the letters that Allah spoke. When they are written in ink, they are not created, although the ink is created. The forms of written letters vary according to the conventions of different peoples.
Arabic script is said to have originated in al-Anbār, from which it spread to Mecca and elsewhere. Arabic script varies in form: early Arabic script has a Kufic character, while later generations adopted changes to some of its letterforms. The people of the Maghrib have a third set of conventions, even in the placement of dots on letters and their alphabetical order. Allah’s speech written in these scripts, such as the Arabic Quran, does not itself vary with the different scripts in which it is written.
If it is asked:
“Is a letter, considered in itself, created or uncreated, irrespective of whether it occurs in the speech of the Creator or the speech of a creature? If you say that it is, in itself, uncreated, it follows that it is uncreated in the speech of His servants. If you say that it is created, it follows that it is created in Allah’s speech.”
The reply is:
To speak of “a letter considered in itself” is like speaking of “speech considered in itself,” “knowledge considered in itself,” “power considered in itself,” “existence considered in itself,” and so forth. The answer is that these things and others, when considered in absolute abstraction, without qualification or individuation, have no reality outside the mind