by his own statement: he claimed that He speaks with created letters and sounds, then argued for this on grounds implying that He speaks, but not with created speech. This involves obfuscation. We do not say that He spoke to Moses with eternal speech or with created speech. Rather, glorified is He, He speaks when He wills and remains silent when He wills, just as He, glorified and exalted, created the heavens and the earth in six days, then rose over the Throne; turned to the heaven while it was smoke; and comes in canopies of clouds, together with the angels. As He said:

‘And your Lord comes, and the angels, rank upon rank.’

And He said:

‘Are they waiting for anything but that the angels should come to them, or your Lord should come, or some of your Lord’s signs should come?’

And He, exalted is He, said:

‘His command, when He wills a thing, is only to say to it, “Be,” and it is.’

And He, exalted is He, said:

‘And say, “Do deeds; Allah will see your deeds, as will His Messenger and the believers.”’

There are many similar passages in the Quran and hadith. Allah, glorified is He, makes clear that, when He wills, He does what He has described concerning His speaking and His acts that subsist in Him. What subsists in Him is His speech, not the speech of another. Nothing created subsists in the Creator, nor is the Lord a locus for created things. Rather, whatever He wills of His words and acts subsists in Him, glorified is He, and none of this is created. Only that which is separate from Him is created.

Allah’s speech is from Allah; it is not separate from Him. Hence the early generations said:

‘The Quran is the speech of Allah, uncreated; from Him it originated