the early generations and the leading scholars on this point. When the Jahmiyyah’s inquisition arose—and Imam Ahmad, through whom Allah strengthened and supported the Sunnah, stood firm throughout it—the hallmark of Ahl al-Sunnah became the affirmation that the Quran is Allah’s speech, uncreated, and that Allah will be seen in the Hereafter. In common parlance, anyone who denied this was counted among the people of innovation. Consequently, many came to agree with the adherents of the Sunnah and hadith on these matters without understanding their actual position. Rather, they retained certain principles of the Jahmī innovators and sought to reconcile them with the position of Ahl al-Sunnah, just as an adherent of philosophy seeks to reconcile the statements of philosophers who oppose the messengers with what the messengers brought.

Thus, those who affiliate themselves with the Sunnah and affirm that the Quran is Allah’s speech, uncreated, came to hold several views:

One is the view of those who say that the Quran is beginningless in its individual existence, that Allah does not speak by His will and power, and that He does not speak one utterance after another. These people, in turn, hold two views. Some say that this beginningless speech is a single meaning eternally inseparable from Allah’s essence, or five meanings.

Others say that it consists instead of letters and sounds, each individually beginningless and eternally inseparable from Allah’s essence.

The third (1) is the view of those who say that, in the Lord’s beginningless eternity, speech was not possible for Him, just as, according to them, action was not possible for Him. This is because speech and action occur only through His will and choice, while they hold that anything occurring through will and choice cannot have existed perpetually.

The view commonly reported from these people is that of those who say: