but that it is created, something He created in something other than Himself.

The majority of rational thinkers said: This position is self-evidently false. Sound reason plainly establishes that the meaning of the “Verse of the Throne” is not the meaning of the “Verse of Debt,” nor is the meaning of “Say, ‘He is Allah, the One’” the meaning of “May the hands of Abū Lahab perish, and may he perish!” What, then, of the meanings of all Allah’s speech in the revealed scriptures, His address to His angels, His calling His servants to account on the Day of Resurrection, and His other speech?

Others held that it consists of letters, or letters and sounds, eternal and beginningless, inseparable from His essence, which He has always possessed as attributes and always will.

Both groups say that Allah Most High does not speak by His will and power, and that He has always been and will always be saying, “O Noah! O Abraham! O you wrapped in garments! O you cloaked!” I have explained their positions at length elsewhere.

None of the early generations held either position. Nor did any of them say that this Quran is an expression of Allah’s speech or a reproduction of it. None of them said, “My utterance of the Quran is eternal or uncreated,” let alone, “My voice in reciting it is eternal or uncreated.” Rather, they affirmed what the Book and the Sunnah indicate: this Quran is the speech of Allah; people recite it with their own voices and write it with their own ink; what is between the two covers is the speech of Allah; and the speech of Allah is uncreated.

In the two Sahīh collections, it is reported that the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said:

“Do not travel