The Quran — the Speech of Allah, Uncreated

The Ruling of Ahl as-Sunnah

The people of the Sunnah and the united body (Ahl as-Sunnah wa'l-Jamaa'ah) hold that the Quran is the Speech of Allah (Kalam Allah): He spoke it in truth, Jibril brought it down to the heart of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), and it is revealed, not created (munazzal, ghayr makhluq). Speech is an attribute of the One who speaks; and no attribute of Allah is a created thing. To say the Quran is 'created' (makhluq) is the doctrine of the Jahmiyyah and the Mu'tazilah, and it was condemned by the Imams of the Sunnah as a grave innovation.

This is not a peripheral matter. Speech is a perfection: a being that cannot speak is deficient. Allah has affirmed for Himself that He speaks, commands, calls, and reveals. To make His Speech a creature is to sever the Speaker from His attribute and to open the door to denying His other attributes. For this reason the early Imams treated the statement 'the Quran is created' as a statement of disbelief in its speaker when insisted upon with knowledge.

The Quran Names Itself 'the Speech of Allah'

Allah repeatedly calls the revelation His own speech (Kalam Allah) — a phrase that, by the plain meaning of the language, ascribes the words to Allah as their speaker. In the verse of granting refuge to a seeking idolater, the aim is that he may hear Allah's speech:

The One whose speech is heard is Allah, and what is heard is called 'the Speech of Allah' — not the speech of Jibril, nor of Muhammad (peace be upon him), who conveyed it. The same phrase describes those of the Children of Israel who tampered with what they received:

And Allah warns those who would alter His revealed words that they cannot change His speech (48:15). Throughout, the Quran presents itself as the actual, meaningful, worded speech of Allah — heard, recited, memorized, and written — never as a created object standing apart from Him.

His Is the Creation, and His Is the Command

A decisive proof that Allah's word is not among His creatures is His own distinction between khalq (creation) and amr (command). He mentions the two side by side and ascribes both to Himself, yet names them separately:

The Imams of the Sunnah reasoned: the command (amr) is set over against the creation (khalq); the very word by which Allah creates — 'Be, and it is' (kun fa-yakun) — is His command and His speech. If His command were itself created, it would require another command to bring it into being, and so on without end, which is absurd. So His speech is not created; it is the attribute by which He originates all created things.

That Allah truly speaks is affirmed plainly. He spoke directly to Musa (peace be upon him):

The emphatic verbal noun (takliman) forbids reinterpreting the speech as mere 'creation of understanding' in Musa; it establishes real speech from Allah. Elsewhere He describes the modes of His speaking to mankind — by revelation, or from behind a veil, or by sending a messenger (42:51) — all of which presuppose that Allah is truly a Speaker.

The Sunnah: Seeking Refuge in the Uncreated Words

The Sunnah supplies a further, subtle proof. The Prophet (peace be upon him) taught his Ummah to seek refuge in the words of Allah:

The Imams — among them al-Bukhari in his book on the creation of the servants' deeds (Khalq Af'al al-'Ibad) — argued from this as follows: seeking refuge (isti'adha) is an act of worship that may be directed only to Allah and His attributes; to seek refuge in a created thing is forbidden and a form of associating partners. The Prophet (peace be upon him) commanded seeking refuge in the 'words of Allah.' Therefore the words of Allah are not created — for one does not seek protection through a creature. The uncreatedness of His speech is thus established from His own Messenger's guidance.

Against the Jahmiyyah and the Mu'tazilah

The claim that the Quran is created first appeared through Ja'd ibn Dirham and then Jahm ibn Safwan (hence 'Jahmiyyah'), and was later adopted by the Mu'tazilah, who denied Allah's attributes in the name of a false 'purification' of tawhid. Their reasoning was that affirming eternal speech implies a plurality of eternals; so they made the Quran a creature like any other. Ahl as-Sunnah answered that Allah's attributes are not entities separate from Him — His speech is His, subsisting with Him, befitting His majesty — and that the Book itself, in the verses above, refuses their interpretation.

This dispute became the great trial (al-Mihna) in the third century, when the ruling authority compelled the scholars to profess that the Quran is created. Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal endured imprisonment and beating rather than utter it, and his steadfastness preserved the creed of the Salaf for the Ummah. The position he defended — 'the Quran is the Speech of Allah, sent down, not created; from Him it began and to Him it returns' — became the watchword of Ahl as-Sunnah after him.

Honest Points of Difference and Precision

Ahl as-Sunnah affirm one truth but guard it with careful distinctions, and there were real disagreements — some between the Sunnah and other schools, some internal and merely a matter of wording. We state them plainly and with respect:

The Ash'aris and Maturidis affirm that the Quran is uncreated — and in this they stand with the Sunnah against the Mu'tazilah — but many of them hold that Allah's eternal speech is a single, silent 'self-speech' (kalam nafsi) in the meaning, while the Arabic letters and sounds we recite are an 'expression' (hikaya / 'ibara) of it and are created. Ahl as-Sunnah wa'l-Hadith respectfully hold this to be an over-refinement not supported by the texts: the Quran that we recite — its letters, words, and meanings — is itself the Speech of Allah, and Allah speaks with a real speech, with letter and voice as He wills, in a manner befitting Him, unlike the speech of creation. We do not accept that the actual recited words are merely a created 'account' of the true speech.

Within Ahl as-Sunnah, a precise distinction is upheld to close two errors. The Quran itself — that which is recited (al-maqru') — is the uncreated Speech of Allah. But our own recitation, our voices, our movements, and the ink and paper are created acts and objects of the servant. From this two rejected sects arose: the Lafziyyah, who said flatly 'my pronunciation of the Quran is created' (Imam Ahmad warned that this phrase, left unqualified, is a doorway to the Jahmiyyah, since a hearer may take it to mean the Quran itself is created), and the Waqifiyyah, who 'paused' and refused to say whether it was created or not. The balanced statement is: the Quran, the Speech of Allah, is uncreated; and our act of reciting it is created — without letting either truth cancel the other.

So the believer affirms with certainty: the Quran is the Speech of Allah in reality, revealed and not created; He spoke it, it descended from Him, and it will be raised from the hearts and pages at the end of time. This is the creed the Salaf lived and were tried for, and departing from it — by calling His Speech a creature — is the way of the Jahmiyyah, from which we seek Allah's refuge.

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