even though the voice of the person conveying it is not the Messenger’s voice. All the more, then, the Quran is Allah’s speech, in both its wording and its meaning; when reciters recite it, they do so in their own voices.

For this reason, Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal and other imams of the Sunnah used to say:

“Whoever says, ‘Utterance of the Quran is created,’ or ‘My utterance of the Quran is created,’ is a Jahmī; and whoever says that it is uncreated is an innovator.”

In some reports from him, the wording is:

“Whoever says, ‘My utterance of the Quran is created,’ meaning the Quran itself, is a Jahmī.”

This is because “utterance” can mean the act of uttering, as expressed by the verbal noun of the verb “to utter.” What it denotes in this sense is the servant’s action, and the servant’s action is created. But “utterance” can also mean the words that the speaker utters. Those are Allah’s speech, not the reciter’s speech. Whoever says that they are created has thereby said that Allah did not speak this Quran and that what Muslims recite is not Allah’s speech. It is well known that this contradicts what is necessarily known to be part of the Messenger’s religion.

As for the servant’s voice, it is created. Ahmad and others explicitly stated that the voice heard is the servant’s voice. Ahmad never said:

“Whoever says, ‘My voice when reciting the Quran is created,’ is a Jahmī.”

Rather, he said, “Whoever says, ‘My utterance of the Quran…’” The distinction between the wording of a statement and the voice of the person conveying it is clear. Anyone who conveys another person’s speech in that person’s own wording conveys the other person’s wording, not his own. Yet he conveys it in his own voice, not the other person’s voice.

Since the terms “utterance,” “recitation,” “reading,” “writing,” and the like can refer to the action denoted by the verbal noun, namely the movements of