The Jahmiyyah’s interpretation of jaʿala (to make) as meaning khalaqa (to create) and the refutation of their claim
One of the questions that must be put to such a person is: “Can you find in the Book of Allah a single verse that states that the Quran is created?” He will find none.
He is then asked: “Do you find in the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah—may Allah grant him blessings and peace—any report in which he said, ‘The Quran is created’?” Again, he will find nothing.
So it is said to him: “On what basis, then, have you made this claim?”
He replies: “On the strength of Allah’s words: ‘Indeed, We have made it an Arabic Quran’ (43:3).”
He alleges that jaʿalnāhu (“We have made it”) here means khalaqnāhu (“We have created it”), concluding that everything termed “made” is necessarily created. Thus he seizes upon an ambiguous expression, turning it into a pretext for anyone who wishes to deviate from the revelation and to seek
= If the two were assumed to share even one common property, the consequence would be that neither of them truly exists, and this is something the intellect on its own can grasp. Hence Imam Ahmad said: “We therefore replied: A ‘thing’ that is unlike all things—people of sound reason already realise that such a ‘thing’ is in fact no thing at all.” He thus showed that the matter is knowable by pure reason; it rests on self-evident rational principles.
Jahm’s well-known assertion—transmitted to many—that God must not be called a “thing” because, in his view, doing so would entail resemblance (tashbih), since the term covers both Creator and creature, is invalid. Although nothing in any respect resembles Him, reason plainly recognises that any two entities share the designation “thing”, that any two existents share the designation “existent”, and that any two essences share the designation “essence”. One can therefore say that the category “thing”, “existent”, or “essence” subdivides into: eternal and originated, necessary and contingent, creator and created; the point of division is common to all the subdivisions.
We have elaborated on this issue elsewhere and have exposed the error of those who treat the word as a merely equivocal homonym.
What Imam Ahmad highlighted—that the designations “thing”, “existent”, and the like express a universal, comprehensive meaning shared by all things and all existents—is established by clear reason and accepted by the vast majority of rational people.