an expression expressing it, just as one expresses on behalf of someone who does not speak or talk, such as a mute or an incapacitated person. This speaker wonders why there is a dispute established between them and the Muʿtazilites, saying: "What we affirm of the meaning subsisting in the self is of the genus of knowledge and will, and the Muʿtazilites do not dispute with us regarding that. The utmost of the matter is that we call it speech, while they call it knowledge and will. As for this Arabic arrangement, which consists of letters, words, chapters, and verses, we and they agree that it is created; however, they call it a Qurʾān, while we say: it is an expression of the Qurʾān, or a quotation of it."
So reflect upon this brotherhood between these people and the Muʿtazilites, whom the Predecessors (Salaf) agreed upon declaring as disbelievers, and how they have exceeded the Muʿtazilites in divestment (taʿṭīl). End quote. [Mukhtaṣar al-Ṣawāʿiq (4/1381-1382)]
The transmission from the leading scholars of the later Ashʿarites is mass-transmitted (mutawātir) regarding the denial of letter and sound in the speech of God Almighty. Thus, they affirm a speech that has no reality in existence, which is a speech without letter or sound; rather, it is an internal speech, as their statement regarding the Qurʾān was recently presented.
Al-Sijzī, may God have mercy on him, said in his Risāla ilā Ahl Zabīd (p. 137) (clarifying their agreement with the Muʿtazilites in many issues of the principles of religion, and that they exceed them in ugliness and corruption of statement in some of them): "The Muʿtazilites said: It is not permissible for the Essence of God to be described with speech, and there is no speech except what is letter and sound.
And al-Ashʿarī said: It is obligatory to describe His Essence, Exalted is He, with speech, and that is neither with letter nor sound. Thus, he denied what the Muʿtazilites denied, and affirmed what is unintelligible. So he outwardly displays opposition to them, while agreeing with them in the root principle." End quote.
Their statements are numerous regarding the denial of letter and sound, and that when God Almighty spoke to Moses, peace be upon him, He did not speak with a sound that Moses, peace be upon him, heard from Him. Among that:
Al-Bāqillānī said in al-Inṣāf: "It is not permissible to apply to His speech any of the signs of origination, such as letter and sound." End quote.
Al-Bayhaqī said in al-Asmāʾ wa-al-Ṣifāt (2/28-29): "...And the Creator, Exalted is
