The Qur'an as the speech of God (in the Tahawi creed)

"The Qur'an is God's speech; it began from Him without modality as utterance, He sent it down upon His messenger as revelation, and the believers affirmed it truly as such" ¹; for him it is "uncreated, unlike the speech of mortals" ¹.

Al-Tahawi cites two verses of Surat al-Muddaththir in warning whoever says the Qur'an is the speech of mortals, then concludes it is "the speech of the Creator of mortals, unlike the speech of mortals" ² (reference: al-Muddaththir 25 and al-Muddaththir 26).

He says: "Whoever hears it and claims it is the speech of mortals has disbelieved" ¹; elsewhere he adds that he does not dispute over the Qur'an, testifying it is the speech of the Lord of the worlds, brought down by the Trustworthy Spirit who taught it to the master of the messengers — nothing of created speech equals it — "and we do not say it is created" ³.

Joined to that is his saying: "Whoever describes God with a meaning of the meanings of mortals has disbelieved" ².

Ibn Qudama says that among God's attributes is that He is "speaking with eternal speech, heard from Him by whom He wills of His creation — Moses heard it from Him without intermediary" ⁴. The Qur'an for him is "sent down, uncreated; from Him it began and to Him it returns", "having a beginning and an end, parts and portions, recited by tongues, kept in breasts, heard by ears, written in the codices" ⁵. He argues that Muslims do not differ that whoever denies a sura, verse, word or agreed letter of it is an unbeliever — for him "a conclusive proof that it is letters" ⁶. His wording is more detailed than al-Tahawi's in describing God's speech.

Ibn Taymiyya says: "Part of belief in God and His books is believing that the Qur'an is God's sent-down speech, uncreated — from Him it began and to Him it returns — and that God truly spoke it" ^{7 8}. "It is not permissible to say unqualifiedly that it is a report of God's speech or an expression of it"; when people recite it or write it in codices it does not thereby cease to be God's speech in truth, since speech "is truly attributed only to the one who originated it, not to one who conveys and transmits it"; it is "God's speech in letters and meanings — not God's speech in letters without meanings nor meanings without letters" ⁸.

In "the account of the sum of the saying of the people of hadith and sunna" in Maqalat al-Islamiyyin, Abu al-Hasan al-Ash'ari presents what the people of hadith and sunna hold, ending: "And in all we have mentioned of their saying we speak, and to it we go" ⁹. He relates there that they "say: the Qur'an is God's speech, uncreated; and as for speech about pause and articulation — whoever speaks of articulation or pause is, for them, an innovator; it is not said the articulation of the Qur'an is created, nor that it is uncreated" ¹⁰.

This entry presents the positions of the 'Aqida al-Tahawiyya, Ibn Qudama's Lum'at al-I'tiqad, Ibn Taymiyya's al-Wasitiyya, and what al-Ash'ari related in Maqalat al-Islamiyyin of the people of hadith and sunna and declared his own — each attributed to its book. The sayings of the Maturidis and the remaining Sunni and non-Sunni schools from their own books have not yet been added; the entry needs specialist review before promotion.