people’s words and actions are uncreated. Yahyā ibn Sa‘īd said:
“I have always heard our companions say that people’s actions are created.”
Some of these scholars said:
“Whoever says that this is uncreated is like someone who says that Allah’s heaven and earth are uncreated.”
“Recitation,” “reading,” and “utterance” may also mean the Quran itself, which Allah sent down to His Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, and which is Allah’s speech. Whoever says that Allah’s speech, which He sent down to His Prophet, is created is a Jahmī. Hence Ahmad and others among the early generations said:
“The Quran is Allah’s speech and is uncreated, however it is conveyed.”
None of the early generations or the imams said that people’s voices when reciting the Quran are uncreated or eternal. Nor did any of them say that the ink with which the Quran is written is eternal or uncreated. Whoever says that any of people’s voices, actions, movements, or ink is eternal or uncreated is therefore a misguided innovator who contradicts the consensus of the early generations and the imams. Ahmad ibn Hanbal declared even those whose position was less objectionable than theirs to be innovators, and instructed that they be shunned if they did not abandon their innovation.
People have fallen into great confusion over “the question of the Quran,” to the point that some have said, “The question of divine speech has bewildered human minds.” Most of them have in view one aspect of