is one of His attributes.

These thinkers say:

Allah’s attributes are all fully perfect, reaching the utmost completeness; no deficiency can affect any of them under any circumstances. Believing that differences in excellence among Allah’s attributes were impossible, they then supposed that affirming the superiority of some of His speech over other parts was possible only according to the position of the Jahmiyyah—the Muʿtazilah and others—who say that it is created. For if it is said to be created, then some created things may be deemed superior to others, and thus some of it may be superior to other parts.

They say:

But according to Ahl al-Sunnah wa-l-Jamāʿah, who unanimously agree that the Quran is Allah’s speech, uncreated, differences in excellence among Allah’s attributes subsisting in His Essence are impossible.

Because of this belief, those who hold it have come to claim that Ahl al-Sunnah unanimously agree that no part of the Quran can be deemed superior to another. Thus Abū ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Darrāj stated in a work he composed on this question:

“Ahl al-Sunnah unanimously agree that whatever occurs in the revealed texts apparently indicating differences in excellence among the Quran’s verses and surahs is not intended to mean that some are intrinsically superior to others. For it is all Allah’s speech and one of His attributes. Rather, all of it is excellent, belonging to Allah like His other attributes, which necessarily possess perfection.”

This claim of consensus rests on what he supposed necessarily followed from the position of Ahl al-Sunnah. Knowing that they say, ‘The Quran is Allah’s speech, uncreated,’ and supposing that differences in excellence occur only among created things, not among the divine attributes, he made this statement. Otherwise, it is not reported of any of the early generations or the imams that he denied the superiority of some of Allah’s speech