This position agrees with that of the Mu'tazilah and others like them in affirming that the Arabic Quran is created, as is the Hebrew Torah, but differs from it in two respects.

First: The former say that what is created is Allah’s speech, whereas the latter say that it is not Allah’s speech, but is called His speech only figuratively. This is the position of their leading authorities and the majority of them. A group of their later scholars, however, said that the word “speech” applies to both in distinct senses. Yet this undermines their foundational argument denying that speech can subsist in anyone other than its speaker. Despite this, they do not say that what is created is literally Allah’s speech, as the Mu'tazilah do, although they say that it is His speech in a literal sense. Rather, they regard the Arabic Quran as the speech of someone other than Allah, and as speech in the literal sense. This is worse than the position of the Mu'tazilah and is, in reality, the position of the Jahmiyyah. In this respect, the position of the Mu'tazilah is closer to the truth, while that of the others is the position of the Jahmiyyah in its pure form. Nevertheless, the Mu'tazilah agree with them in substance and dispute with them only over wording.

Second: These people say that Allah has speech consisting of an eternal meaning subsisting in His essence, whereas those who hold His speech to be created say that no speech subsists in His essence. In this respect, the Kullābiyyah are outwardly better than those who hold His speech to be created. Most people, however, say that, upon examination, the proponents of this position have not truly affirmed any speech for Him apart from created speech. For they say that it is a single meaning that is at once command, prohibition, and statement: if it is expressed in Arabic