and it is impossible for anyone other than Him to bring an attribute into being in Him. Indeed, it is impossible for anything inseparable from Him to depend on anyone other than Him, glory be to Him. He deserves the utmost perfection, and His essence itself necessarily entails this. Nothing of His perfection, or of what His perfection necessarily entails, depends on anyone other than Him, but rather on His own holy Self. He is praised for this from eternity and forever, and He praises Himself and extols Himself as He deserves.

No one other than Him can fully encompass His praise. Rather, He is as He has praised Himself, as the foremost of Adam’s descendants said in the authentic hadith:

“O Allah, I seek refuge in Your pleasure from Your wrath, and in Your pardon from Your punishment. I seek refuge in You from You. I cannot encompass Your praise; You are as You have praised Yourself.”

If it is said, “He did not speak, then He spoke,” or, “Speech was impossible for Him, then became possible,” such a claim—besides attributing deficiency to Him in eternity and asserting that He subsequently acquired perfection, and likening Him to a created being that passes from deficiency to perfection—is impossible. This is because what is impossible cannot become possible without a cause. There is nothing in sheer nonexistence, so what is impossible in that state cannot become possible without a newly arising cause.

Likewise, if it is said, “His speech in its entirety is a single meaning inseparable from His essence, with regard to which He has neither power nor will,” this in reality amounts to denying speech and combining contradictions. For it affirms the existence of something that has no reality—indeed, something that cannot possibly exist—while entailing nothing praiseworthy and no perfection.