who are in the graves"? [Q. ٢٢:٧]. Was it not the Prophets practice and the practice of those who followed him, in exercising authority, that they would regulate the tra‌ ditions of Islam for those who had borne witness to it? Has anyone related that the Prophet, or any of those who succeeded him in his position, asked anyone whether the Quran was created or eternal, or questioned them regarding any disputed ques‌ tion besides it, and did not accept the true belief of a person except after he had de‌ clared himself on one side of the dispute or the other?
I do not know-and l wish I did know-how a Muslim who creates a dispute
among Muslims will exonerate himself, and what he would answer his Lord with on the day of judgment when he meets Him, and when he is asked about what he had committed. "Surely, we belong to God, and to Him we return" [Q. ٢:١٥٦].
This problem, which is the dispute over whether the Quran was created or eter‌
nal, arose when Muslims became divided into two parties: the Ashari and the non‌ Ashari. The Asharites maintained that the Quran was eternal, and that the speech is of two kinds: "speech of the soul"(kallim nafsf) and "uttered" speech (kallim lafzf). Gods speech of the soul subsists in His essence and is eternal in His eternity. Ac‌ cordingly, it is one of the attributes inherent in the divine essence. The non-Asharites, who include the Mutazilites and the Adliyya [those who believed in the justice of God], upheld the doctrine of the creation of the Quran and confined divine speech to the uttered kind. Accordingly, speech is among the attributes of divine action.

Gods Attributes of Essence and Attributes of Action

The difference between the two types of divine attributes is that the attributes of es‌ sence are the ones the opposite of which are absolutely impossible to impute to God. Therefore, it would be incorrect to deny them of God in any way. For example, the attributes of knowledge (ilm), power (qudra), and life (l;aylit): God, the Blessed and Holy, has never ceased, nor will He ever cease, to be characterized as the Knowing, the Powerful, and the Living. Moreover, it is impossible that He would not be thus at any moment.
As for the divine attributes of action, they are those with which God can be de‌
scribed and the opposite of which can be ascribed to Him at one time or another. For example, the attributes of creation (khalq) and giving sustenance (rizq): It can be said that God created such and such a thing, and did not create such and such a thing;God provided so-and-so with a son and did not provide him with wealth. Accordingly, it becomes obvious that speech is among Gods attributes of action because it can be said that "God spoke to Moses and did not speak to Pharaoh," or that "God spoke to Moses on the Mount of Sinai, and did not speak to him in the Nile Valley."

The Speech of the Soul

All the Asharites agree about the existence of a kind of speech other than the well‌
known uttered type. They call this speech al-kallim al-nafsl; But beyond that they