“The second group”

They conceded that speech can only consist of letters and sounds, but rejected the second premise: that letters and sounds can only be temporally originated.

One group said that what is brought into being is the same as what is temporally originated, whether it subsists independently or in something else, and that He speaks with speech that is not eternal and consists of letters and sounds. This is the position of those who say that the Quran is eternal and consists of letters and sounds, such as Abū al-Hasan ibn Sālim, his followers, the Sālimiyyah, and various groups who followed him. These people said concerning letters and sounds much the same as their predecessors said concerning meanings.

They said: “Speech without letters or sounds is inconceivable, and a single meaning that constitutes a command, a prohibition, and a statement is impossible according to sound reason. Whoever claims that the meaning of the Torah, the Gospel, and the Quran is one and the same, and that only the expressions conveying it differ, makes a claim whose falsity is self-evident, both rationally and according to revelation. Excluding letters from what the term ‘speech’ denotes is self-evidently erroneous in every language. If it is permissible to say that letters and sounds created in something else are literally Allah’s speech, then it would be possible for Him to have spoken to Moses with speech created in something other than Himself.”

They said to their brethren in the first group:

“If you say that speech is merely meaning