the manner in which Zayd speaks—that is, by saying, “O John,” then, when He has finished, moving on to say, “Hold firmly to the Scripture,” so that it comes into existence in that sequence. Rather, He—glorified and exalted—speaks it in a manner that our organs of speech cannot reproduce. Thus, the resemblance you mentioned in someone’s saying, “O John, hold to the Scripture,” is a resemblance between recitation and speech that is brought into being. It does not resemble the speech subsisting in His Essence.

Ibn Aqīl said:

They objected: “This is inconsistent with your position, for you hold that the recitation is itself what is recited, and the reading is itself what is read.”

The reply was:

When we say that it is what is recited, we do not mean these segmented sounds. Rather, we mean the eternal letters that become manifest in sounds brought into being. Their manifestation in what is brought into being necessarily gives them the characteristic of segmentation, owing to variations in breathing and the movement of the uvulas. For the instrument through which they become manifest can convey speech only in segmented form. The Creator’s speech subsists in His Essence, unlike this segmentation, beginning, ending, repetition, coming after, and coming before. Whoever maintains this has not understood the definition of the eternal, and has claimed that accidents are eternal and that the eternal undergoes segmentation. Yet segmentation of the eternal is an accident, which cannot subsist in anything eternal. Whoever believes that Allah’s speech subsisting in His Essence follows the pattern of a reciter’s recitation—with its separating and joining, drawing together and spacing apart, coming after and coming before—has likened Allah to His creation. Hence it is related in a report:

“The Children of Israel asked Moses, ‘How did you hear your Lord’s speech?’ He replied, ‘Like thunder that does not reverberate.’”

“Reverberate” here means “become interrupted,” because there are no interruptions for breath, nor any breath, vocal organs, or lips