may Allah bless him and grant him peace, uttered its wording, arrangement, and meaning, speaking it in letters and sounds, even though the narrators’ voices are not the voice of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace—then the Quran, when people recite and convey it through their voices and actions, has all the more right to be called the speech of Allah, even though they have not heard it from Allah, but from created beings.

It should also be understood that the statement of Allah, His Messenger, and the believers, “This is the speech of Allah,” is true. Indeed, people’s statement concerning speech conveyed from created beings, “This is so-and-so’s speech,” is likewise true, as everyone agrees.

However, confusion arose among many of those given to hair-splitting. They failed to distinguish between hearing speech from the one who uttered it and hearing it from someone else. Thus, they thought that His saying:

“Grant him protection so that he may hear the speech of Allah”

meant hearing Allah’s speech in the same way that Moses heard it.

One group therefore said: “What is heard is the voices of Allah’s servants. Allah’s speech is not the voices of His servants, so what is heard cannot be Allah’s speech.”

Another group said: “Rather, this is Allah’s speech, and this is created; therefore, Allah’s speech is created.”

Yet another group said: “Rather, this is Allah’s speech, and Allah’s speech is uncreated; therefore, this is uncreated.”