will they ever cease to subsist in His essence. The call that Moses heard is eternal and beginningless; it has always existed and will remain forever.

Others say that the individual letters are eternal, but not the sounds. All these groups maintain that speaking and calling amount merely to creating perception in a creature, enabling him to hear what has always existed and will remain forever. They do not mean that Allah then utters speech by His will and power, or that an act of addressing someone takes place. Rather, in their view, His addressing someone means enabling the servant to hear what existed before he heard it. This is comparable to enabling a blind person to see what existed before he saw it, without bringing into existence anything external to the blind person. Thus, according to them, when Moses came at the time appointed by his Lord, he heard the eternal call; he was not called at that moment.

For this reason, they say that He makes His speech heard by His creatures, rather than saying, as people do, that He speaks to His creatures. These people refute those who maintain that the Quran is created, and describe themselves as the people of the Sunnah who agree with the early generations, who said that the Quran is the speech of Allah, uncreated. Yet their position is not that of the early generations. Their position is, however, closer to that of the early generations in one respect, while the position of those who maintain that it is created is closer in another respect.

Their position is closer because they affirm that Allah has speech subsisting in His own essence, and this is the position of the early generations. By contrast, those who maintain that His speech is created say that His speech is nothing other than what He creates in something other than Himself. Their position therefore contradicts that of the early generations. As for why the position of