speech other than this, just as the Muslims unanimously agree that this is Allah’s speech. Indeed, all nations agree that speech can only be understood in this way.”
If you say, “This is Allah’s speech,” you must accept that His speech is created. If you say, “That is not Allah’s speech,” you contradict what is necessarily known from revelation and language. If you say, “We call both this and that Allah’s speech, both literally, with the same expression bearing different meanings,” you are told:
“Once it is established that speech created in something other than Him is literally His speech, the very foundation of your argument collapses—for you argued that speech belongs only to the one in whom it subsists, and that a speaker cannot be a speaker through speech that resides in someone else.”
They also say to you: “To establish the meaning you affirm as distinct from these letters and sounds, you must first establish its existence, then its beginninglessness, then its temporal origination. At each of these stages, you are unable to sustain your argument, as has been explained at length in its proper place and acknowledged by leading proponents of this position.”
The “second group” says to you: “We concede that letters and sounds originate in time, but we say that they are Allah’s speech, subsisting in His essence.” If you say, “This entails that He is a locus for things that originate in time,” they say to you:
“This very argument is one you adopted from the Muʿtazilah, and you have no proof for it, whether rational or scriptural.