Ibn Taymiyyah on whether languages and letters are created
The shaykh says people who ascribe themselves to Ahl al Sunnah differed about the letters of the alphabet and the speech of creation.
- A first group, including Ibn Hamid, Abu Nasr al Sijzi, al Qadi Abu Yaʿla in his more well known view, Ibn Aqil and others, say that the letters that appear in the speech of creation are created, and they divide letters into two kinds.
- A second group, including many scholars of al Sham, Iraq and Khurasan such as al Qadi Yaqub al Barzini, al Sharif Abu al Fadail al Zaidi al Harrani, Abu al Husayn ibn Samʿun, al Qadi Abu al Husayn in his later view, Abu al Faraj al Ansari, Abd al Qadir al Jilani, Ibn al Zaghuni and others, say that the letter is one single reality and that the letters of the alphabet are not created wherever they occur, because they are from the speech of Allah and the reality of the letter does not change.
He also reports from Imam Ahmad that he was against those who said, in an absolute sense, that the letters are created, and that Ahmad declared the story about the letters prostrating except the alif to be disbelief, since such wording would include the letters of the speech of Allah. (Ibn Taymiyyah, Majmu al Fatawa 12/441 to 444)
The first group do not in reality oppose Imam Ahmad. They condemn the statement that the letters are created when it is left general, but they intend only the letters that exist in the speech of creation, not the letters that exist in the speech of Allah.
The reality of a letter or a name is one shared reality, so the same word may appear in the Quran and in human speech, but the ruling follows the speaker.
He gives the example of Musaylimah writing, “From Musaylimah, the messenger of Allah, to Muhammad, the messenger of Allah,” and the Prophet ﷺ replying, “From Muhammad, the messenger of Allah, to Musaylimah the liar.”
The phrase “messenger of Allah” comes from both, yet it is pure truth from the Prophet ﷺ and pure falsehood from Musaylimah, which shows that agreement in wording does not make the two speeches one in ruling.
The same applies to verses of poetry and proverbs that are repeated by later people; they use the wording for their own meaning, while it remains ascribed in origin to the first speaker. (Ibn Taymiyyah, Majmu al Fatawa 12/444 to 446)
Some companions of Imam Ahmad, and groups of fuqaha, hadith scholars and usul scholars, such as Abu Bakr Abd al Aziz, Abu Muhammad al Maqdisi, as well as al Ashari and Ibn Furak, say that the origin of languages is tawqifi, meaning established by Allah.
Others, such as Ibn Aqil and others, say that some languages are tawqifi and some are conventional.
A further group, including al Qadi Abu Yaʿla and al Qadi Abu Bakr al Baqillani, say that both possibilities exist and they do not decisively choose one.
Only some groups of the Muʿtazilah, headed by Abu Hashim ibn al Jubbaʿi, say that all languages are purely conventional.
Those who say that languages are tawqifi then differ among themselves: is this tawqif by direct address, by necessary knowledge, or by both.
Those who say that languages are not created claim that they are tawqifi by direct address, that Allah spoke all the names when He taught Adam, and that His speech is not created, so the original languages and names are not created.
Ibn Taymiyyah answers that even if Adam was taught by direct address, this does not require those exact words to remain in all his descendants, and he mentions what is narrated about the people of the ship of Nuh being given different tongues when they left the ship. (Ibn Taymiyyah, Majmu al Fatawa 12/446 to 449)
After presenting these sayings, Ibn Taymiyyah explains that the dispute is, in reality, mostly verbal. The one who says, “The letter is one letter and the letters of the alphabet are not created,” only intends that the general reality of letters enters into the speech of Allah, is taken from the speech of Allah, and is the material of His spoken word, and that speech is not created.
There is no dispute about the uncreatedness of the speech of Allah. At the same time, he points out that an isolated bare letter does not exist in the Quran or outside it.
No one pronounces a letter except as part of composed words, or pronounces its name such as alif, lam, mim. He notes that in the Quran only half of the letter names appear as separate openings of surahs, and this is the nobler half of the alphabet in terms of classes of sounds, while the other half of letter names appears only inside nouns, verbs and particles.
All of the actual letters that make up words are present in the Quran, and he mentions that they are gathered across two verses: “Then after distress He sent down upon you security” and “Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.” (Ibn Taymiyyah, Majmu al Fatawa 12/449 to 451)
The absolute notion of a letter, like the absolute notion of a human being, exists only in the mind and not as a separate thing in external reality. What exists outside the mind is always a particular letter within an utterance, or the name of a letter when mentioned on its own. Because of this, letters take their rulings from their meanings and from the one who speaks them.
This is why the letters of the Quran, when recited or written, are honoured and have distinct legal rulings, while ordinary letters in the speech of creation do not share that status.
On this basis Ibn Taymiyyah affirms what the imams such as Ahmad said, that all of the speech of a human being is created, both its letters and its meanings, while the Quran is not created, neither its letters nor its meanings.
He quotes the hadith in which Allah says, “I am al Rahman, I created the womb and derived for it a name from My name,” (Bukhari 5988) to show that even if a created thing is named by derivation from one of the names of Allah, that does not make the created thing or its name uncreated.
He also mentions the report from al Masih about people moving in the blessings of Allah and speaking with His names, and he refutes those who use the fact that the letters build the names of Allah and His Books as an argument for saying that the letters used by creation are not created. (Ibn Taymiyyah, Majmu al Fatawa 12/451-453)
Ibn Taymiyyah’s position is that the languages spoken by creation, including Arabic, and the letters and sounds by which they speak and write, are created as actions and traces of creation, even though the general form of letters is taken from the uncreated speech of Allah, and the Quran itself, with its meanings and its letters as His speech, is not created. (Ibn Taymiyyah, Majmu al Fatawa 12/441-453)
Ibn al Qayyim on whether arabic letters are created
Ibn al Qayyim says the letters that occur in the speech of creation are created, while the letters of the Quran are not created.
If it is said, “How can one letter be both created and not created?” he replies that the letter is not one single individual in reality, even if it is one in type, just as speech is divided into created and not created while being one in type. (Ibn al Qayyim, Mukhtasar al Sawa’iq al Mursala 508-512)
He explains this by saying that every thing has four levels of existence: in external reality, in the mind, on the tongue, and in writing. The universal form of the letter exists as a mental concept, while its many particular spoken and written instances exist as created acts of the servants.
On this basis, the type of letter that belongs to the speech of Allah is not created, while the particular letters that appear in the speech, recitation and writing of creation are created, so there is no contradiction in saying that letters are created in one respect and not created in another. (Ibn al Qayyim, Mukhtasar al Sawa’iq al Mursala 512 to 518)
Ibn Taymiyyah said: Their doubt is that they found that people had spoken about the letters of the alphabet and that they are names of created things.
Those who affiliate themselves to the Sunnah have also spoken about the letters of the alphabet in what is other than the Quran and the revealed books, and some of them, such as Ibn Hamid (d.403 AH), Abu Nasr al Sijzi (d.444 AH), al Qadi Abu Yaʿla (d.458 AH) in his more famous opinion, Ibn Aqil (d.513 AH) and others, said that these letters are created, and they said that letters are of two kinds.
Others, and they are many among the people of al Sham, Iraq and Khurasan, such as al Qadi Yaqub al Barzini, al Sharif Abu al Fadail al Zaidi al Harrani, and it is narrated from Shaykh Abu al Husayn ibn Samʿun, and it is the saying of al Qadi Abu al Husayn, who transmitted it from his father in his later view, and it is the saying of Shaykh Abu al Faraj al Ansari (d.634 AH), Shaykh Abd al Qadir (d.561 AH), Ibn al Zaghuni (d.527 AH) and others, that the letter is one single letter, and that the letters of the alphabet are not created wherever they occur, because they are from the speech of Allah, and the reality of the letter is one and does not differ.
It has been transmitted from Imam Ahmad (d.241 AH) that he condemned those who said that the letters are created, and that when it was mentioned to him that some people said, “When Allah created the letters they prostrated to Him except the alif,” Imam Ahmad said, “This is disbelief.” This condemnation is also transmitted from others among the imams.
The first group do not actually disagree with this, for they too condemn the one who says that the letters are created in an unrestricted way, because if he says that, the letters of the speech of Allah the Exalted from the Quran and other than it would be included in that.
They restrict their discussion to the letters that exist in the speech of the creation, not the letters that exist in the speech of Allah. They say that the reality of letter and name, even if it is one reality, is like certain words that are present in the Quran and that some of the creation also utter.
The speaker may sometimes intend to speak with the speech of another, even if he matches him in wording as far as we are concerned, and this is only possible in a small amount, less than a short surah, for Allah has challenged the creation to bring a surah like it and informed that they will never do so.
The first group say: The agreement of the wording of one speech with the wording of another speech does not entail that one of them takes the ruling of the other ascribed to its speaker, such that both are ascribed to the same speaker, so how then when comparing the Creator with the creation?
When Musaylimah wrote to the Prophet ﷺ, “From Musaylimah, the messenger of Allah, to Muhammad, the messenger of Allah,” the Prophet ﷺ replied to him, “From Muhammad, the messenger of Allah, to Musaylimah the liar.”
The word “messenger of Allah” was on the tongue of both speakers, but from one of them it was truth, and among the greatest truth, and from the other it was falsehood, and among the ugliest falsehood.
Allah has mentioned in His Book the evil statements of the disbelievers, such as:
وَقَالُوا اتَّخَذَ اللَّهُ وَلَدًا كَبُرَتْ كَلِمَةً تَخْرُجُ مِنْ أَفْوَاهِهِمْ إِن يَقُولُونَ إِلَّا كَذِبًا
“They say, ‘Allah has taken a son.’ A monstrous word it is that comes out of their mouths; they say nothing but a lie.” (al Kahf: 4–5)
and His words:
زَعَمَ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا أَنْ لَّن يُبْعَثُوا
“Those who disbelieve claim that they will never be resurrected.” (al Taghabun: 7)
and other false statements which He has reported from them. So when we speak with these words as Allah has narrated them, we are speaking with the speech of Allah, but if we were to report them from them on our own initiative we would be reporting their lying speech.
For this reason the jurists said: Whoever mentions Allah or makes supplication is allowed to do that while in a state of major ritual impurity, even if his wording matches words from the Quran, so long as he does not intend recitation.
They said: If a person in the prayer speaks with words from the Quran intending nothing but addressing a human, the prayer is invalid, because that is speech of humans, and nothing of the speech of humans is fitting in the prayer.
If he intends, along with alerting the person, recitation as well, then according to the majority his prayer is not invalid, just as if he intended only recitation; and according to some of them the prayer is invalid, which is the saying of Abu Hanifa (d.150 AH). The issues of prompting the imam by reciting an ayah and alerting a person entering by an ayah of the Quran and similar cases all come under this.
The cause of this is that the meaning of speech enters into that which is called “speech”; the term is not a name for the mere bare wording without the meaning. Speech is composed of bringing something into being and informing, and bringing into being includes command and prohibition.
It is known that the command of Zayd is not the command of Amr, nor is its ruling the same as his, even if the wording is the same, and likewise the choice and will of Zayd is not the choice of Amr, nor is its ruling the same, even if the wording is the same.
The obeyed, wise commander, when he commands, his command has a ruling that is different from the ruling of that same wording if it were commanded by an ignorant, incapable person, even if the sentence is the same. Likewise the report of a knowledgeable, truthful witness has a ruling that is different from the report of an ignorant liar, even if the sentence is the same.
If this is so, then someone who inserts into his own speech some wording that another has inserted into his speech does not thereby make that wording part of the speech of that other person.
Even if one wording resembles the other, it is like someone writing letters that resemble the letters of the mushaf, but he writes them as some other speech. That does not make those letters the letters of the mushaf.
The second group say: Mere agreement in wording does not entail that the ruling of one of the two wordings becomes the ruling of the other. However, if one of them is the original, which preceded with that speech, and the other only followed it and imitated its pattern, then the wording and speech are ascribed to the first, like someone who recites the verse of Labid:
“Truly, every thing apart from Allah is false”
or the saying:
“You will be brought news by one who was not supplied with provisions”
or one of the common proverbs, such as: “Perhaps al Ghuwayr will bring misfortune,” or “Your two hands tied the waterskin and your mouth blew into it,” or “All the game is in the belly of al Fara.”
So this person has spoken with this in the meaning he intended, not as a transmission on behalf of the original speaker, yet all the same it is ascribed to the one who first uttered it. Likewise the letters that are found in the speech of Allah, even if people insert them into their own speech which is their speech, their origin is taken from the speech of Allah the Exalted.
The first group say: Here there are two positions.
The first is that whoever Allah causes to speak with these letters, did He only do so by way of that person receiving them from the speech of Allah, or from someone who received them from the speech of Allah? This general claim needs proof.
Teaching Adam the names, or Allah sending down His Book with these letters, does not entail that no one else ever uttered these letters except one who had heard the revealed books.
The Arabs used to utter these letters and these names before the Quran was sent down, and Allah sent it down in their tongue which they used to speak before the revelation of the Quran.
The second position is that even if no one uttered them except one who received them from the speech of Allah, when he composes speech for himself with them, without intending to recite the speech of Allah, then in that state it is not the speech of Allah, just as would be the case in some compound sentences, and even more so. The legal rulings bear witness to this, as mentioned.
The second group, who say that the letters of the alphabet are not created at all, say that regarding the names that occur outside the Quran there are two sayings.
Some of them say that all names are not created, just like they say about the letters. Others do not say that.
Ibn Hamid (d.403 AH) and others have transmitted both sayings from those who attribute themselves to the madhhab of Imam Ahmad and others among those who say that the letters of the alphabet are not created. Those who generalised this ruling used the words of Allah the Exalted,
وَعَلَّمَ آدَمَ الْأَسْمَاءَ كُلَّهَا
“And He taught Adam all the names.” (al Baqara: 31)
as evidence. This argument is based on two premises.
The first is that the origin of languages is by tawqif , and that what is meant by tawqif is that Allah addressed them with the words themselves, not that He merely caused a necessary knowledge of them, and this is an issue over which the people have differed from among the companions of Imam Ahmad, the jurists, the people of hadith and the people of usul.
Some said that languages are tawqifi, and this is the saying of Abu Bakr Abd al Aziz (d.363 AH), Shaykh Abu Muhammad al Maqdisi (d.620 AH), and groups of the companions of Imam Ahmad, and it is the saying of al Ashari (d.324 AH), Ibn Furak (d.406 AH) and others.
Others said that some of them are tawqifi (established by Allah) and some of them are conventional, and this is the saying of groups, amongst them Ibn Aqil (d.513 AH) and others.
Others said that both are possible and we do not assert one way or the other, and this is the saying of al Qadi Abu Yaʿla (d.458 AH), al Qadi Abu Bakr al Baqillani (d.403 AH) and others.
None said that they are all purely conventional except some groups among the Muʿtazilah and those who followed them, and the head of this view is Abu Hashim ibn al Jubbaʿi (d.321 AH).
Those who said that they are tawqifi (established by Allah) disagreed: is the tawqif by direct address, or by necessary knowledge, or by both? So whoever said that they are tawqifi and that the tawqif is by direct address, their view leads to saying that they are not created, because they are all from the speech of Allah the Exalted. However we know for certain that among proper names there are those which people coined afresh on their own, so the discussion would then be restricted to names of general kinds.
Also, Allah’s teaching Adam by address does not require that those names remain with their exact expressions in his offspring. What has been narrated is that the people on the ship of Nuh, when they came out of the ship, each group was given a tongue and their tongues became diverse.
This matter has some pull in both directions, and the dispute over it between our companions and the rest of Ahl al Sunnah comes back, in what is a real matter of dispute, to a verbal disagreement. There is no, praise be to Allah, real substantive disagreement between them.
The reason is that the one who said, “The letter is one letter, and the letters of the alphabet are not created,” only intended by this that they enter into the speech of Allah, that they are derived from the speech of Allah, that they are the material of the spoken word of Allah, and that is not created. There is no dispute about this.
As for a bare, abstract letter, it does not exist in the Quran or outside it, and no one pronounces a letter except as part of a word made up of nouns, verbs and particles.
As for letters that are pronounced in isolation such as alif, lam, mim and the like, these are in reality names of the letters, and they are only called “letters” by the name of what they name, just as “daraba” is called a past tense verb with respect to its meaning.
For this reason, when al Khalil ibn Ahmad (d.170 AH) asked his companions, “How do you pronounce the zay in Zayd?” they said, “We say za,” so he said, “You have brought the name; rather one says ‘z’.”
In the Quran there is only half of the letters of the alphabet in the form of these letter names. They are fourteen letters, which are half of the classes of letters: half of the voiced and unvoiced, the elevated and low, the emphatic and non emphatic, the strong and soft, and other such classes. This is the nobler half.
The other half of the letter names does not occur in the Quran except within nouns, verbs or particles that are not nouns or verbs. So it is not correct for us to believe that the letters of the alphabet with all their names are all present in the Quran. However, the very letters of the alphabet which are parts of words are present in the Quran, and in fact they are all gathered in two ayahs, one in Aal Imran and the second in Surat al Fath in His words:
ثُمَّ أَنزَلَ عَلَيْكُم مِّن بَعْدِ الْغَمِّ
“Then after distress He sent down upon you security.” (Aal Imran: 154)
and in His words:
مُّحَمَّدٌ رَّسُولُ اللَّهِ
“Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.” (al Fath: 29)
So when someone speaks with some other speech composed of the letters of the alphabet, he has not pronounced the exact same letters that are in the expressions of the Quran, but only letters like them. That speech which he has uttered may be something he originally took from the expressions of Allah’s speech, and it may not be so in reality.
It is said: The letter as such, considered in itself, is one thing. Its absolute reality, without composition, does not exist in the speech of Allah the Exalted or in the speech of His servants. Rather what exists is the letter which is a part of an utterance, or the name of the letter when it is not part of an utterance.
As for this absolute, general notion, even concrete entities that exist in the external universe and stand on their own, such as “human,” do not exist in external reality separated from individuals. The general notion “human” only exists in the mind, not outside the mind.
So how then with the letter, which never exists outside the mind except as part of something composed? If we imagined that it did exist outside in a non composed state in multiple individual instances, as “human” does, even then its absolute reality, considered as such, would exist only in the mind, not in external reality.
So it becomes clear that letters differ in their rulings according to their meanings and according to the one who speaks them. This is what has made the letters of the Quran, whether recited or written, deserving of veneration. They have special legal rulings which distinguish them from all other letters, and the difference in rulings is only because of the difference in their attributes and states.
So it becomes clear that what must be said is what the imams such as Ahmad and others said: All of a human being’s speech is created, both its letters and its meanings, and the Quran is not created, neither its letters nor its meanings.
It is established in the authentic narration from the Prophet ﷺ that he said: “Allah says: I am al Rahman, I created the womb and derived for it a name from My name. So whoever maintains its ties I maintain his tie, and whoever cuts it off I cut him off.”
And al Rabi ibn Anas (d.139 AH) narrated from al Masih that he said, “Strange are they, how do they disbelieve in Him when they roll about in His blessings and speak with His names?”
It has also been mentioned about most of the letters of the alphabet that they are the building blocks of the beautiful names of Allah and His Books sent down from the sky. Those who say that the letters are not created use this as an argument, but it is not an argument.
The names of Allah are from His speech, and His speech is not created, and whatever He Himself derives from His names and speaks with, His speaking with that is not created. As for when they derive a name and coin it, then that name is something they have originated, and it does not follow that because the root from which it is derived is not created that the derived term is likewise.
What is narrated from al Masih is not known with certainty to be established from him, and even if we suppose it is authentic, then if Allah has inspired His servants to speak with the letters that are the building blocks of His names with which He spoke, it still does not follow that what they have originated is not created.
In short, whoever looks at the fact that the reality of the letter, which does not differ, is present in the speech of Allah and that the speech of Allah is not created, then says that it is “not created,” he is pointing to the very reality of the letter, not to that particular portion of sound by which the disbelievers and polytheists speak.
That particular letter, which is a sound that is actually produced by the disbeliever or that we imagine being produced by him, no person of intellect will say that it is not created, since in no way is it ascribed to Allah. Only that which shares with it in name, and is related to the meaning that is ascribed to Allah, is ascribed to Allah.
This is unlike the letters which are in the speech of Allah, for those are the speech of Allah wherever they occur. When Allah granted us ease to speak His speech on our tongues, we were able to speak with His speech, but by means of our instruments and our voices.
Our speaking it and its being heard from us is not like His speaking it and its being heard from Him, as has already been indicated, just as Allah is not like anything in His essence, likewise all that is ascribed to Him is not like anything that is ascribed to others. But when He made us speak using our instruments, movements and voices, there came to be a kind of similarity between some of our utterance of it and our utterance of other than it.
So when we speak some other speech, our voice and utterance in that speech resembles from one aspect our voice and utterance in reciting the Quran, but it does not resemble Allah’s speaking of it and His reciting of it.
When it is so that the existence of these letters in the speech of humans is not like the speaking of Allah with the Quran, and only resembles from one aspect our speaking of the Quran from the angle of the relation to us and not from the angle of the relation to Allah, then it is prevented in that case to say that the exact same particular letter, which is part of the utterance that people make in their words, is the very same particular letter which is part of the utterance of the speech of Allah the Exalted.
Rather it only resembles it and is close to it. It is it in respect of the type and not it in respect of the specific individual token. This is unlike the letters of the speech of Allah in the Quran, for they are the speech of Allah wherever they occur. In this issue there is subtlety and a point of confusion that we have indicated in this answer and explained in its appropriate place.
So whoever said that letters are of two kinds intended that they are two individuals and two personal realities, and this is true. Whoever said the letter is one letter intended that the generic reality in the two places is one, and this is also true.
Whoever said that the letters of the alphabet, as found in the speech of humans, are not created has spoken the truth from the angle of the generic reality. Whoever said that they are created from the angle of the individual, specific instance has spoken the truth.
Many similar examples are found of this in the words of the people of knowledge and Ahl al Sunnah, in which there is negation and affirmation while the dispute is actually about two different meanings, and the dispute is verbal and depends on viewpoint.
One of the virtuous said that most of the disagreements between people of reason come from the fact that terms are shared between different meanings.
However the occurrence of such shared terms and ambiguous expressions misguides many people, just as many are guided by them, and this is the cause of the error of these ignorant people who were asked about, for their argument is that Allah taught Adam all the names and taught him eloquent expression, and this is built on the claim that languages are tawqifi, as many jurists from our companions and others said, such as Abu Bakr Abd al Aziz (d.363 AH), Abu Muhammad al Maqdisi (d.620 AH), and it is the saying of al Ashari (d.324 AH), Ibn Furak (d.406 AH) and others.
However, regarding tawqif (established by Allah), is what is meant direct speech, or necessary knowledge, or both together? This itself is disputed as mentioned. Those who said that languages are not created say they are tawqifi and that teaching was through direct address, so Allah spoke all the names, and the speech of Allah is not created.
These ignorant misguided people then said: The speech of humans is nothing but what is composed of letters and names, and those are not created, so this also is not created.
So they built their saying upon the claim that the letters of the alphabet are not created, and that the names composed of those letters are not created, and they believed at the same time that the speech of humans is nothing but the composition of names and letters, and those are not created, so they said: The speech of humans is not created, because its individual parts are not created.
If they are pressed they may say that the arrangement and composition is created, but the composed thing itself is eternal. They then suppose that the composed materials are more essential to the reality of speech than the composition and arrangement themselves, just as the parts of a house are more essential to the concept expressed by the word “house” than its arrangement, even though “house” is a name for both the parts and the way they are arranged.
Majmu Al Fatawa (12/441-453)
Imam Ibn Al Qayyim said:
[فصل جواب السؤال هل حروف المعجم قديمة أو مخلوقة]
فَإِنْ قِيلَ: كَيْفَ الْحَرْفُ الْوَاحِدُ مَخْلُوقٌ وَغَيْرُ مَخْلُوقٍ.
قِفَا نَبْكِ مِنْ ذِكْرَى حَبِيبٍ وَمَنْزِلِ
The doubt of these people is that they found that people had spoken about the letters of the alphabet and that they are names of created things. Those who ascribe themselves to the Sunnah have also spoken about the letters of the alphabet in what is other than the Quran and the revealed books. Some of them, such as Ibn Hamid (d.403 AH), Abu Nasr al Sijzi (d.444 AH), al Qadi Abu Yaʿla (d.458 AH) in his more famous saying, Ibn Aqil (d.513 AH) and others, said that they are created, and said that letters are of two kinds. Others, and they are many among the people of al Sham, Iraq and Khurasan, such as al Qadi Yaqub al Barzini, al Sharif Abu al Fadail al Zaidi al Harrani, and it is related from Shaykh Abu al Husayn ibn Samʿun (d.387 AH), and it is the saying of al Qadi Abu al Husayn, who related it from his father as his later view, and it is also the saying of Shaykh Abu al Faraj al Ansari (d.634 AH), Shaykh Abd al Qadir (d.561 AH), Ibn al Zaghuni (d.527 AH) and others, that the letter is one single letter, and that the letters of the alphabet are not created wherever they occur, because they are from the speech of Allah, and the reality of the letter is one and does not differ.
It has been transmitted from Imam Ahmad (d.241 AH) that he rejected and condemned the one who said that the letters are created, and that when it was mentioned to him that some people said, “When Allah created the letters, they all prostrated to Him except the alif,” Imam Ahmad said, “This is disbelief.” Rejection of this is also narrated from other imams.
The first group is not in fact disputing this, because they too reject those who say that the letters are created without qualification, since if a person says that, it will include the letters of the speech of Allah the Exalted, in the Quran and otherwise. They restrict their words to the letters that exist in the speech of the creation, not the letters that exist in the speech of Allah. They say that the reality of the letter and of the name, even if it is one reality, is like some words that are present in the Quran and that some among the creation also utter. A speaker may sometimes intend to speak with the speech of someone else, even if he matches him in the wording as far as we are concerned, and this is only possible in something small, less than a short surah, for Allah has challenged the creation to bring a surah like it and has told them that they will never do so.
The first group say: The agreement of one wording with another wording does not require that one of them has the same ruling as the other in relation to the created speaker, such that both are attributed to the same person, so how could that be in relation to the Creator. When Musaylimah wrote to the Prophet ﷺ saying, “From Musaylimah, the messenger of Allah, to Muhammad, the messenger of Allah,” the Prophet ﷺ replied to him, “From Muhammad, the messenger of Allah, to Musaylimah the liar.” The word “messenger of Allah” came from the tongue of both speakers, but from one of them it was truth, rather the greatest truth, and from the other it was falsehood, rather the worst falsehood.
Allah has mentioned in His Book the evil sayings of the disbelievers, such as His words:
وَقَالُوا اتَّخَذَ اللَّهُ وَلَدًا مَا لَهُم بِهِ مِنْ عِلْمٍ وَلَا لِآبَائِهِمْ كَبُرَتْ كَلِمَةً تَخْرُجُ مِنْ أَفْوَاهِهِمْ إِن يَقُولُونَ إِلَّا كَذِبًا
“They say, ‘Allah has taken a son.’ They have no knowledge of it, nor had their forefathers. A grave word it is that comes out of their mouths. They say nothing but a lie.” (al Kahf: 4–5)
and His words:
زَعَمَ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا أَنْ لَّن يُبْعَثُوا
“Those who disbelieve claim that they will never be resurrected.” (al Taghabun: 7)
and other false sayings that He has related from them. So when we speak with these words as Allah has related them from them, we are speakers with the speech of Allah, but if we related them from them on our own without this, we would be relating their lying speech.
For this reason the fuqaha said: Whoever mentions Allah or makes supplication is allowed to do that while in a state of major ritual impurity, even if his wording matches wording from the Quran, as long as he does not intend recitation. They said: If someone in the prayer speaks with wording from the Quran while intending only to address another human, his prayer is invalid, because that is human speech, and no part of human speech is suitable in the prayer. If he intends along with alerting the person to recitation as well, then his prayer is valid according to the majority, just as if he intended only recitation. According to some of them the prayer is invalid, and this is the saying of Abu Hanifa (d.150 AH). From this are the issues of prompting the imam by an ayah from the Quran and alerting someone entering by an ayah of the Quran and similar issues.
The reason is that the meaning of speech enters into what is called “speech.” The word is not a name for the bare utterance alone without the meaning.
The meaning is either bringing something into being or informing, and bringing into being includes command and prohibition. It is known that the command of Zayd is not the command of Amr, nor does it have the same ruling, even if the wording is the same. Likewise the choice and will of Zayd is not the choice of Amr, nor does it have the same ruling, even if the wording is the same.
The obeyed wise commander, when he commands with a command, the ruling of that command is different from the ruling it would have if that same wording came as a command from an ignorant incapable person, even if the sentence is the same. Likewise, if a truthful knowledgeable witness gives a report, the ruling of that report is different from the ruling it would have if the same wording came from an ignorant liar, even if the sentence is the same.
If this is so, then whoever puts into his own speech some wording that another has put into his speech does not thereby make that wording part of the speech of that other person. Even if one of the two expressions is similar to the other, it is like the one who writes letters that resemble the letters of the mushaf but writes them as another speech. That does not make them the letters of the mushaf.
The others say: Mere agreement in wording does not require that the ruling of one of the two utterances becomes the ruling of the other. However, if one of them is the original, the one that first came with that speech, and the other only followed it and imitated its pattern, then the wording and the speech are ascribed to the first, just as the one who uses the verse of Labid (d.41 AH):
“Indeed, every thing apart from Allah is false”
or his line:
“And the one who was not supplied with provisions will bring you the news”
or who uses any of the common proverbs, such as “Perhaps al Ghuwayr will bring trouble,” “Your two hands tied the waterskin and your mouth blew into it,” or “All the game is inside the belly of al Fara,” and similar examples, has spoken with these words in the meaning that he intends, not by way of transmitting from the first speaker, and yet with that they are still ascribed to the first one who said them. In the same way, the letters that are present in the speech of Allah, even if people put them into their own speech which is their speech, their origin is taken from the speech of Allah the Exalted.
The first group say: There are two matters here.
The first is that everyone whom Allah caused to speak with these letters, was that only by way of obtaining them from the speech of Allah or from someone who obtained them from the speech of Allah? This general claim needs proof. Allah teaching Adam the names, or His sending down His Book with these letters, does not require that no one else spoke with these letters except someone who had heard the revealed Books, just as the Arabs used to speak with these letters and these names before the Quran was sent down, and Allah sent it down in their tongue which they used before the revelation of the Quran.
The second matter is that even if no one had ever spoken with them except someone who obtained them from the speech of Allah, then when he uses them to originate speech for himself, without intending to recite the speech of Allah, that is not in that case the speech of Allah, just as would be the case for some compound sentences, and even more so. The legal rulings show this, as we have mentioned before.
Those who say that the letters of the alphabet are not created at all say that, in regard to the names that appear outside the Quran, there are two sayings.
Some say that all names are not created, just as they say about the letters. Others do not say that.
Ibn Hamid (d.403 AH) and others have related both sayings from those who are ascribed to the madhhab of Imam Ahmad and others among those who say that the letters of the alphabet are not created. Those who made this general statement used the verse of Allah the Exalted:
وَعَلَّمَ آدَمَ الْأَسْمَاءَ كُلَّهَا
“And He taught Adam all the names.” (al Baqara: 31)
as evidence. This proof is based on two premises.
The first is that the origin of languages is tawqifi, and that what is meant by tawqif is that Allah addressed them with the words themselves, not that He merely granted a necessary knowledge of them. This is an issue about which people have differed, from among the companions of Imam Ahmad and other fuqaha, hadith scholars and usul scholars. Some said that they are tawqifi. This is the saying of Abu Bakr Abd al Aziz (d.363 AH), Shaykh Abu Muhammad al Maqdisi (d.620 AH) and groups among the companions of Imam Ahmad, and it is the saying of al Ashari (d.324 AH), Ibn Furak (d.406 AH) and others.
Some said that some languages are tawqifi and some are conventional. This is the saying of groups, among them Ibn Aqil (d.513 AH) and others. Some said that both are possible and we do not decisively choose one, and this is the saying of al Qadi Abu Yaʿla (d.458 AH), al Qadi Abu Bakr ibn al Baqillani (d.403 AH) and others.
None said that they are all purely conventional except some groups among the Muʿtazilah and those who followed them, and the head of this saying is Abu Hashim ibn al Jubbaʿi (d.321 AH).
Those who say that languages are tawqifi differed: is the tawqif by address or by necessary knowledge, or by both? So whoever says that they are tawqifi and that the tawqif is by address, their view implies that they are not created, because they are all from the speech of Allah the Exalted. However, we know with certainty that among proper names there are some which people coined originally by themselves, so the discussion remains concerning the names of general kinds.
Also, the fact that Allah taught Adam by address does not require that those names, with their exact words, remain in his descendants. What is narrated is that the people of the ship of Nuh, when they came out of the ship, each group was given a language and their tongues became varied. This issue has some pull in both directions, and the dispute over it between our companions and the rest of Ahl al Sunnah, in what is a real matter of dispute, goes back to a verbal disagreement. Praise belongs to Allah, there is no real disagreement in meaning between them.
That is because the one who said “the letter is one letter, and the letters of the alphabet are not created” only intends by this that they enter into the speech of Allah, that they are taken and derived from the speech of Allah, that they are the material of His spoken word, and that is not created. There is no dispute about this. As for an isolated bare letter, it does not exist in the Quran or outside it. No one pronounces a letter except as part of something formed from nouns, verbs and particles of meaning.
The letters that are pronounced alone, like “alif, lam, mim” and the like, are in reality the names of the letters. They were only called “letters” by the name of what they refer to, just as “daraba” is called a past tense verb with regard to the meaning it carries. For this reason, when al Khalil (d.170 AH) asked his companions, “How do you pronounce the zay in Zayd?” they said, “We say za.” He said: “You have brought the name. Rather one says ‘z’.”
In the Quran there is only half of the letters of the alphabet in the form of these names of letters. They are fourteen letters, which are half of the types of letters, half of the voiced and unvoiced, the raised and the low, the emphatic and the non emphatic, the strong and the soft, and other types of letters. This is the nobler half. The other half does not appear in the Quran except within nouns, verbs or particles which are neither nouns nor verbs. So it is not allowed for us to believe that all the letters of the alphabet with their names are present in the Quran. Rather, the actual letters of the alphabet which are parts of words are present in the Quran, and all of them are gathered in two ayahs, one in Aal Imran and the second in Surat al Fath, in His words:
ثُمَّ أَنزَلَ عَلَيْكُم مِّن بَعْدِ الْغَمِّ
“Then after the distress He sent down upon you security.” (Aal Imran: 154)
and His words:
مُّحَمَّدٌ رَّسُولُ اللَّهِ
“Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.” (al Fath: 29)
So if someone speaks another speech composed of the letters of the alphabet, he has not pronounced the very same letters that are in the wording of the Quran. He has only pronounced letters like them. The speech that he uttered may be something he took, when he began, from the wording of the speech of Allah the Exalted, or that may not be correct in reality.
It is said: The letter, as such in itself, is one thing. Its absolute reality which has no composition does not exist at all, not in the speech of Allah the Exalted nor in the speech of His servants. What actually exists is the letter that is a part of an utterance, or its name when mentioned on its own without being part of a word. As for this absolute notion, even concrete entities that exist in external reality and stand by themselves, like a human, are not found free from particular individuals.
The general notion “human” does not exist in external reality except in individuals. It exists only in the mind, not outside the mind. So how then with the letter, which in external reality never exists except as part of some composed word. If we supposed that it existed in external reality without composition, in many individuals, as the human does, even then its absolute reality, considered as such, would exist only in minds, not in external reality.
It becomes clear that letters differ in their rulings according to their meanings and according to the one who speaks them. This is what has made the letters of the Quran that are spoken and written honoured and venerated, and they have specific legal rulings which distinguish them from other letters. The difference in rulings only came because of the difference in their attributes and states.
So it becomes clear that what must be said is what the imams such as Ahmad and others said, that the speech of a human in its entirety is created, its letters and its meanings, and the Quran is not created, its letters and its meanings. It is narrated authentically from the Prophet ﷺ that he said: “Allah says: I am al Rahman.
I created the womb and derived its name from My name. So whoever maintains it I maintain his ties, and whoever cuts it off I cut him off.” And al Rabi ibn Anas (d.139 AH) has related from al Masih that he said: “How astonishing that they disbelieve in Him when they move about in His blessings and speak with His names.”
It has been mentioned concerning most of the letters of the alphabet that they are the building blocks for the most beautiful names of Allah and for His Books sent down from the sky. This is something those who say “they are not created” use as a proof, but it is not a proof.
The names of Allah are from His speech, and His speech is not created, and whatever He derives from His names and speaks with, then His speech with that is not created. As for when they derive a name and coin it, then that name is something they have originated. It does not follow that because the origin from which it was derived is not created that the derived name is likewise.
What is narrated from al Masih is not known to be firmly established from him, and even if we assume its authenticity, if Allah has inspired His servants to speak with the letters that are the building blocks of His names which He has spoken, that does not require that what they have originated is not created.
In summary, whoever looks at the fact that the reality of the letter which does not differ is present in the speech of Allah, and that the speech of Allah is not created, then says “it is not created,” he is pointing to the reality of the letter itself, not to the very part of the utterance which the disbelievers and the idolaters pronounce.
That letter which is a sound that actually exists through the voice of a disbeliever or idolater, or is imagined as such, no intelligent person says that it is not created. That sound in no way is ascribed to Allah. Only what shares with it in the name, from what is connected to the meaning that is ascribed to Allah, is ascribed to Allah.
This is unlike the letters that are in the speech of Allah, for those are the speech of Allah wherever they are. When Allah made it easy for us to speak His speech with our tongues, we became able to speak with His speech, but through our instruments and our voices.
Our speech with it and its being heard from us is not like Allah speaking with it and its being heard from Him, as has already been mentioned, just as Allah is not like anything, so everything attributed to Him is not like what is attributed to others.
When He made us speak with our instruments, movements and voices, there came to be some similarity between some of our utterance of it and our utterance of other than it. So when we speak some other speech, that speech resembles our recitation of the Quran from one angle, that is, from the side that both are attributed to us, not from the side that one of them is attributed to Allah.
When it is like this, that the existence of these letters in the speech of humans is not like Allah speaking with the Quran, and that they only resemble our recitation from one side, then it is impossible in that case to say that the very same specific letter which is a part of a word that people utter is the very same specific letter which is a part of a word of the speech of Allah the Exalted. Rather, it only resembles it and is close to it. It is the same in type, but it is not the same in individual identity and specific instance. This is unlike the letters of the speech of Allah in the Quran, for they are the speech of Allah wherever they appear.
In this matter there is subtlety and a doubt that we have pointed to in this answer, and we have explained it fully in its proper place.
So whoever said that the letter is of two kinds meant that it is two individuals and two separate specific realities, and this is true. Whoever said that the letter is one letter meant that the general reality is one in both places, and this is also true.
Whoever said that the letters of the alphabet as they exist in the speech of humans are not created has spoken the truth with respect to the general reality. Whoever said that they are created with respect to the specific individual instances has also spoken the truth.
There are many similar examples of this in the words of the people of knowledge and Ahl al Sunnah, where there is both negation and affirmation, and the dispute is over two different meanings and is a verbal dispute that depends on the perspective. One of the people of virtue said that most disagreements between people of intellect occur because of shared terms. However, the existence of such shared and ambiguous terms misguides many among the creation, just as many are guided by them. This is the cause of the misguidance of these ignorant people who were asked about.
Their argument is that Allah taught Adam all the names and taught him clear expression, and this is built upon the claim that languages are tawqifi, as many of the fuqaha from our companions and others say, such as Abu Bakr Abd al Aziz (d.363 AH), Abu Muhammad al Maqdisi (d.620 AH), and it is the saying of al Ashari (d.324 AH), Ibn Furak (d.406 AH) and others.
However, regarding tawqif, is what is meant direct speech, or necessary knowledge, or both? This is also disputed, as mentioned earlier. Those who say that languages are not created say that they are tawqifi and that the teaching was through direct address, so that Allah spoke all the names and the speech of Allah is not created. These ignorant misguided people then said: Human speech is nothing but what is composed of letters and names, and those are not created, so this also is not created.
They built their saying upon the claim that the letters of the alphabet are not created, and that the names composed of those letters are not created, and they believed at the same time that the speech of humans is nothing but what is composed of these names and letters, and those, they claim, are not created, so they said: Human speech is not created, because its individual parts are not created.
If they are pressed and cornered they might say that the arrangement and composition are created, but the thing composed itself is eternal. They then imagine that the materials which are arranged and composed enter into the meaning of speech more than the arrangement and composition itself, just as the parts of a house enter more into what is understood by the word “house” than its arrangement, even though the word “house” is a name for both the parts and their arrangement.
Mukhtasar al-Sawa’iq al-Mursala by Ibn Al Qayyim page 508-518
