and others whose number none but Allah can count.
As for the second innovation concerning the revealed Quran—that relating to people’s recitation of it, known as the “Lafziyyah controversy”—the imams of their time condemned the innovation of the Lafziyyah, who say that reciting, reading, and uttering the Quran are created. They counted them among the Jahmiyyah and explained that their position entails saying that the Quran is created. In many of their statements, they declared them disbelievers.
The same applies to those who say that this Quran is not Allah’s speech, but merely a representation or expression of His speech; or that it is present in written copies of the Quran and in people’s hearts only as Allah and His Messenger are present in those copies and hearts; and similar claims. This condemnation is recorded from Imam Ahmad, Ishāq, Abū ‘Ubayd, Abū Mus‘ab al-Zuhrī, Abū Thawr, Abū al-Walīd al-Jārūdī, Muhammad ibn Bashshār, Ya‘qūb ibn Ibrāhīm al-Dawraqī, Muhammad ibn Yahyā ibn Abī ‘Amr al-‘Adanī, Muhammad ibn Yahyā al-Dhuhlī, Muhammad ibn Aslam al-Tūsī, and so many other imams and guides of Islam that none but Allah can count them.
Likewise, the innovation of the “affirming Lafziyyah”—those who say that people’s utterance of the Quran, or their voices when reciting it, are uncreated, or that recitation, which is the person’s own act and voice, is uncreated—was condemned by the imams who had heard of this