is it like other forms in their substantial matter. Rather, it is a reality in its own right, and not every reality has a counterpart matching it in every respect.

When people say, “This is Labīd’s poetry,” they refer to both its wording and its meaning. Yet if someone were to say, “I originated the wording of this poetry,” or “This wording is my own composition,” or “My utterance of this poetry is my own creation,” everyone would declare him a liar and say to him:

“Rather, you transmitted it and recited it. But to claim that you originated its wording, that it came into being last night through your uttering it, or that your utterance of it came into being last night—that is false. The wording of this poetry has existed for a very long time, even though you have delivered it through your movements and your voice. Movement and sound are natural phenomena that you share with living beings, both speaking and speechless. You therefore have no share in it insofar as it is speech, nor insofar as it is that poet’s speech; for its being speech, or the speech of a particular speaker, belongs exclusively to that speaker. You have merely delivered it by means of an instrument that you share with speechless animals and inanimate objects.

“Yet praise belongs to Allah, who has granted you reason and discernment by which you find your way and direct your tongue, while He has not granted this to speechless animals. He has thus made your actions and qualities help you understand speech and speak it, without making the actions and qualities of speechless animals do likewise.”

If this holds for a created being conveying the speech of another created being like himself, then what of the speech of the Creator—exalted is His majesty—whose superiority over all other speech is like Allah’s superiority over His creation?