and that He calls His servants in His own voice. They also agree that the voices heard from reciters are the voices of the servants, and that neither the servants’ voices nor the ink in copies of the Quran is beginningless. Rather, the Quran is written in Muslims’ copies, recited by their tongues, and preserved in their hearts, and it is all Allah’s speech.

When the Companions wrote copies of the Quran, they wrote them without vowel marks or dots, because they were Arabs who made no grammatical errors. When such errors arose, people added dots and vowel marks to the copies. Writing them without vowel marks or dots is permissible; writing them with dots and vowel marks is also permissible and is not disliked according to the stronger of the scholars’ two opinions. This is also one of the two positions reported from Ahmad.

“Dots and vowel marks” have the same ruling as the letters: vowel marks indicate the Quran’s grammatical inflections, just as dots distinguish its letters. The ink used to write the letters, vowel marks, and dots is created. But Allah’s Arabic speech, which He revealed and which is written in copies of the Quran, with or without vowel marks and dots, is not created. Grammatical inflections have the same ruling as the letters, but they do not stand independently; rather, they depend on the written letters. There is therefore no need to isolate the two and discuss them separately. Rather, the Quran that Muslims recite is Allah’s speech—its meanings, letters, and grammatical inflections. Allah spoke the Arabic Quran that He revealed to Muhammad—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—and people recite it through their own actions and voices.

What is written in Muslims’ copies of the Quran is Allah’s speech. It is the Arabic Quran that He revealed to His Prophet, whether it is written