For that reason al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn ʿAdī said: “Nothing is reported from the Companions—may Allah be pleased with them—concerning speculative discussion about the Qur’an.”
Al-Bayhaqī annotated this in al-Asmāʾ wa-l-Ṣifāt ⦗244⦘, saying, “I observe that his point is that, in the first and second generations, no one ever claimed the Qur’an to be created, such that it needed to be refuted. Hence, nothing authentic has reached us from them using the phrase ‘uncreated’. What is soundly transmitted is their attributing the Qur’an to Allah and extolling it as the Speech of Allah.”
Al-Bayhaqī also related ⦗247⦘ Ibn al-Madīnī’s remark about the earlier report from Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq, no. 144—namely, the wording, “It is neither Creator nor created”—and his statement, “I do not know anyone before this age who spoke with such words.” I say: that is according to what had reached his knowledge, for ʿAmr ibn Dīnār predates Jaʿfar, as you know from their biographies. A similar statement is even reported from ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn, noted under entry 13; he died in 93 AH, earlier than both of them, although its chain is weak, as already mentioned.
173 – I add: This claim is manifestly false, and perhaps for that reason the compiler did not bother to rebut it. Still, in this note I must cite some of the verses that the scholars of hadith have used to refute it. Their gist is that the verb jaʿala (to make) does not always mean “to create” wherever it occurs. Take Allah’s words: “And We granted him Isaac and Jacob, and We made prophethood and scripture remain among his descendants” (Q 29:27); here it certainly cannot mean “created.” Indeed, Allah attributes this verb to human beings: “He placed the drinking-cup in his brother’s saddle-bag” (Q 12:70); and He even applies it to the idolaters: “They have made the angels, who are servants of the Most Merciful, females” (Q 43:19). Would anyone claim that the polytheists created the angels?! Exalted is Allah far above the innovators’ distortions of His words.
With this clear, the verb must be understood according to its context. Thus, in the verse “We made it an Arabic Qur’an” (Q 43:3) the referent is unquestionably the Qur’an, which is unquestionably the Speech of Allah, and His Speech is one of His attributes—attributes that, like His Essence, are eternal and uncreated. It is therefore impermissible to interpret the verb here in a way that contradicts these established certainties. The meaning, they say, is that Allah—who knows every language and can speak in whichever He wills whenever He wills, just as He rendered the Torah and the Gospel in Hebrew—sent every messenger in the language of his people so that they might be clearly guided, as He Himself has stated. Consequently, “We made it” means “We rendered it” from one tongue to another, not “We created it.” See al-Radd ʿalā al-Marīsī ⦗123–124⦘.