the revealed scriptures. The Arabs likewise used these letters and names before the Quran was revealed, and Allah Most High revealed it in the language they had spoken before its revelation.

The second point:

Even if no one had uttered these letters except by learning them from Allah’s speech, when someone uses them to compose speech of his own, without intending to recite Allah’s speech, they are not, in that instance, part of Allah’s speech. The same applies when someone does this with complete sentences—and applies all the more clearly here. The rulings of Islamic law support this.

The other group—those who maintain that the letters of the alphabet are uncreated without qualification—said: “We have two views concerning names found outside the Quran.” Some of them hold that all names are uncreated, just as they maintain concerning letters. Others do not hold this view. Ibn Hāmid and others have reported both views from those affiliated with the school of Imam Ahmad and from others who maintain that the letters of the alphabet are uncreated. Those who extend this position to all names cite the words of Allah Most High:

“And He taught Adam the names—all of them.”

This argument rests on two premises. (The first is that languages originated through divine instruction, and that this instruction means Allah addressing people in those languages, rather than His imparting direct, non-inferential knowledge of them. This question has been disputed among the followers of Imam Ahmad, other jurists, and scholars of hadith and usūl (foundational disciplines).