The misguidance of all these groups stems from their failure to distinguish what the word “this” refers to.

When you hear speech from its original speaker, you say: “This speech is truthful, true, and correct; it is the speech of a wise person.” Likewise, when you hear it from someone conveying it, you say: “This speech is truthful, true, and correct; it is the speech of a wise person.” What is referred to in both cases is one and the same.

You also say: “This is a beautiful voice, and these words come from the depths of the heart.” Then, when you hear it from the person conveying it, you say: “This is a beautiful voice,” or, “These words come from the depths of the heart.” Here, however, what is referred to in one case is not what is referred to in the other. Rather, in the first case the reference is to the original speaker’s own voice and heart, and in the second to the transmitter’s own voice and heart.

Similarly, when speech is written on two pages, as in two copies of the Quran, you say of each: “This is a noble Quran; this is a glorious Book; this is Allah’s speech.” What is referred to is one and the same. Then you say: “This is beautiful handwriting,” “This is naskh or thuluth script,” or, “This writing is red or yellow.” Here, what is referred to is what distinguishes each copy of the Quran from the other.

When a person distinguishes what “this” refers to in each instance, what is common and what is distinct become clear. He understands that when someone says, “This Quran is Allah’s speech, and Allah’s speech is uncreated,” the reference is to the speech itself, considered apart from the servants’ movements and voices through which it has reached us.

As for someone who says, “This is created,” referring solely to the servant’s voice and movement, this gives him no proof that the Quran itself—its letters and meanings, which this reciter learned from someone else and conveyed through his movement and voice—is created. Whoever believes that has erred and gone astray.