their exact words. Rather, what is reliably transmitted from them—or from many of them—indicates that they held that Allah’s attributes differ in excellence. Likewise, those among the followers of Mālik, al-Shāfiʿī, or Ahmad who attributed to the people of the Sunnah the view that no part of the Quran is superior to another based this solely on their agreement that the Quran is Allah’s uncreated speech, and that His speech is one of His attributes, subsisting in His own being, not one of His creations. This, too, is correctly attributed to the people of the Sunnah.

They then supposed that differences in excellence occur only among created things, not among the divine attributes. Yet they did not transmit this supposition from any of the imams of Islam, such as Mālik, al-Shāfiʿī, Ahmad, Abū Hanīfah, al-Thawrī, or al-Awzāʿī, nor from anyone before them. Consequently, they vehemently denounced those who held that some parts of the Quran are superior to others—as indicated by the scriptural texts and transmitted reports—because they supposed that this necessarily contradicted the doctrine of the people of the Sunnah.

An example is what Abū ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Murābit said when discussing the hadith in al-Bukhārī and rejecting the interpretation of those who understood it to mean that, if this surah equals one third of the Quran, it is superior to a quarter of it, a fifth, or any portion smaller than a third. This would mean differing degrees of excellence within the Book of Allah Most High, which is one of the attributes of Allah, exalted is His majesty. He said:

“Were it not for the excuse of ignorance, anyone who said this would be judged a disbeliever, since differences in excellence can only exist among created things. His attributes are all excellent, possessing the utmost excellence, loftiness, and nobility. Whoever assigns any of them a lesser standing than the rest has deviated concerning them. Do you not hear Him forbidding this in His words, Most High:

‘Those who have divided the Quran into portions’?”