is the speech of the Creator, while the voice is the reciter’s voice. This is why Imam Ahmad, when Abū Tālib recited to him, “Say, ‘He is Allah, One,’” told him, “This is uncreated.” Abū Tālib then reported that Ahmad had said, “My utterance of the Quran is uncreated.” Ahmad asked him, “Did I tell you, ‘My utterance is uncreated’?” He replied, “No. But I recited to you, ‘Say, “He is Allah, One,”’ and you said, ‘This is uncreated.’”

Ahmad thus clarified the difference between saying, “This speech is uncreated,” and saying, “This speaker’s utterance is uncreated.” The expression “my utterance” is ambiguous: it encompasses both the speaker’s action and his voice. Thus, saying, “My utterance, recitation, or reading is uncreated,” or, “It is the very thing recited,” suggests that the servant’s action and voice are eternal, and that the meaning and sound subsisting in him are identical to the meaning and sound subsisting in Allah.

Conversely, saying, “My utterance of the Quran, my recitation of the Quran, the utterance of the Quran, or its recitation is created,” or, “The recitation is other than what is recited,” or, “The reading is other than what is read,” implies that the letters of the Quran are in no respect part of Allah’s speech, and that half of the Quran is Allah’s speech while the other half is someone else’s speech. It also implies that Allah’s reading of the Quran is separate from what He reads, and His recitation of the Quran is separate from what He recites; likewise, that the servant’s reading of the Quran is separate from what he reads, and his recitation of it is separate from what he recites.

It further implies that what has been sent down to us is not Allah’s speech. For what is read and recited is Allah’s speech, and, according to these people, difference entails separation. Whatever is separate from His speech cannot be speech of His; thus, what He has sent down would not be His speech.