“And the Prophet (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) would present himself to the people, saying: ‘Is there no man who will take me to his people so that I may convey the speech of my Lord?’”

The Prophet (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) also said:

“Beautify the Quran with your voices.”

And he said:

“Allah listens more attentively to a man who beautifies his voice in reciting the Quran than the owner of a singing girl listens to her.”

Thus, Allah and His Messenger have made clear that the Quran which is heard is Allah’s speech, not the speech of any created being, and that people recite it in their own voices. Whoever says that this Quran which is heard is not Allah’s speech, or that it is the speech of its reciters, makes a claim whose falsity is self-evident, both according to revelation and to reason. Likewise, whoever says that this audible voice is not the servant’s voice, or that it is Allah’s voice, makes a claim whose falsity is self-evident, both according to revelation and to reason. Rather, this is Allah’s speech and no one else’s. Gabriel heard it from Allah, the Prophet (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) heard it from Gabriel, and the Muslims heard it from their Prophet. They then conveyed it to one another. None of these intermediaries has any role in it beyond conveying it through his own actions and voice. None of them originated any of its letters, its arrangement, or its meanings; rather, all of that is the speech of Allah Most High.

The fifth position:

The position of the Hishāmiyyah, the Karrāmiyyah, and those who agree with them is that Allah’s speech originates in time and subsists in His essence, after He had previously not spoken at all. Rather, they hold that He has always been capable of speech. In their view, He has always been speaking only in the sense that He has always been capable of speech. Apart from this sense, they hold that the existence of speech in pre-eternity is impossible, just as the existence of