‘Is there a man who will take me to his people so that I may convey the speech of my Lord? For Quraysh have prevented me from conveying the speech of my Lord.’”

When Abū Bakr al-Siddīq recited to them,

“Alif Lām Mīm. The Romans have been defeated,”

they asked him, “Is this your speech or your companion’s speech?”

He replied, “It is neither my speech nor my companion’s speech; rather, it is the speech of Allah Most High.”

When people convey the speech of the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—such as his saying,

“Actions are only according to intentions,”

the hadith they hear is the Prophet’s hadith—may Allah bless him and grant him peace. He spoke it in his own voice, with its letters and meanings, while the narrator conveys it from him in his own voice, not the Prophet’s voice—may Allah bless him and grant him peace. All the more, then, the Quran remains Allah’s speech when the messengers convey it from Him and people recite it in their own voices.

Allah spoke the Quran, with its letters and meanings, in His own voice, and He called to Moses in His own voice, as established by the Book, the Sunnah, and the consensus of the early generations. The servant’s voice is neither the Lord’s voice nor like His voice, for nothing is like Allah—in His essence, His attributes, or His actions.

The imams of Islam—Ahmad and the imams before him—explicitly affirmed what the Book and the Sunnah declare: that Allah calls with a voice; that the Quran is His speech, which He spoke with letters and sound, no part of it being the speech of anyone else, whether Gabriel or another; and that His servants recite it with their own voices and through their own actions. Thus, the voice heard from the servant