Shaykh Abū al-Hasan Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Malik al-Karajī recorded in his book, Al-Fusūl fī al-Usūl (Chapters on the Foundations), that he heard Imam Abū Mansūr Muhammad ibn Ahmad say:

“I heard Abū Hāmid al-Isfarāyīnī say: ‘My position, and that of al-Shāfiʿī and the jurists of the various lands, is that the Quran is Allah’s speech, uncreated. Whoever says that it is created is a disbeliever. Gabriel conveyed the Quran, having heard it from Allah; the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, heard it from Gabriel; and the Companions heard it from the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace. It is what we recite with our tongues, what lies between the two covers, and what is in our hearts—heard, written, and memorized. Every letter of it, such as bā and tā, is Allah’s speech, uncreated. Whoever says that it is created is a disbeliever; upon him be the curses of Allah and all mankind.’”

A group of hadith scholars and those who affiliated themselves with the Sunnah disputed whether uttering the Quran could be described as created. When discussion of this arose, the leading scholars of the Sunnah, such as Ahmad ibn Hanbal and others, rejected both statements: “My utterance of the Quran is created” and “My utterance of the Quran is uncreated.” They said: “Whoever says it is created is a Jahmī, and whoever says it is uncreated is an innovator.”

As for a person’s voice, they did not dispute that it is created. Someone who conveys another person’s speech in the original speaker’s wording merely conveys it to someone else—as when one says, “He narrated the hadith in its original wording.” He conveys it in his own voice, not in the voice of the original speaker.

“Utterance” (lafz) is originally the verbal noun of lafaza, yalfizu, lafzan (“to utter”); likewise, “recitation”