An Eternal Attribute, Not a Created Thing

Sunni orthodoxy holds that the Quran, as the speech of God, is an eternal attribute of God rather than something brought into existence at a point in time. On this account God has always spoken, in the same sense that God has always known or always willed, so his speech shares in his eternity rather than standing among the created things that came into being after not existing. The opposing position, associated with Mutazili theology, argued that treating divine speech as an eternal, uncreated reality alongside God risked compromising the strict oneness of God by implying a second eternal thing existing beside him; on that reasoning, the Quran, as verbal expression, had to be a created thing like any other act of divine speech directed at a particular time and audience. The uncreated position ultimately prevailed as the settled doctrine of Sunni Islam, but only after it was tested directly against the power of the state rather than simply argued out among scholars. The position was later written into the classic Sunni creeds, including the statement of faith attributed to the jurist Abu Jafar al-Tahawi, which states plainly that the Quran is the speech of God, uncreated, and treats affirming this as a mark of orthodox belief rather than a matter left open to private judgment.