The Speech of Allah and the Quran

The central argument of Al-Radd ala al-Jahmiyyah is that the Quran is the speech of Allah and is therefore uncreated. Ahmad ibn Hanbal marshals evidence from the Quran itself, from the authenticated sayings of the Prophet, and from the transmitted positions of the Companions to establish this conclusion beyond reasonable doubt. The Quran describes itself in numerous places as the word or speech of Allah (kalam Allah), and the early Muslims understood this designation to mean exactly what it says: the Quran is an expression of an attribute that belongs to Allah's essence, not a thing He created separately from Himself.

Ahmad cites Quranic verses such as 'If anyone among the polytheists seeks your protection, grant it to him so that he may hear the word of Allah' (9:6) as evidence that the Quran is directly identified with Allah's speech in the most literal sense. He also cites the beginning of Surah Ya Sin, 'By the Wise Quran' (36:2), and similar oaths in which Allah swears by the Quran, arguing that Allah's oath would be meaningless if the Quran were merely a created thing. The logic here is that Allah swears by things of genuine greatness and value, and a created object, however noble, would not have the kind of transcendent significance implied by a divine oath.

Against the Mu'tazilite argument that an eternal Quran would imply a second eternal entity alongside Allah, Ahmad responds that the attributes of Allah are not separate entities. The divine knowledge is not a thing that exists apart from Allah; it is an attribute of His being. The same is true of His speech. Affirming that Allah has eternal speech no more implies the existence of a second eternal being than affirming that He has eternal knowledge. The philosophical framework that generates the Mu'tazilite worry is itself imported from Greek logic and does not reflect the categories through which the Quran and the Sunnah describe the divine nature. Ahmad prefers to follow the testimony of revelation over the conclusions of philosophical argument when the two appear to conflict.

Ahmad also addresses the practical implications of the createdness doctrine. If the Quran is created, then the human reciter and the book recited are both created things, and the special reverence due to the Quran as the word of Allah becomes conceptually difficult to maintain. The reverence Muslims have always shown the Quran, treating its physical text with care, avoiding recitation in states of ritual impurity, and listening to it with attention and awe, reflects an intuitive recognition that they are dealing not merely with a very fine human text or even a divinely inspired text but with something that participates in the divine speech itself. Ahmad believed that this intuition was theologically correct and that the Jahmite position, by severing this connection, would gradually erode the distinctive Muslim relationship with the Quran.