Even the Cover of the Muṣḥaf

Al-Bājūrī mentions the Ḥashwiyyah. This was a group of people who had some problems in the way they dealt with the ṣifāt of Allah, and with the ambiguous terms. Some people have translated that as the crypto-anthropomorphists. Wa ṭāʾifatun sammaw anfusahum bi-l-Ḥanābilah: and a group who call themselves the Ḥanbalīs. So al-Bājūrī is indicating that the real Ḥanbalīs are different. These are people who are just claiming to be Ḥanbalīs, but without the real method of Imam Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal.

They said: kalāmuhu taʿālā huwa al-ḥurūfu wa-l-aṣwātu al-mutawāliyatu al-mutarattibah, wa hiya qadīmah, and they say that these are old. The speech of Allah (swt) comprises words and sounds, comprises a string of words and sounds, and they think that this is eternal.

The problem there: wa taʿālā baʿḍuhum ḥattā zaʿama qidama hādhihi al-ḥurūfi allatī naqraʾuhā wa-l-rusūm, bal tajāwaza jahlu baʿḍihim li-ghilāfi al-muṣḥaf. Some of them went extreme. They said that even the words that we read, the words which are printed, that we read, or that we write, are also eternal. In fact, some went beyond that and said that even the cover of the copy of a Qur'an is also eternal. Anyone can understand the absurdity of that.

The Muʿtazilah just passed it off as a creation, because they said that for speech one needs words and letters; that can't be with Allah; that's why it is created in something else. That is the Muʿtazilah; that is their rationale on this. It is impossible, they say, for Allah (swt) to have words and letters, so it has to be created in something else, and Allah does not have any eternal kalām.

That's why Ahl al-Sunnah wa al-Jamāʿah always has to preserve the verses and the text, and has to find a way in between all of these, in order to preserve the Sharīʿah.