357—Ja‘far ibn ‘Abd Allah ibn Ya‘qub related to us: Muhammad ibn Harun al-Ruyani informed us; he said: ‘Amr ibn ‘Ali related to us; he said: Abu Dawud related to us; he said: ‘Abd al-Wahid ibn Sulaym related to us, from ‘Ata’, who said: Al-Walid ibn ‘Ubadah related to me—and I asked him, “What was your father’s testament when death came to him?” He said: “He called me and said, ‘My son, fear Allah, and know that you will not truly fear Allah until you believe in Allah and believe in the divine decree, its good and its evil. For if you die upon anything other than this, you will enter the Fire.’” ⦗244⦘

I heard the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, say: “The first thing Allah created was the Pen. He said, ‘Write,’ and it wrote all that had been and all that would be until eternity.”

I say: He thus stated that the Pen was the first of creation, while Allah’s Speech preceded the Pen. The Pen wrote only by Allah’s Speech, which was before creation, if the Pen was indeed the first of creation.

Deriving Another Verse from the Book of Allah: His saying, “Unquestionably, His is the creation and the command.” [al-A‘raf 7:54] Thus, He distinguished between the two. Creation refers to created beings, while the command is the Quran.