that is invalid, as has been explained at length elsewhere. The arrangement in the Quranic codex is an arrangement of letters written in ink. Ink is corporeal, so its arrangement resembles that of the parts of a house or a human being: the first part exists alongside the second. Sound is different: its second part does not exist until the first has ceased to exist, just as with motion. Drawing an analogy between the two is therefore invalid.
Some of these people use the term “eternal” without understanding its meaning. Others say that by “eternal” they mean that it originated from Allah and is uncreated. This meaning is correct. However, those who disputed whether it is eternal did not intend this meaning. Anyone who tells them that it is eternal, intending this meaning, intends something correct, but is ignorant of what people mean, misleads those he addresses with these words, and introduces innovations into both religious law and language.
Many of these people then say that the eternal letters and sounds are neither the sounds heard from reciters nor the ink in the Quranic codex. Others say, rather, that the sounds heard from reciters are the eternal sound. Still others say that two things are heard from the reciter: the eternal sound, which is indispensable to the existence of speech, and the newly produced sound, which is whatever exceeds that.
These people say that the ink in the Quranic codex is created, but that the eternal letters are not the ink; rather, they are the shapes and dimensions made visible by the ink. These may also be engraved in stone or cut into paper. Some of them forbid saying of the ink that it is eternal or