But when Abū Muhammad ibn Kullāb emerged and debated the Muʿtazilah using a method of logical inference, he conceded premises that they themselves had devised: that Allah Most High cannot speak in letters, and that “volitional attributes”—actions, speech, and other things connected to His will and power—cannot subsist in His essence. Their reasoning was that this would entail that He had not been free of originated events, and whatever is not free of originated events is itself originated. These concessions compelled him to say that Allah’s speech is nothing but meaning alone, and that letters are not part of Allah’s speech.

Abū al-Hasan al-Ashʿarī followed him in this, although they disagreed over whether the Lord had been commanding and prohibiting from eternity or came to command and prohibit after not having done so. They also disagreed over whether “speech” is one attribute, as al-Ashʿarī maintained, or five attributes, as Ibn Kullāb maintained.

These men thus differed from the leading authorities of the Sunnah and hadith in two respects. (The first is that, in their view, half of the Quran is Allah’s speech, while the other half is not Allah’s speech. Rather, Allah created it in the air or in the Preserved Tablet, or Gabriel or Muhammad—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—brought it into being.

By holding that half of the Quran is created, these men agree with those who maintain that it is created. Yet these say that this created half is Allah’s speech, while those say that it is created, separate from Allah, and is His speech. Those, however, do not affirm that Allah has any speech connected to Him and subsisting in His own being—neither meanings nor letters. These, on the other hand, say that Allah has speech subsisting in Him