speech occurs only through the speaker’s power and will, and that speech inseparably bound to the speaker’s essence is inconceivable. For if it is held to be a single meaning, this defies reason; the same applies if it is held to consist of beginningless sounds. They then supposed that whatever comes about through the Lord’s power and will must be separate from Him, and that whatever is separate from Him is created. For this reason, they denied that He comes, arrives, descends, or does other things mentioned in the Book and the Sunnah.

Others agreed with them on this principle they had introduced: that nothing dependent upon His will and power subsists in Him. Yet they held that speech which does not subsist in the speaker cannot be his speech. They therefore said that His speech subsists in Him.

Then “one group” considered beginningless sounds impossible, so they held that what was beginningless was the meaning. They then considered a plurality of beginningless meanings impossible, and held that it would entail the existence of an infinite number of meanings. They therefore said that it was a single meaning.

“Another group” considered it impossible for diverse meanings to be a single meaning. They also held that to say that the Lord did not utter the letters of the Quran, but instead created them in something other than Himself, was to agree with those who held that speech does not subsist in the speaker. For if they say that those letters arranged in sequence—as in the Arabic Quran—are Allah’s speech, it necessarily follows that His speech does not subsist in Him, but in something other than Him. If they say that they are not Allah’s speech, it necessarily follows that they are the speech of whatever they were created in. Thus, the Arabic speech would not be Allah’s speech, but the speech of whatever it was created in. And this