created and separate from Him. Nor did any of them say that the Quran, the Torah, or the Gospel is inseparably inherent in His essence for all eternity, while He is unable to speak by His will and power. Nor did they say that His actual calling to Moses, or a particular word itself, is eternal and without beginning. Rather, they said that Allah has always spoken whenever He wills. His speech is therefore eternal in the sense that He has always spoken whenever He wills.

Allah’s words have no end, as He Most High says:

“Say, ‘If the sea were ink for the words of my Lord, the sea would be exhausted before the words of my Lord were exhausted, even if We brought another like it as a supplement.’”

Allah, glorified be He, spoke the Quran in Arabic and the Torah in Hebrew. The Arabic Quran is thus Allah’s speech, as He Most High says:

“So when you recite the Quran, seek refuge in Allah from Satan, the accursed,”

through to His words:

“a clear Arabic tongue.”

He, glorified be He, has thus explained that the Quran—in which He replaces one verse with another—was brought down in truth from Allah by the Holy Spirit, who is Gabriel. He is also the Trustworthy Spirit, as Allah mentions elsewhere. He then explained that some of the disbelievers said:

“It is only a human being who teaches him.”

Some of the polytheists claimed that a non-Arab man in Mecca was teaching him. So He Most High said:

“The tongue of the one to whom they allude is foreign,”

meaning that the one to whom they attribute this teaching is a non-Arab,

“while this is a clear Arabic tongue.”