created.” Nor should one say without qualification that recitation is identical to what is recited, or that it is distinct from what is recited. The terms “utterance” and “speech” may encompass both. Thus, speech is sometimes treated as a category alongside action, rather than as part of it, as in Allah’s words:

“To Him ascends good speech, and righteous deeds raise it up.”

At other times, speech is included within action, as in His words:

“So by your Lord, We will surely question them all about what they used to do.”

A group of the early Muslims explained that this refers to saying, “There is no god worthy of worship but Allah.” Another example is the Prophet’s statement (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) in an authentic hadith:

“Envy is warranted only in two cases: a man whom Allah has granted the Quran, who recites it throughout the night and day, whereupon another man says, ‘If I had been given what this man has, I would do as he does.’”

For this reason, Ahmad’s followers differed over whether someone who swore not to perform any action that day would break his oath by speaking. There are two opinions, both mentioned by al-Qādī Abū Yaʿlā and others.

The “Lafziyyah who affirmed createdness” did not deny that the Quran—its letters and meanings—is Allah’s speech, or that Allah speaks with a voice. Indeed, they might say that the entire Quran, its letters and meanings, is Allah’s speech, for Allah speaks with a voice, as Ahmad, al-Bukhārī, and other leading authorities explicitly affirmed, and as the transmitted reports attest. Yet they say that the letters and meanings sent down to earth are not the very speech of Allah, which is uncreated. They may instead call them a reproduction of Allah’s speech, as Ibn Kullāb does, or an expression of Allah’s speech, as al-Ashʿarī does. They may also call them Allah’s speech, since the intended meaning is understood among them.