From the Points discussed:
Clarifying the Ashʾarī doubt concerning the āyah:
إِنَّهُ لَقَوْلُ رَسُولٍ كَرِيمٍ ﴿١٩﴾
Verily, this is the Word (this Qurʾān brought by) a most honorable messenger [Jibrīl (Gabriel), from Allāh to the Prophet Muḥammad (ﷺ)].
[al-Takwīr 81:19]
Their claim that the speech of Jibrīl is created and therefore the Qurʾān is created and not the speech of Allāh!
- The deficient nature of one who cannot speak and how this does not befit the Lord of Creation
قُل لَّوْ كَانَ الْبَحْرُ مِدَادًا لِّكَلِمَاتِ رَبِّي لَنَفِدَ الْبَحْرُ قَبْلَ أَن تَنفَدَ كَلِمَاتُ رَبِّي وَلَوْ جِئْنَا بِمِثْلِهِ مَدَدًا ﴿١٠٩﴾
Say (O Muḥammad ﷺ to mankind). “If the sea were ink for (writing) the Words of my Lord, surely, the sea would be exhausted before the Words of my Lord would be finished, even if we brought (another sea) like it for its aid.”
[al-Kahf, 18:109]
The full lecture explains the following lines of poetry from Ibn Abī Dāwūd’s Hā’iyyah
(3) And say: Not a created thing is the Speech of our great King,
Such was the religious position of the pious ones (before us) who spoke well.
(4) And do not be a person who takes no position on the Qurʾān,
As did the followers of Jahm, and they had been too lax (to take the right position).
(5) And do not say that the Qurʾān is created, meaning: its recitation,
Since the Speech of Allāh, through its recitation, is made clear.
Summer Courses 2007 – Masjid al-Furqān – Toronto, Ontario
Translated by Mūsá Richardson
