That being so, the speaker who originates an utterance, whether verse or prose, is undoubtedly the one who has composed both its meanings and its wording. As for the individual “words and letters,” he has undoubtedly learned them from someone else, whether they are created or uncreated. For “languages” predate the speech and utterances of most human beings. They have received the words and the letters making up the words in their languages from their predecessors, until the chain reaches the first person to have spoken those individual words.
Moreover, it is self-evident and unanimously agreed upon by all the people of the earth that speech belongs to the one who composed its meanings and wording, even though he learned every word and letter it contains from someone else. Thus, people unanimously acknowledge that these poems are the speech of their composers, such as the poetry of Imru’ al-Qays and al-Nābigha al-Dhubyānī, including the line:
“Stop, you two; let us weep at the memory of a beloved and a dwelling.”
All nations know and say that this is the poetry and speech of Imru’ al-Qays, even though he learned its individual words from someone else. The Arabs had already used the expressions “Stop, you two,” “let us weep,” “at the memory of,” “a beloved,” and “and a dwelling” before him.
And when all Muslims hear his saying, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, “Only