“Every utterance in existence is His speech …
Its prose and verse are all the same to us.” (1)

Accordingly, Pharaoh’s declaration:

“I am your lord, the most high”

[Surah al-Nāziāt: 24]

would be Allah’s speech, just as the speech created in the tree:

“Indeed, I am Allah. There is no deity except Me”

[Surah Tā Hā: 14]

[they say was created in the tree or elsewhere, yet it is] (2) Allah’s speech.

Moreover, when the messengers addressed people and informed them that Allah said, called out, spoke privately, and says, they did not lead them to understand that these were created things separate from Him. Rather, what they conveyed to them (3) was that Allah Himself was the One who spoke and that speech subsists in Him, not in another. For this reason, Allah censured (4) those who worship a god that does not speak. He said:

“Can they not see that it does not respond to them, nor can it harm or benefit them?”

[Surah Tā Hā: 89]

And He said:

“Did they not see that it could neither speak to them nor guide them to a path?”

[Surah al-Arāf: 148]

Nothing can be praised for speaking or censured for not speaking (5) unless speech subsists in it.

In sum, neither language nor reason recognizes anyone as a speaker except one in whom utterance and speech subsist. [In no one’s language—neither the language of the messengers nor that of anyone else—and in no one’s rational understanding can a speaker be conceived as speaking by means of speech that has never subsisted in him at all, but is distinct from him and was brought into being by him in another. Likewise, it cannot be conceived that he moves by means of motion that he created in another, nor can it be conceived that he is