1) Createdness of the Vessels:
📍 Al-Ājurrī, may Allāh have mercy on him, said:
756 – Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad al-Ṣandalī narrated to us, he said: Zuhayr ibn Muḥammad al-Marwazī narrated to us, he said: Muʿāwiyah ibn ʿAmr and Abū Ṣāliḥ informed us, they said: Abū Isḥāq, meaning al-Fazārī, narrated to us, from Sufyān, from ʿUbayd al-Muktib, from Mujāhid, from Ibn ʿUmar, may Allāh be pleased with him, who said: "Allāh, Mighty and Majestic, created four things with His Hand: Ādam, peace be upon him; the Throne; the Pen; and the Gardens of ʿAdn. Then He said to the rest of creation: 'Be,' and it was."
📓 As-Sharīʿah
📍 Ḥarb ibn Ismāʿīl al-Kirmānī, may Allāh have mercy on him, said:
Isḥāq ibn Ibrāhīm narrated to us, from Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah, from ʿAmr ibn Dīnār, who said: "I encountered the people for seventy years. I encountered the Companions of the Prophet ﷺ and those after them saying: 'Allāh is the Creator, and everything besides Him is created, except the Qurʾān, for it is the Speech of Allāh; from Him it proceeded, and to Him it returns.'"
📓 Masāʾil Ḥarb
📍 ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Ṣanʿānī, may Allāh have mercy on him, said:
Maʿmar informed us, from Qatādah, who said: "It is disliked for a person to swear by emancipation or divorce, and he should only swear by Allāh. And it is disliked to swear by the Muṣḥaf."
📍 And he said:
From Ibn Jurayj, who said: I heard a man ask ʿAṭāʾ, saying: "I swore by the House," or "I said: 'By the Book of Allāh.'" He said: "These are not a Lord to you; it is not an oath."
📓 Al-Muṣannaf of ʿAbd al-Razzāq
📍 Ibn Yūnus al-Ṣiqillī said:
Abū Isḥāq [Ibrāhīm ibn al-Ḥasan al-Tūnisī] said: "Perhaps ʿAṭāʾ meant that he swore by the two tablets upon which the writing is inscribed, and did not swear by the Speech of Allāh which is subsistent in His Essence and which is an Attribute of His Essence."
📓 Al-Jāmiʿ li-Masāʾil al-Mudawwanah
📍 Ibn Abī Dāwūd al-Sijistānī, may Allāh have mercy on him, said:
ʿAbdullāh ibn Saʿīd narrated to us: al-Muḥāribī narrated to us, from Ismāʿīl ibn Abī Khālid, from al-Shaʿbī, who said: "They are not selling the Book of Allāh; they are only selling the paper and the work of their hands."
📓 Kitāb al-Maṣāḥif
📍 Ibn Taymiyyah al-Ḥarrānī said:
Muḥammad ibn Naṣr al-Marwazī mentioned in his book, from Aḥmad ibn ʿUmar, from ʿAbdān [ʿAbdullāh ibn ʿUthmān ibn Jabalah], from Ibn al-Mubārak, who said: "The paper and the ink are created. As for the Qurʾān, it is neither creator nor created; rather, it is the Speech of Allāh."
📓 Al-Fatāwā al-Kubrā
📍 Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, may Allāh have mercy on him, said:
Then Jahm claimed another matter. He said: "Allāh says: {He created the heavens and the earth and what is between them in six days}." So he alleged that the Qurʾān cannot be except that it is in the heavens, or in the earth, or in what is between them, thus he confused the people and made things ambiguous for them.
So we said to him: "Did Allāh, exalted is His praise, not confine the mention of creation and what is created to that which is in the heavens, the earth, and what is between them?" They said: "Yes."
We said: "Is there anything created above the heavens?"
They said: "Yes."
We said: "Then He did not include what is above the heavens with the created things. And the people of knowledge have recognized that above the seven heavens are the Kursī, the Throne, the Preserved Tablet, the veils, and many things which He did not name, and He did not place them among the created things. Rather, the report from Allāh applies to the heavens, the earth, and what is between them."
📓 Ar-Radd ʿalā al-Jahmiyyah
📍 Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl al-Bukhārī, may Allāh have mercy on him, said:
Their movements, their voices, their acquisition, and their writing are created. As for the recited, clear, established Qurʾān, the one fixed in the Muṣḥaf, inscribed, written, and retained in the hearts, it is the Speech of Allāh, not created. Allāh said: {Rather, it is clear signs in the breasts of those who have been given knowledge} [al-ʿAnkabūt: 49]. And Isḥāq ibn Ibrāhīm [ibn Rāhawayh] said: "As for the vessels, who could doubt their being created?" Allāh, Exalted is He, said: {And by a Book inscribed in a parchment unrolled} [al-Ṭūr: 3], and He said: {Rather, it is a Glorious Qurʾān in a Preserved Tablet} [al-Burūj: 21]. So He mentioned that it is preserved and inscribed. He said: {And what they inscribe} [al-Qalam: 1].
📍 And he said:
As for the ink and the parchment and the like, they are created. Just as you write "Allāh," Allāh in His Essence is the Creator, while your writing and your acquisition from your action are created. Because everything besides Allāh that He makes is created. And He said: {And He created everything and determined it with precise determination} [al-Furqān: 2], and He said: {And indeed it is in the Mother of the Book with Us, exalted and full of wisdom} [al-Zukhruf: 4], and He said: {Rather, it is a Glorious Qurʾān in a Preserved Tablet} [al-Burūj: 22].
📓 Khalq Afʿāl al-ʿIbād
📍 ʿUthmān ibn Saʿīd al-Dārimī, may Allāh have mercy on him, said:
Allāh, Mighty and Majestic, said: {Say: If the sea were ink for the Words of my Lord, the sea would be exhausted before the Words of my Lord are exhausted, even if We brought the like of it as a supplement} [al-Kahf: 109]. And He said: {And if whatever trees upon the earth were pens and the sea [was ink], replenished thereafter by seven seas, the Words of Allāh would not be exhausted} [Luqmān: 27]. He spoke the truth, and the Messenger of Allāh ﷺ conveyed it. If the waters of the seas of the heavens and the earth and their springs were gathered, and their trees were cut into pens, the waters would run out and the pens would break before the Words of Allāh would be exhausted, because the waters and the trees are created, and Allāh has decreed annihilation for them at the end of their appointed term. But Allāh is Ever-Living and does not die, and His Speech does not perish, and He does not cease to be Speaking after the creation just as He did not cease to be Speaking before them. So the created, perishable thing cannot exhaust the Speech of the Creator, the Everlasting, which has no cessation in this world or the Hereafter.
📓 Ar-Radd ʿalā al-Jahmiyyah
📍 Abū Bakr Ibn al-Mundhir al-Naysābūrī, may Allāh have mercy on him, said:
7 - Chapter on Making Someone Swear upon the Muṣḥaf
Abū Bakr said: We have not found any report that obligates making someone swear upon the Muṣḥaf. The obligation is only to make one swear by Allāh.
📓 Al-Ishrāf ʿalā Madhāhib al-ʿUlamāʾ
📍 Al-Qaḥṭānī al-Mālikī, in what Ibn al-Qayyim transmitted from him, said:
And the saying of our poet has truly cured us - the one who spoke correctly and came with excellence:
Indeed, that which is in the copies of the Qurʾān,
Firmly established by the fingertips of the elders and the youths,
Is the Speech of my Lord, verses and letters,
While our ink and the parchment are both created.
📓 Nūniyyah Ibn al-Qayyim
📍 Abū Aḥmad al-Karajī al-Qaṣṣāb, may Allāh have mercy on him, said:
As for the recitation of Nāfiʿ and Ibn Muḥayṣin: {in a Tablet, preserved} with a ḍammah on the ẓāʾ, there is no way to interpret it except by making "preserved" take the meaning of "inscribed"- i.e., "It is a Glorious Qurʾān inscribed in a Tablet." For the Tablet is created, and the guarding of protection applies to it. But the Qurʾān is not subject to the guarding of protection; rather, it is subject to being retained and inscribed. And that is because it is the Speech of Allāh, uncreated, an Attribute from the Attributes of His Essence. And it is impossible that He would guard Himself, or guard His Attribute, or that another would guard it, for that is disbelief. The guarding of the Qurʾān is only applied by the one who makes it created, and whoever makes it created has committed disbelief.
📍 And he said:
So it did not become created by the recitation of Jibrīl to the Messenger of Allāh ﷺ, and Jibrīl is created. Nor by the recitation of the Messenger of Allāh ﷺ to his Companions, and the Messenger of Allāh ﷺ is created. Nor by the recitation of the reciters until the Day of Resurrection, even though the reciters are created. And the Messenger of Allāh ﷺ said: "Indeed, your mouths are pathways for the Qurʾān, so purify them with the siwāk." The mouths are created, and they convey it, yet it does not become created.
📓 Nukat al-Qurʾān
📍 Ibn Baṭṭah al-ʿUkbarī, may Allāh have mercy on him, said:
The Jahmī said: "The Tablet and what is in it are created, and it is not possible for something uncreated to be in something created." Thus they made themselves ugly through interpretation and disbelieved in what was revealed in many ways. This is because the Qurʾān is from the Knowledge of Allāh, and the Knowledge of Allāh, His Speech, and all of His Attributes, all of that precedes the Preserved Tablet, before it, and before the Pen. And likewise Ibn ʿAbbās, may Allāh have mercy on him, said: "The first thing Allāh created was the Pen, then He said to it: 'Write.' So it wrote in the Preserved Tablet." So the Pen and the Tablet were created by the Saying of Allāh, Mighty and Majestic, to them both: "Be", so His Saying is before their creation. And what is in the Tablet is His Speech, yet what is in the Tablet from the Qurʾān is the script and the writing. As for the Speech of Allāh, Mighty and Majestic, it is not created. And likewise His saying, Mighty and Majestic: {In honored sheets, exalted and purified} [ʿAbasa: 13]; they are only honored, exalted, and purified because they have been entrusted with the Speech of Allāh. As for their statement: "It is not possible for something uncreated to be in something created," that also collapses from their own words and contradicts their arguments. Have you not heard the saying of Allāh, Mighty and Majestic: {And He is Allāh in the heavens} [al-Anʿām: 3]? The heavens are created, and Allāh, Mighty and Majestic, is uncreated, yet Allāh, Exalted is He, is in them. So it has been made clear that something uncreated can be in something created.
📓 Al-Ibānah al-Kubrā
📍 Abū al-Qāsim al-Lālakāʾī, may Allāh have mercy on him, said:
Deriving another verse from the Qurʾān, which is His saying: {And if whatever trees upon the earth were pens and the sea [was ink], replenished thereafter by seven seas, the Words of Allāh would not be exhausted} [Luqmān: 27]. All created things run out and perish, but the Words of Allāh do not perish. And the confirmation of that is His saying, Exalted is He, when His creation perishes: {Whose is the dominion this Day?} [Ghāfir: 16], and He, Exalted is He, answers Himself: {To Allāh, the One, the Irresistible} [Ibrāhīm: 48].
📓 Sharḥ Uṣūl Iʿtiqād Ahl as-Sunnah wa al-Jamāʿah
📍 Ibn Taymiyyah al-Ḥarrānī said:
Al-Khallāl mentioned in Kitāb al-Qurʾān from Isḥāq ibn Ibrāhīm, who said: "Abū ʿAbdillāh said to me one day, and I had asked him about it: 'Do you know the meaning of "Whoever does not yataghannā with the Qurʾān"?' I said: 'No.' He said: 'It is the man who raises his voice. This is its meaning: when he raises his voice, he has taghannā with it.'"
And from Manṣūr ibn Ṣāliḥ that he said to his father: "Should he raise his voice with the Qurʾān at night?" He said: "Yes, if he wishes, he may raise it." Then he mentioned the ḥadīth of Umm Hāniʾ: "I used to hear the recitation of the Prophet ﷺ while I was on a rooftop at night."
And from Ṣāliḥ ibn Aḥmad that he said to his father: "'Beautify the Qurʾān with your voices.'" He said: "Beautification is that you make it good."
And from al-Faḍl ibn Ziyād, who said: I heard Abā ʿAbdillāh being asked about recitation, and he said: "He makes it beautiful with his voice without affectation."
And Abū Bakr al-Athram said: I asked Abā ʿAbdillāh about recitation with melodies, and he said: "Everything newly invented, for it does not please me unless it is the voice of the man, without affectation."
Al-Qāḍī Abū Yaʿlā said in what he annotated in his handwriting upon Jāmiʿ al-Khallāl: "This indicates from his speech that the voice of the reciter is not the Eternal Voice, because he attributed it to the reciter, which is his natural disposition, without learning melodies."
📓 Ar-Risālah al-Kaylāniyyah
📍 Abū Ismāʿīl al-Harawī, may Allāh have mercy on him, said:
They (i.e., the Jahmiyyah) refute the Christians regarding their saying about ʿĪsā and his mother, saying: "Something uncreated cannot be in something created", and thereby they nullify the Qurʾān.
📓 Dhamm al-Kalām wa Ahlih
📍 Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Kankashī and ʿAbd al-Wahhāb ibn ʿAbd al-Wāḥid, known as Ibn al-Ḥanbalī, said:
And a people say: "The Qurʾān is in the chests and is mixed with them." They have erred in that, because the Qurʾān is the Attribute of Allāh, Exalted is He, and His Attributes do not indwell in created things as one thing indwells another. And whoever says that is a Ḥulūlī.
And I say: The Qurʾān is in the chests, and it is distinct from the chests, unmixed with them and not indwelling in them, because the chests are created and the Qurʾān is uncreated. And whatever is from the Attributes of Allāh, Exalted is He, is uncreated, and whatever is from the attributes of the servants is created.
📓 Risālah fī al-Uṣūl
📓 Ar-Risālah al-Wāḍiḥah fī ar-Radd ʿalā al-Ashāʿirah
📍 Al-ʿImrānī ash-Shāfiʿī, may Allāh have mercy on him, said:
The answer is that it should be said: As for your statement that it is indwelling in the muṣḥaf, this is an unsatisfactory expression, because indwelling is an attribute of bodies. It is said: ḥalla yaḥullu in a place — with ḍammah on the ḥāʾ in the imperfect tense — when he descends or settles in it. And it is said: ḥalla ad-dayn yaḥillu — with kasrah on the ḥāʾ in the imperfect tense — when the debt becomes due. And it is said: ḥalla ash-shayʾ yaḥillu — with kasrah on the ḥāʾ — when the doing of something becomes lawful. Rather, it is only said: The Qurʾān is present in the muṣḥafs, written, and inscribed.
As for his statement that the paper and ink are originated/created, this is not denied. But the letter is not the very ink itself, nor is it the very paper itself.
📓 Al-Intiṣār fī ar-Radd ʿalā al-Muʿtazilah al-Qadariyyah al-Ashrār
📍 Qiwām al-Sunnah al-Aṣbahānī, may Allāh have mercy on him, said:
The madhhab of Ahl al-Sunnah is: that Allāh, Exalted is He, made apparent to the listeners, from created tongues and created actions, which are the movements of the tongues, uncreated Speech. And likewise, from created ink, created paper, and created pens, uncreated Speech becomes apparent, without how.
📓 Al-Ḥujjah fī Bayān al-Maḥajjah
📍 Ibn Qudāmah al-Maqdisī said:
And the saying of Allāh, Exalted is He: {For those who write the book with their own hands} [al-Baqarah: 79] there's no proof in it, for the hand is created, and what is written with it, from the Speech of Allāh, is uncreated.
📓 Aṣ-Ṣirāṭ al-Mustaqīm fī Ithbāt al-Ḥarf al-Qadīm
📍 Ibn Taymiyyah al-Ḥarrānī said:
As for the Salaf of the Muslims from the Companions, those who followed them in excellence, and the well-known Imāms of the Muslims, such as the four and others, and the people of knowledge of the Book and the Sunnah, they differentiate between His created possessions and His Attributes. So they know that the servants are created, and the attributes of the servants are created, their bodies, their souls, their speech, and their voices, whether relating to the Divine Books or otherwise, and their ink and their papers, and the angels and the prophets and other than that.
📓 Al-Jawāb aṣ-Ṣaḥīḥ li-man Baddala Dīn al-Masīḥ
2) The Createdness of All the Actions of the Servants Without Exception:
📍 Abū al-Qāsim al-Lālakāʾī, may Allāh have mercy on him, said:
1331 – Muḥammad ibn Rizq Allāh informed us: Aḥmad ibn Jaʿfar informed us: Idrīs ibn ʿAbd al-Karīm informed us: A man from the people of Khurāsān sent a letter asking Abū Thawr, so he responded: "You asked, may Allāh have mercy on you, about the Qadariyyah, who are they?"
[...]
That is because Allāh is the Creator of everything, and He said: {Indeed, We have created everything by a precise measure} [al-Qamar: 49]. So whoever claims that anything from the actions of the servants is not created has thereby gone astray.
📓 Sharḥ Uṣūl Iʿtiqād Ahl as-Sunnah wa al-Jamāʿah
📍 Abū Bakr al-Khallāl, may Allāh have mercy on him, said:
Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā, Muḥammad ibn al-Mundhir, and Aḥmad ibn Yaḥyā al-Ṣaffār informed me, they said: Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥasan al-Tirmidhī narrated to us, he said: I asked Aḥmad, saying: "O Abā ʿAbdillāh, what has occurred regarding the matter of the Qurʾān has occurred. So if I am asked about it, what should I say?"
He said to me: "Are you not created?"
I said: "Yes."
He said: "Is not everything from you created?"
I said: "Yes."
He said: "Is not your speech from you, and it is created?"
I said: "Yes."
He said: "Is not the Speech of Allāh, Mighty and Majestic, from Him?"
I said: "Yes."
He said: "Then can something created be from Allāh?!"
📓 Kitāb as-Sunnah
📍 Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl al-Bukhārī, may Allāh have mercy on him, said:
As for the actions of the servants: ʿAlī ibn ʿAbdillāh narrated to us: Marwān ibn Muʿāwiyah narrated to us: Abū Mālik narrated to us, from Ribʿī ibn Ḥirāsh, from Ḥudhayfah, may Allāh be pleased with him, that the Prophet ﷺ said: "Indeed, Allāh makes every maker and his making." And some of them recited at that point: {And Allāh created you and that which you do} [al-Ṣāffāt: 96]. So he informed that the manufactured things and their makers are created.
📓 Khalq Afʿāl al-ʿIbād
📍 ʿUthmān ibn Saʿīd al-Dārimī, may Allāh have mercy on him, said:
So it is said to this objector: You have left no extreme in denying the Face of Allāh, the Possessor of Majesty and Honour, and in rejecting it and rejecting the verses which speak of the Face, until you claimed that the Face of Allāh, which He described with Majesty and Honour, is created. This is because you claimed that these are created deeds by which one is directed towards Him, and blessings and goodness, and deeds, all of them, are created, without doubt in it. So the Face of your Lord, the Possessor of Majesty and Honour, according to your claim, is created.
📓 Al-Naqḍ ʿalā al-Marīsī
📍 Muḥammad ibn Naṣr al-Marwazī, may Allāh have mercy on him, said:
The people of knowledge among the Salaf did not differ regarding the fact that all the actions of the servants are created and decreed: faith, disbelief, acts of obedience, and acts of disobedience, and whatever else besides that from the actions of the servants. And the Qurʾān is the Speech of Allāh, not created; it is an Attribute from the Attributes of Allāh, it is not from the actions of the servants, nor is it other than Allāh. Rather, it is from Allāh, an Attribute from the Attributes of His Essence, like Knowledge, Power, Hearing, Seeing, and Will.
And he said: And I heard Isḥāq ibn Ibrāhīm saying: "Good and evil are all created and decreed." Isḥāq dictated this to us in his gathering, in which there were around a thousand people, more or less, and I did not hear anyone from the people of ḥadīth object to him on this, until I came to Samarqand. And I heard Isḥāq saying: "The actions of the servants are all created." And I heard him saying: "Allāh created disbelief and faith."
📓 Ṣifāt Rabb al-ʿĀlamīn
📍 Ibn Jarīr al-Ṭabarī, may Allāh have mercy on him, said:
And just as that is the case, so too the saying regarding the one who claims that anything from the actions of the servants, or any other originated thing, is not created, or does not come into being by the bringing into existence of Allāh, exalted is His praise, and His origination of its very essence, then he is, by Allāh, a disbeliever.
📓 Al-Tabṣīr fī Maʿālim al-Dīn
📍 Abū Bakr al-Ismāʿīlī said:
And they say: There is no creator in reality except Allāh, Mighty and Majestic, and that the acquisitions of the servants, all of them, are created by Allāh.
📓 Iʿtiqād Aʾimmat al-Ḥadīth
📍 Abū al-Faḍl al-Tamīmī said:
And he held that the actions of the servants are created by Allāh, Mighty and Majestic, and it is not permissible to exclude anything from their actions from His creation, due to His saying, Mighty and Majestic: {Creator of everything} [al-Raʿd: 16]. Moreover, if it were specified, then a similar specification would be permissible in His saying: {There is no deity except Him}, and that it be specified that He is the deity of only some things.
📓 Al-ʿAqīdah which he narrated from Imām Aḥmad
📍 Abū al-Qāsim al-Lālakāʾī, may Allāh have mercy on him, said:
A presentation of what has been explained from the verses in the Book of Allāh, Mighty and Majestic, and what has been narrated from the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allāh, may Allāh bless him and grant him peace, in affirming the Decree, and what has been transmitted from the consensus of the Companions, the Tābiʿīn, and those who came after them from the scholars of the Ummah: that the actions of the servants, all of them, their acts of obedience and their acts of disobedience, are created by Allāh, Exalted is He.
📓 Sharḥ Uṣūl Iʿtiqād Ahl al-Sunnah wa al-Jamāʿah
📍 Ibn al-Qayyim said:
Al-Qāḍī was asked about numerous issues that came to him from Makkah, among which were:
[...]
And among them: And he was asked about the movement of the tongue with the Noble Qurʾān.
He said: "It is not permissible to say that it is eternal. Rather, the movement of the tongue with the Qurʾān is originated."
📍 Qiwām al-Sunnah al-Aṣbahānī, may Allāh have mercy on him, said:
Chapter on Clarifying That the Actions of the Servants Are All Created, and That Allāh, Exalted is He, Created Them by His Power, and the Servants Have No Part in Their Creation
📓 Al-Ḥujjah fī Bayān al-Maḥajjah
📍 Al-ʿImrānī al-Shāfiʿī, may Allāh have mercy on him, said:
Among the evidences I used in the treatise to show that Allāh created the actions of the servants in good and evil is His saying, Exalted is He: {Indeed, We have created everything by a precise measure} [al-Qamar: 49], and His saying, Exalted is He: {Creator of everything} [al-Raʿd: 16], in many verses. And the actions of the servants are "things," so they must be included among all created things.
📓 Al-Intiṣār fī al-Radd ʿalā al-Muʿtazilah al-Qadariyyah al-Ashrār
📍 Ibn Rajab al-Ḥanbalī said:
The second degree: That Allāh, Exalted is He, created all the actions of His servants, from disbelief, faith, obedience, and disobedience, and willed them from them. This degree is affirmed by Ahl al-Sunnah wa al-Jamāʿah and denied by the Qadariyyah. As for the first degree, many among the Qadariyyah affirmed it, while their extremists, such as Maʿbad al-Juhanī, concerning whose teaching Ibn ʿUmar was asked, and ʿAmr ibn ʿUbayd and others, denied it.
📓 Jāmiʿ al-ʿUlūm wa al-Ḥikam
I said:
I have only cited the statements of those who said that all actions of the servants are created, so that no one may come and say that their statement "the actions of the servants are created" is general and that the act of recitation and the like are excepted from it, and thus withhold judgment concerning them.
[An Introduction to the Creed of the Lafẓiyyah]
📍 Abū Dāwūd as-Sijistānī, may Allāh have mercy on him, said:
1753 – Yaʿqūb ibn Ibrāhīm narrated to us that Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Ḥanbal said to him: "The Lafẓiyyah only revolve around the speech of Jahm. They claim that Jibrīl, peace be upon him, only brought something created", meaning: because a created being brought it to Muḥammad ﷺ.
📓 Masāʾil Abī Dāwūd
📍 Ibn Baṭṭah al-ʿUkbarī, may Allāh have mercy on him, said:
Abū Ḥafṣ narrated to us, he said: Abū Naṣr narrated to us, he said: al-Faḍl narrated to us, he said: Abū Ṭālib narrated to us, he said: I said: "O Abā ʿAbdillāh! I have argued against them (i.e., the Lafẓiyyah) using the Qurʾān and the Ḥadīth, and I would like to present it to you. Allāh, Exalted is He, said: {And if any one of the polytheists seeks your protection, then grant him protection so that he may hear the Speech of Allāh} [al-Tawbah: 6], is it not from Muḥammad that he hears the Speech of Allāh?!"
[...]
And He said: {And that I should recite the Qurʾān; so whoever is guided...} [al-Naml: 92], is he not reciting the Qurʾān?! And He, Mighty and Majestic, said: {So recite what is easy from the Qurʾān} [al-Muzzammil: 20], so in every case, it is the Qurʾān.
And the Prophet ﷺ said in the ḥadīth of Jābir: "Indeed, Quraysh prevented me from conveying the Speech of my Lord."
And the Prophet ﷺ said to Muʿāwiyah ibn al-Ḥakam: "Indeed, in this prayer, nothing of the speech of people is appropriate except the Qurʾān." So the Qurʾān is other than the speech of people.
And Abū Bakr, may Allāh be pleased with him, said: "No, by Allāh, rather it is the Speech of Allāh."
So he said to me: "How excellent is that with which you have argued! Jibrīl came to the Prophet ﷺ with something created?! And the Prophet ﷺ came to the people with something created?!"
📓 Al-Ibānah al-Kubrā
📍 Abū al-Qāsim al-Lālakāʾī, may Allāh have mercy on him, said:
I found on the back of one of the works of Abū Thawr, he said: Jaʿfar narrated to us, he said: Abū Thawr was asked about the expressions (alfāẓ) of the Qurʾān, and he said: "This is something of which ignorance suffices you. By Allāh, He, Mighty and Majestic, will not ask you about this, so do not speak about it. For whoever claims that his utterance of the Qurʾān is created has agreed with the Lafẓiyyah, because when the Qurʾān is heard from you, you have claimed that your expression of the Qurʾān is created, and you have thus answered the people that it is created."
📓 Sharḥ Uṣūl Iʿtiqād Ahl al-Sunnah wa al-Jamāʿah
📍 Adh-Dhahabī said:
493 – Abū al-Faḍl Yaʿqūb ibn Isḥāq ibn Maḥmūd al-Ḥāfiẓ said: ʿAbdullāh ibn Muḥammad ibn Manṣūr al-Bazzār narrated to us: I heard Hishām ibn ʿAmmār, and it had reached him that some people were attributing him to the Lafẓiyyah, so he became angry and said: "The Qurʾān is the Speech of Allāh and is not created. And whoever says that the Qurʾān, or the Power of Allāh, or the Might of Allāh is created, then he is among the disbelievers." So it was said to him: "What do you say concerning the one who says: 'My expression of the Qurʾān is created'?" So he said: {Say: He is Allāh, the One. Allāh, the Eternal Refuge} to its end. Then he said: "This which I have recited is the Speech of Allāh."
📓 Al-ʿUluww li-l-ʿAliyy al-Ghaffār
📍 Al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī said:
Abū Saʿīd Muḥammad ibn Ḥasanawayh ibn Ibrāhīm al-Abīwardī informed us, he said: Abū Saʿīd Muḥammad ibn ʿAbdillāh ibn Ḥamdūn informed us, he said: I heard Abū Ḥāmid ibn al-Sharqī saying: I heard Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā saying: "The Qurʾān is the Speech of Allāh, uncreated, from all of its aspects and wherever it is found. Whoever adheres to this has no need for [the issue of] expression (lafẓ) or anything else concerning speech about the Qurʾān."
📓 Tārīkh Baghdād
📍 Qiwām al-Sunnah al-Aṣbahānī, may Allāh have mercy on him, said:
And [Abū ʿAmr ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb] said: My father narrated to us: Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm informed us: Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī informed us, saying: "It is from the speech of Jahm ibn Ṣafwān, Ḥusayn al-Karābīsī, and Dāwūd ibn ʿAlī that their expression of the Qurʾān is created, and that the Qurʾān sent down upon our Prophet ﷺ, that which Jibrīl the Trustworthy brought, is a mere account (ḥikāyah) of the Qurʾān. So Abū ʿAbdillāh Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Ḥanbal declared them to be Jahmīs, and the scholars of all the regions, in their entirety, followed him in declaring them Jahmīs. There is no disagreement among the people of tradition regarding that."
📓 Al-Ḥujjah fī Bayān al-Maḥajjah
📍 Abū ʿAbdillāh al-Zubayrī, may Allāh have mercy on him, said:
And the Lafẓiyyah, they are those who say: "Our expressions of the Qurʾān are created."
[...]
And all of them are disbelievers.
[...]
And [the proof] is the saying of Allāh, Exalted is He, concerning the Lafẓiyyah, when al-Walīd ibn al-Mughīrah said: {This is nothing but the word of a human being}, Allāh, Exalted is He, said: {I will soon cast him into Saqar} [al-Muddaththir: 26].
📓 Sharḥ al-Īmān wa al-Islām
📍 Ibn Jarīr al-Ṭabarī, may Allāh have mercy on him, said:
Since that is the case, then there is no doubt that whoever claims that the Speech of Allāh transforms through his recitation when he recites it, or through his memorization when he memorizes it, or through his writing when he writes it, into something originated and created, then he is, by Allāh, exalted is His mention, a disbeliever.
📓 Aṭ-Tabṣīr fī Maʿālim al-Dīn
📍 Abū al-Qāsim al-Lālakāʾī, may Allāh have mercy on him, said:
613 – And ʿUbayd Allāh [ibn Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad] informed us, he said: Aḥmad ibn Kāmil informed us, he said: Abū ʿAbdillāh al-Wāriq narrated to me in passing, he said: "I used to prepare paper for Dāwūd al-Aṣbahānī. One day I was with him in his corridor with a group of strangers, and he was asked about the Qurʾān. He said: 'The Qurʾān which Allāh spoke of: {None touch it except the purified} [al-Wāqiʿah: 79] and He said: {In a well-guarded Book} [al-Wāqiʿah: 78], that is uncreated. As for what is in our midst, which the impure person and the menstruating woman touch, that is created.'"
Al-Qāḍī Aḥmad ibn Kāmil said: "And this is the madhhab of al-Nāshiʾ, and it is disbelief in Allāh, the Almighty. The authentic report from the Messenger of Allāh ﷺ states that he 'forbade traveling with the Qurʾān to the land of the enemy, for fear that the enemy might seize it.' So the Messenger of Allāh ﷺ considered what is written in the pages and the copies of the Qurʾān to be Qurʾān. Thus, the Qurʾān, however it is recited and read, is one, and it is uncreated."
📓 Sharḥ Uṣūl Iʿtiqād Ahl al-Sunnah wa al-Jamāʿah
📍 Al-Karajī al-Qaṣṣāb, may Allāh have mercy on him, said:
His saying: {Then he turned away and was arrogant, and said: This is nothing but magic handed down. This is nothing but the word of a human being} [al-Muddaththir: 24-25]. This has removed all ambiguity regarding the fact that the Qurʾān is the Speech of Allāh, uncreated, and that the expression of it is uncreated, due to His threatening al-Walīd ibn al-Mughīrah for attributing it to the word of a human being. And since it is not the word of a human being, then it is nothing other than the word of the Creator, even if a human being recites it as well, for it is not their word; rather, it is the word of the One Who originated it, and He is Allāh, Exalted is He.
Thus, it did not become created through the recitation of Jibrīl to the Messenger of Allāh ﷺ, and Jibrīl is created. Nor did it become created through the recitation of the Messenger of Allāh ﷺ to his Companions, and the Messenger of Allāh ﷺ is created. Nor through the recitation of the reciters until the Day of Resurrection, even though the reciters are created. And the Messenger of Allāh ﷺ said: "Indeed, your mouths are pathways for the Qurʾān, so purify them with the siwāk." The mouths are created, and they convey it, yet it does not become created. And he said: "Pathways for the Qurʾān", as you can see, and he did not say: "for an account of the Qurʾān." So the Qurʾān is never an expression of the servants, nor an account given by them on behalf of another, ever, because it is that very Speech which Allāh, Exalted is He, spoke, however it is borne, and however it is conveyed.
📓 Nukat al-Qurʾān
📍 And he said:
(33) And he knows that the Speech of Allāh, Exalted is He, is uncreated. He spoke it as Speech, and He sent it down upon His Messenger ﷺ upon the tongue of Jibrīl, after Jibrīl heard it from Him. Then Jibrīl recited it to Muḥammad ﷺ, and Muḥammad ﷺ recited it to his Companions, and his Companions recited it to the Ummah.
(34) And it did not become created through the recitation of created beings, because it is that very Speech which Allāh spoke.
(35) So it is uncreated in every state: recited, memorized, written, and heard.
(36) And whoever says that it is created in any state whatsoever is a disbeliever whose blood is lawful after his being asked to repent.
📓 Al-Iʿtiqād al-Qādirī
📍 Maslamah ibn al-Qāsim said:
He [i.e., Nuʿaym ibn Ḥammād] was truthful. Al-ʿUqaylī included him in al-Ḍuʿafāʾ. He made many errors and has rejected (munkar) ḥadīths concerning the Malāḥim (major tribulations) which he alone narrated. And he held an evil doctrine concerning the Qurʾān: he used to consider the Qurʾān to be two Qurʾāns. That which is in the Preserved Tablet is the Speech of Allāh, Exalted is He, and that which is in the hands of the people is created.
📓 Kitāb al-Ṣilah
📍 Ibn Baṭṭah al-ʿUkbarī, may Allāh have mercy on him, said:
[Chapter Mentioning the Lafẓiyyah and Warning Against Their Opinion and Their Statements]
Know, may Allāh have mercy on you, that a faction from the Jahmiyyah believed, through the cunning of their hearts, the vileness of their opinions, and the ugliness of their desires, that the Qurʾān is created. So they alluded to that through an innovation they invented, as a means of deception and ornamentation for the common people, so that their disbelief might remain hidden and their heresy might be obscure to those of little knowledge and weak resolve. They said: "The Qurʾān which Allāh spoke and uttered is the Speech of Allāh, uncreated. But this which we recite and read with our tongues and write in our copies of the Qurʾān is not the Qurʾān which is the Speech of Allāh. This is a mere account (ḥikāyah) of that. So what we recite is an account of that Qurʾān using our own expressions, and our expressions of it are created." Thus they refined their disbelief and schemed to introduce disbelief to the common people through the most obscure path, the subtlest doctrine, and the most hidden manner. But this, by the praise of Allāh, His grace, and the excellence of His granting of success, did not remain hidden from the eminent scholars and the discerning critics, until they exposed what they had concealed, and unveiled the ugliness of what they had veiled. Thus their disbelief and heresy became manifest to the elite and the common people alike.
📓 Al-Ibānah al-Kubrā
📍 Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr al-Qurṭubī said:
Al-Karābīsī, ʿAbdullāh ibn Kullāb, Abū Thawr [this is an error on his part], Dāwūd ibn ʿAlī, and their like used to say that the Qurʾān which Allāh spoke is an Attribute from His Attributes, not subject to being created, but that the recitation of the reciter and his utterance of the Qurʾān is his acquisition and his action, and that is created, and that it is an account (ḥikāyah) of the Speech of Allāh, and it is not the Qurʾān which Allāh spoke.
📓 Al-Intiqāʾ
📍 Abū al-Qāsim al-Lālakāʾī, may Allāh have mercy on him, said after listing the statements of the scholars concerning the Lafẓiyyah:
The statements of these Imāms, may Allāh be pleased with them, converge upon the fact that the Qurʾān is truly heard from Allāh. And when the reciter reads it, the Qurʾān does not become, from the expression of the reciter, like the speech of human beings when he utters it, such that it would be created. And the Speech of Allāh does not resemble their speech, because it is uncreated. Thus, it also differs from it in recitation.
📓 Sharḥ Uṣūl Iʿtiqād Ahl al-Sunnah wa al-Jamāʿah
📍 Abū ʿUthmān al-Ṣābūnī, may Allāh have mercy on him, said:
What is narrated from Aḥmad, may Allāh be pleased with him and please him, that "the Lafẓiyyah are Jahmiyyah", this is authentically reported from him. He only said that because Jahm and his followers explicitly declared the Qurʾān to be created, while those who spoke of "expression" (lafẓ) used it as a gradual means to reach the statement that the Qurʾān is created. They feared the people of the Sunnah at that time, [afraid] of explicitly stating that the Qurʾān is created, so they mentioned this expression (lafẓ) and they intended by it that the Qurʾān, by our expression, is created. For this reason, Aḥmad, may Allāh have mercy on him, called them Jahmiyyah.
📓 ʿAqīdat al-Salaf wa Aṣḥāb al-Ḥadīth
📍 Dhāka Ibn al-Muʿallim said:
And it did not suffice Abū Ṭāhir [Aḥmad ibn Ibrāhīm al-Qaṭṭān al-Ḥanbalī] that, until he said: "And in our companion's decisive ruling upon the disbelief of the one who says: 'His expression of the Qurʾān is created' ... is the clearest indication that he believes that which the servants recite to be the Speech of Allāh, Exalted is He, in reality."
📓 Najm al-Muhtadī
📍 Qiwām al-Sunnah al-Aṣbahānī, may Allāh have mercy on him, said:
The first person to speak of "expression" (lafẓ) and to say "our expressions of the Qurʾān are created" was Ḥusayn al-Karābīsī. Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal declared him an innovator, and the scholars of the various regions agreed with him in declaring him an innovator: Isḥāq ibn Rāhawayh, Abū Muṣʿab
[...]
So their madhhab, and the madhhab of all of Ahl al-Sunnah, is that the Qurʾān is the Speech of Allāh, verse by verse, word by word, and letter by letter, in all of its states, wherever it is recited, written, and heard.
📓 Al-Ḥujjah fī Bayān al-Maḥajjah
📍 ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jīlānī, may Allāh have mercy on him, said:
And He, Mighty and Majestic, said: {And if any one of the polytheists seeks your protection, then grant him protection so that he may hear the Speech of Allāh} [al-Tawbah: 6]. The Speech of Allāh, Exalted is He, is the Qurʾān, uncreated, however it is recited, read, and written, and however the recitation of a reciter, the expression of an utterer, and the memorization of a memorizer handles it. It is the Speech of Allāh and an Attribute from the Attributes of His Essence, not originated, not altered, not changed, not composed, not diminished, not manufactured, and nothing is added to it. From Him proceeded its revelation, and to Him its command returns, as the Prophet ﷺ said in the ḥadīth of ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān, may Allāh be pleased with him: "Indeed, the superiority of the Qurʾān over all other speech is like the superiority of Allāh over the rest of His creation."
[...]
And Allāh, Exalted is He, threatened al-Walīd ibn al-Mughīrah al-Makhzūmī with Saqar when he called the Qurʾān the word of a human being. So He said: {This is nothing but magic handed down. This is nothing but the word of a human being. I will soon cast him into Saqar} [al-Muddaththir: 24-26]. So whoever says: "The Qurʾān is a mere expression (ʿibārah) or is created," or "My expression of the Qurʾān is created," then for him is Saqar, just as it is for al-Walīd, unless he repents.
And He, Exalted is He, said: {And if any one of the polytheists seeks your protection, then grant him protection so that he may hear the Speech of Allāh} [al-Tawbah: 6], and He did not say: "so that he may hear your speech, O Muḥammad." And He, Exalted is He, said: {Indeed, We sent it down on the Night of Decree} [al-Qadr: 1], meaning the Qurʾān which is in the chests and the copies of the Qurʾān.
📓 Al-Ghunya
Written by: Abū ʿĀʾish al-Ifrīqī
Translated, and formatted by: Abū Tamhīd aṣ-Ṣaḥrāwī
And may prayers and peace be upon the Messenger of Allāh, and upon his family, and all of his companions.