And that which was brought down to the Prophet was expression and meaning. And it is said also that only the meaning was brought down to him. There is a conflict of opinion on this; some say that the Prophet clothed the meaning with expressions of his own, and others, that he who so clothed the meaning, was Jibril. But the truth is that it was sent down in expressions and meaning. In short, the quality subsisting in the essence of God is not a letter nor a sound. And the Mu'tazilites called in doubt the existence of a kind of Speech without letters. But the People of the Sunna answered that because thoughts in the mind (hadith an-nafs), a kind of speech with which an individual speaks to himself, are without letter or sound, there exists a kind of speech without letters or words. By this the People of the Sunna do not wish to institute a comparison between the Speech of God and thoughts in the mind; for the Speech of God is eternal and thoughts in the mind are originated. They wished to disprove the contention of the Mu'tazilites when they urged that speech cannot exist without letter or sound.

The proof of the necessity of Speech in God is His saying (Qur. 4, 162); "and God spoke to Moses." So He has established Speech for Himself. And Speech connects with that with which Knowledge connects, of necessary and possible and impossible. But the connection of Knowledge with these is a connection of revealing, in the sense that they are revealed to God by His Knowledge; and the connection of Speech with them is a connection of proof, in the sense that if the veil were taken away from us and we heard the eternal Speech we would understand these things from it.

The fourteenth Quality subsisting in God is Being Powerful (kawn qadir). It is a Quality subsisting in His essence, not an entity and not a non-entity. It is not Power, but between it and Power is a reciprocal inseparability. When Power exists in an essence, the quality called "Being Powerful" exists in that essence, equally whether that essence is eternal or originated. So, God creates in the essence of Zayd Power actual, and He creates also in it the quality called

Zayd's Being Powerful. This quality is called a state (hal) and Power is a cause (illa) in it in the case of created things. But in the case of God, Power is not said to be a cause in His Being Powerful; it is only said that between Power and God's Being Powerful there is a reciprocal inseparability. The Mu'tazilites hold also the reciprocal inseparability between the Power of an originated being and its Being Powerful. But they do not say that the second quality is by the creation of God, only that when God creates Power in an originated being, there proceeds from the Power a quality called Being Powerful, without creation.

The Fifteenth Quality necessary in God is Being a Willer (kawn murid). It is a quality subsisting in His essence, not an entity and not a non-entity. It is called a state (hal) and it is not Will, equally whether the essence is eternal or created. So, God creates in the essence of Zayd Will actual, and He creates in it the quality called Zayd's Being a Willer. And what is said above; about the disagreement between the Mu'tazilites and the People of the Sunna on Being Powerful, applies also to Being a Willer.

(The same thing applies exactly to Qualities Sixteen, Seventeen, Eighteen, Nineteen and Twenty,—Being a Knower (alim), a Living One (hayy), a Hearer (sami), a Seer (basir), a Speaker (mutakallim).]

NOTICE. The Qualities, Power, Will, Knowledge, Life, Hearing, Seeing, Speech, which have preceded, are called, "Qualities consisting of ideas" (sifat al-ma'ani, thought-qualities as opposed to active qualities; see below); on account of the connection of the general with the particular (idafatu-l-amm lil-khass), or the explanatory connection (al-idafatu-l-bayaniya). And those which follow these, God's Being Powerful, etc., are called "Qualities derived from ideas" (sifat ma' nawiya), by way of derivation (nisba) from the "Qualities consisting of ideas," because they are inseparable from them in a thing eternal and proceed from them in a thing originated, according to what has preceded.

And the Mataridites added to the "Qualities consisting of