I said (1): It is well known that when Ja‘far [ibn Muhammad] (2) al-Sādiq and these (3 who among the early generations said 3) (3) said, “It is uncreated,” they did not mean that it was not fabricated. Rather, they meant that He did not create it (4), contrary to the Mu‘tazilites. This is the position of the later Rāfidīs. (5)
(*) For [a group of the later Imāmīs], such as Abū al-Qāsim al-Mūsawī (6), known as al-Murtadā, and others, agreed with the Mu‘tazilites that it was originated and exists separately from Allah; that He had not been able to speak and then became a speaker after not having been one; and that no speech subsists in Him, but rather His speech is among the things He made that exist separately from Him. They then heard that some of the early generations from the Prophet’s Household, such as Ja‘far ibn Muhammad and others, had said that it was uncreated (7). They therefore said:
“We will not say that it is created, in deference to them. Rather, we will say that it is originated and made (8), in conformity (9) with what they supposed to be indicated by the wording of the Quran in His statement:
‘Indeed, We have made it an Arabic Quran’ [Surah al-Zukhruf: 3],
and His statement:
‘No new reminder comes to them from their Lord’ [Surah al-Anbiyā: 2].”
Many (10) people—other than the Shī‘a (11)—say, “It is uncreated,”