Refutation of the Jahmiyyah for Calling the Qur’an a “Thing”

We therefore said:

Allah, in the Qur’an, never calls His own speech a “thing.” What He does call a “thing” is that which comes into existence by His word. Have you not heard His saying—blessed and exalted is He—

“Our only word to a thing…” [An-Nahl 16:40].

The “thing” is not His word; the “thing” is what is produced by His word.

In another verse He says,

“His command, when He intends a thing…” [Yā Sīn 36:82].

Thus the “thing” is not His command; the “thing” is what comes to be by His command.

Clear signs and indications show that He does not mean His own speech when He mentions created things. Allah said to the wind He loosed upon ʿĀd,

“It destroyed everything by the command of its Lord” [Al-Aḥqāf 46:25].

Yet that wind passed over certain objects without destroying them—their dwellings, their houses, and the mountains nearby. It reached those places but did not destroy them, even though He said, “It destroyed everything.”

Likewise, when He says,

“Creator of everything” [Al-Anʿām 6:102],

He is not referring to His own Self, His knowledge, or His speech together with created things.

He also said about the Queen of Sheba,

“She has been given of everything” [An-Naml 27:23].

Yet the kingdom of Solomon was itself a “thing,” and it had not been given to her.

In the same fashion, when He says, “Creator…"