“What is eternal cannot consist of letters or sounds, because sound cannot persist, just as motion cannot persist. Whatever cannot persist is all the more incapable of being eternal in its individual instance. Thus, no particular sound can be eternal, just as no particular movement can be eternal. For these constitute speech only when they occur in succession, whereas what is eternal cannot be preceded by anything else. If the mīm in bism Allāh (‘In the name of Allah’) were eternal despite being preceded by the sīn and the bā’, then something eternal would be preceded by something else, which is impossible. It follows that only the meaning can be eternal. Nor can there be a plurality of such meanings, for restricting them to one number rather than another would amount to preferring one possibility without a determining factor. If, however, they were infinite, this would entail an infinite multitude existing at a single instant.”

They said: “This is impossible. It therefore follows that there is a single meaning which is both command and statement, and which is the meaning of the Torah, the Gospel, the Psalms, and the Quran.” This is the basis of the position of the Kullābiyya and the Ashʿariyya.

A group of theologians, hadith scholars, jurists, and others said: “Rather, it consists of letters whose individual instances are eternal: they have always existed and will always exist. Their order is intrinsic, not an order of coming into existence, like the letters found in a written copy of the Quran. It does not consist of eternal sounds.”

Some of them said: “Rather, it also consists of eternal sounds.” These did not distinguish between spoken letters, which can exist only in succession, and written letters, which exist at a single instant, as one distinguishes between sounds and ink. Sounds do not persist, whereas ink is a body that does persist. If a sound cannot persist, it is impossible