The second is that it is one, and a single thing cannot admit of degrees of excellence or equivalence. This follows the position of those who say that it is one single entity.

Among those who hold that it is one single entity, some nevertheless regard it as letters, or as letters and sounds, whose individual entities are eternal, while maintaining that it is a single thing. This appears in the statements of some later scholars who adopted from the Kullābiyyah the view that Allah has only one will, one knowledge, one power, and one speech, and that the Quran is eternal. From the Mu'tazilah and others, they adopted the view that it consists solely of letters and sounds. They committed themselves to holding that the individual letters and sounds are eternal, although they have an intrinsic order in existence, and that they have existed from eternity, always coexisting with one another. They distinguished between a thing’s essence and its external existence, agreeing with those among the Mu'tazilah who make this distinction. Many who hold that it is eternal and consists of letters and sounds do not say that it is a single thing. Rather, they regard it as multiple, while maintaining the eternity of the Quran and of the individual letters and sounds.

The other position held by those who say that it is one single entity is that what is eternal is a single meaning admitting neither multiplicity nor division, as has already been explained in setting out the true nature of their position. This is the position attributed to Ibn Kullāb and al-Ash'arī. The first person known to have expressed this position in Islam was Ibn Kullāb. No Companion, Successor, or other leading scholar of the Muslims preceded him in it, despite the extensive discussions of Allah’s speech by the Companions and Successors, and despite its being among the greatest and most important matters of religion, to which are devoted