The Shaykh's explanation of the scholars' schools of thought, from the Salaf and the innovators, regarding the attribute of speech.

The Shaykh : What is the position of the Muslims today? There are three schools of thought. You must know this.

The questioner : I heard.

The Shaykh : Three schools of thought: The school of the Mu'tazilah says: Allah does not speak. And when they come to His saying, the Exalted: they say: Allah did not speak; rather, it was the tree that spoke. So they explicitly denied speech. Why? They said: Because speech is an attribute of humans, so if we say Allah speaks, it means we likened Him to the created. This is the height of ignorance and misguidance.

The questioner : Jahm was killed for this issue.

The Shaykh : This is it. I say: This is the height of ignorance and misguidance. Why? You and I, and all these created beings—humans, jinn, angels, inanimate objects, and so on—are existing things. So we are between two things: Either we say Allah does not exist, because if we say He exists, there is a sharing between us and Him, and that is likening (tashbih). So what do we say? We say as the Mu'tazilah said: We deny. We say: Allah does not exist, because this involves likening the existing Lord to the created beings. So He does not exist, and this is clear misguidance. So what do we do? We say as the people of the Unity of Existence said—I think you know something about them?

The questioner : I heard.

The Shaykh : Ah, these are the ones who say:
"And the dog and the pig are nothing but our God, and Allah is nothing but a monk in a church."
And everything you see with your eye is Allah. And when the Majus worshipped the fire, they did not worship anything but the One, the Subduer. That is: He is He, nothing is but He. At that point, everything you see with your eye is Allah. This is existence. Therefore, they call themselves the people of tawhid (the oneness of Allah). We, who say: There is no god but Allah, are we mushrikin (those who associate partners with Allah)? Because we created something alongside Allah. This is the clear misguidance. Why? Because of not holding fast to the verse: We affirm what He affirmed with transcendence, and we transcend Him as He transcended Himself. The point is: The Mu'tazilah said: Allah does not speak. The Asha'irah said: How?! Allah speaks. But they went around and around and ended up with the Mu'tazilah through ta'wil (figurative interpretation), saying: It is the psychological speech. Have you heard of this?

The questioner: Yes.

The Shaykh : Psychological speech. Ah, psychological speech means they met with the Mu'tazilah in that Allah does not speak with audible speech. And you remember with me the saying of Allah, Mighty and Majestic: , then He said: Here is the point: . Psychological speech is not heard. Now, I have speech in my chest that you do not hear, and you have speech in your chest that I do not hear. It is not fitting for me to address you: "Listen to my speech that is in my mind." Rather, I might say to you: "Understand what is in my mind." But "listen" is not said in this context. So how do the Asha'irah interpret the divine speech, which is explicit in the verse, as psychological speech? Allah says: ; so it is speech, meaning: audible speech. But we do not say: How? With a tongue, lips, teeth, and so on. These are things from which we disavow ourselves before Allah. So when the Asha'irah interpreted the speech, they affirmed something the Qur'an did not address. The Qur'an addressed affirming divine knowledge. If we say psychological speech and interpret it as divine knowledge, it might be reasonable. But it is knowledge. Why do we call it psychological speech? To mislead.
In the end, they say that the Qur'an did not come from Allah, Mighty and Majestic. This is contrary to the belief of all Muslims. The reason is that they stopped at the attribute of speech and differed in three schools of thought: The Mu'tazilah explicitly stated that Allah does not speak, meaning: they fell into the worst of what they fled from. The one who does not speak is an inanimate object, correct?

The questioner: Yes.

The Shaykh : So they described Allah, Mighty and Majestic, as an inanimate object. So what is the solution? The solution is to deny His existence, and the whole problem is solved. The important thing is that the Asha'irah met with the Asha'irah in denying divine speech. And this necessitates, O brother of Islam, denying dozens of verses. Our Lord, Mighty and Majestic, when He addressed the angels and said to them: Is there not speech that the angels hear and He commands them? Also, Iblis used to worship Allah with them, so all the angels prostrated except Iblis. Yes, . Does not 'Isa (peace be upon him) hear when his Lord addresses him with this speech?! All of this is ta'til (denial of the divine attributes) of dozens, if not hundreds, of texts from the Book and the Sunnah. Why? Because of ta'wil (figurative interpretation), judging by reason, and analogizing the unseen—the unseen of the unseen is Allah, Blessed and Exalted is He—to the witness, which is humans.