and our position concerning recitation and voice is consistent. When a reciter recites the Quran, one does not say, ‘This is Allah’s recitation,’ nor permit such a statement in any way. Rather, one attributes the recitation to the reciter by extension, because it is he who effects the change. One says only that the reciter’s recitation is Quran. This is established in revelation, as everyone agrees.

“For al-Ashʿarī, despite his disagreement with us, says, ‘What is heard from the reciter is Quran.’ We have explained that distinguishing between recitation and the Quran on the point at issue between us is impossible. Likewise, he says that the voice heard from someone reciting the Quran is both recitation and Quran. Revelation requires the position we have stated, and I know of no disagreement among Muslims concerning this.”

Section

As for Imam Ahmad’s explicit statements that “human speech is created” and that “the acts of servants are created,” these occur in many places, just as the other imams explicitly affirmed this. There is no disagreement among Ahl al-Sunnah on this matter.

Thus Yahyā ibn Saʿīd al-Qattān, Imam Ahmad’s teacher, said, “I have always heard our companions say, ‘The acts of servants are created.’” Imam Ahmad was asked, “Are the acts of servants created?” He replied, “Yes.” He explicitly affirmed this concerning human speech in the report transmitted by Ahmad ibn al-Hasan al-Tirmidhī, as will be discussed, and in his work refuting “the heretics and the Jahmiyyah,” which is