Belief in the Quran as the Speech of Allah

Ibn Qudamah dedicates a focused section of Lum'at al-I'tiqad to the creed of Ahl al-Sunnah regarding the Quran — specifically, that it is the uncreated speech (kalam) of Allah, revealed to His Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) through the Angel Jibril (peace be upon him), preserved without alteration, and constituting a divine attribute that is not separate from Allah's essence.

The centrality of this issue in classical theology cannot be overstated. The Mu'tazilah — rationalist theologians who flourished in the third century AH — held that the Quran was created, reasoning that to affirm an eternal attribute alongside Allah's eternal essence was to posit a form of duality or multiplicity in the divine. This view was imposed as state doctrine under the Abbasid caliphs al-Ma'mun, al-Mu'tasim, and al-Wathiq, leading to the famous Inquisition (Mihnah) in which Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal was imprisoned and flogged for refusing to affirm that the Quran was created. His refusal — and the ultimate reversal of the Mu'tazilite policy under al-Mutawakkil — is one of the defining episodes of Sunni theological history.

Ibn Qudamah states the position of Ahl al-Sunnah plainly: the Quran is the speech of Allah (kalam Allah), not a created thing. Allah spoke it truly, and that speech is an eternal attribute of His perfection. He cites the Quranic proof: 'And if any one of the polytheists seeks your protection, then grant him protection so that he may hear the words of Allah' (Surah al-Tawbah 9:6). The words (kalam) are of Allah Himself, not of an intermediary or a creature.

He also addresses a subtlety that later theologians introduced: the distinction between the eternal speech (al-kalam al-nafsi, speech as a divine attribute subsisting in the essence) and the expressed, written, and recited form (al-kalam al-lafzi). Some later Hanbalis and Ash'aris used this distinction to navigate the debate. Ibn Qudamah, staying close to the position of Imam Ahmad, does not dwell on such technical distinctions. He holds that the Quran in its totality — letters, words, meanings, the way it is recited, the way it is written in the Mushaf — is the speech of Allah, and to say any part of it is created is a deviation.

The practical implication of this belief is profound. If the Quran is the uncreated speech of Allah, then reciting it is an engagement with a divine attribute. It carries an authority that no human composition can approach. Its rulings are binding not merely because a prophet conveyed them but because they originate in the eternal will of the Creator of the universe. Ibn Qudamah wants the reader to approach the Quran with this awareness — not as a historical document or a literary artifact, but as the living word of Allah.

He closes this section with a warning against those who make ambiguous statements about the Quran to avoid controversy. The position of Ahl al-Sunnah must be stated clearly: the Quran is the speech of Allah, not created, recited by tongues, written in books, preserved in hearts — and none of this changes its divine, uncreated nature. Ambiguity in this matter, Ibn Qudamah notes, is itself a form of deviation, because it leaves the door open to the Mu'tazilite corruption.