by most of them against anyone who said, “My utterance of the Quran is created,” because this may include his own action.

Third: The recitation that proceeds audibly from a person following the movement of the verse. Some describe this as created. The first to say this—as far as we have learned—were Husayn al-Karābīsī, his pupil Dāwūd al-Asbahānī, and a group of others. The scholars of the Sunnah at that time rejected their position and spoke very sternly against them. Most of them—those whom the early generations called the Lafziyyah—say, “Our utterance of the Quran is created,” or, “The Quran as uttered by us is created,” and similar statements.

Many scholars of hadith and the Sunnah opposed them, saying, “Our utterance of the Quran is uncreated.” The settled position expressed in the statements of Imam Ahmad and the scholars of his generation was that whoever says, “My utterance of the Quran is created,” is a Jahmī, while whoever says it is uncreated is an innovator. The correct position, according to the overwhelming majority of the people of the Sunnah, is that neither statement should be made without qualification. This was the position of Imam Ahmad and the majority of the early generations, because either unqualified statement can convey an erroneous meaning.

People’s voices unquestionably originate in time, although some who defended the Sunnah denied that the sound heard from a person reciting the Quran was created—the sound corresponding to the amount of the Quran being conveyed. The majority of the people of the Sunnah rejected and censured this, following the approach of Ahmad