and that the Verse of the Throne and the Verse of Debt have one and the same meaning, along with other implications that most rational people regard as self-evidently false.

Some of these people recognized that Allah spoke the Arabic Quran and the Hebrew Torah, that He called out to Moses with a voice and calls out to His servants with a voice, and that the Quran—both its letters and its meanings—is Allah’s speech. Yet they also believed that it is beginningless in its particular existence and that Allah did not speak by His will and power.

They therefore committed themselves to the view that it consists of letters and sounds whose individual existence is beginningless: they have always existed and always will. They said that the letter bā did not precede the sīn, nor did the sīn precede the mīm, and that all the letters coexist in a beginningless conjunction that has always existed and always will. They said, “They are ordered in their reality and essence, but not in their existence.”

Many of them also said that, despite this, they are one thing, along with other “implications” that most rational people regard as self-evidently false.

Some of these people say, “It is beginningless,” without understanding what “beginningless” means. When asked about this, they say, “They are beginningless in divine knowledge,” not realizing that created things, such as heaven and earth, are likewise so, despite being created. Others call it “ancient,” meaning that it precedes other things, without realizing that those who say it is created do not dispute its being ancient in this sense. Still others say, “By saying that it is beginningless, we mean that it is uncreated,” without understanding that, on this view, it is also eternal and has always existed. These people heard