People have disputed extensively concerning Allah’s speech. There are approximately six major groups. The view furthest removed from Islam is that of those philosophers and Sabians who say that Allah’s speech is merely what emanates into souls, whether from the Active Intellect or from something else. They say that Allah spoke to Moses only from the heaven of Moses’ own intellect—that is, through speech that arose within his soul, which he did not hear from outside himself.

The foundation of their position is that the celestial spheres are eternal and without beginning, and that Allah did not create them by His will and power in six days, as the prophets reported. Indeed, they say that Allah does not know particulars. When the prophets brought the astonishing things they brought, these people began interpreting them in ways that distorted words from their proper meanings, seeking to reconcile them with the doctrines of their heretical predecessors. Thus they made statements of this kind.

These people are more deeply immersed in disbelief than the Jews and Christians, and their contradictions are numerous. For example, they claim that an attribute is identical with the one it describes, and that one attribute is identical with another. They therefore say: He is intellect, the thinker, and the object of thought; the object of pleasure, the one who takes pleasure, and pleasure itself; the lover, the beloved, and love itself. They sometimes express this by saying that He is living, knowing, known, loving, and beloved. They say that knowledge itself is love itself and power itself; that knowledge itself is the knower himself; and that love itself is the beloved himself. They also say that He is a complete cause from eternity; hence its effect must accompany it in