What is the response to the doubt mentioned by 'Abd al-Malik Sa'di in his commentary on the book *Al-'Aqidah al-Wasitiyyah* that the speech of Allah is mental and not a reality?

The questioner : Once again, in truth, the doubt is derived from the book of Dr. 'Abd al-Malik Sa'di, if you know him.

The Shaykh : 'Abd al-Malik al-Sa'di.

The questioner: Yes.

The Shaykh : I do not know which book.

The questioner : The book *Sharh al-'Aqidah al-Wasitiyyah*. In it, he mentions the mental speech, and this is the doubt among some of the Ash'aris. They say: "The speech of Allah is mental," and they argue with the example of telegraphy, meaning a person on a machine resembling a typewriter writes, and in another country these communications are received. They say: "The speech of Allah is like this speech!"

The Shaykh: Allah is the Greatest!!

The questioner : So what do you answer to this doubt?

The Shaykh : The answer is known, and praise be to Allah, from the people of the Sunnah. The mental speech is not said linguistically. If I form in my mind a topic, an article, or an idea, or something similar, it is not said that so-and-so said such-and-such... that Allah said such-and-such and addressed so-and-so with such-and-such, that it is a mental speech. These people judge the texts of the speech of their Lord—Blessed and Exalted is He—by their minds. And from here came the misguidance of the sects that the Messenger—peace and blessings be upon him—indicated in the well-known hadith: "My Ummah will split into seventy-three sects," to the end of the hadith. So speech is mental speech and verbal speech. Mental speech is not heard, whereas verbal speech is of the nature of being heard, whether this speech issues from the servant or issues from the Lord. So these Ash'aris mixed up the two realities regarding Allah—Mighty and Majestic—and they believed in both realities regarding the creation of Allah—Mighty and Majestic. They believe that in the human being there are two speeches: a mental speech and a verbal speech. And they purify Allah—Mighty and Majestic—from verbal speech, they claim, because that necessitates, as they express it, the occurrence of accidents in the essence of Allah—Blessed and Exalted is He. And this is, in truth, an inversion of the realities to negate the Shari'ah realities. So I say: Our Lord—Mighty and Majestic—when He addressed Moses—peace be upon him—those who interpret the speech of Allah to Moses as mental speech. And although they deny the interpretation of His saying—Mighty and Majestic—: where He affirmed with this source that this speech is not a mental speech, but rather a verbal speech, they strained themselves in interpreting the verse—and upon you be peace and the mercy of Allah—and they said that the speech was from the tree, and the speech did not issue from the Creator of the tree. At that point, this is the denial (ta'til) about which Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah—may Allah have mercy on him—said in a wonderful phrase of his, written as they used to say in the old days: "in gold ink": "The one who ascribes a body to Allah worships an idol, and the one who denies the attributes worships non-existence." The truth is that these deniers worship an illusion that has no reality when they interpret the divine attributes, including the divine speech, interpreting it as mental speech. How do they interpret His saying—Exalted is He—to Moses in the first part of Surat Taha: He said—Exalted is He—to Moses: Listen to what is in my mind!! This is a denial that is embodied; there is no denial after an embodied one. And therefore, the claim of mental speech only—I do not deny mental speech, because mental speech, as the people of the Sunnah say, is like the divine knowledge. Divine knowledge means He knows everything that will happen, so it is possible that our Lord, Mighty and Majestic, speaks with something in His mind; we do not deny that. But to say that the divine speech is mental and not verbal, this is disbelief in the Book and the Sunnah, and the explicit Sunnah that compares the speech of Allah to what? The hadith in the Sahih: or something similar to that. The hadith is established in Sahih al-Bukhari, meaning it has a sound, meaning when the angels hear it.
The student : .

The Shaykh : You have done well, yes. So this confirms the previous verse: So the divine speech is heard speech. And it is amazing about these deniers that I used to read a marginal note on al-Bajuri's commentary on the Ash'ari creed. What is its name? Yes.
The student : "Al-Jawharah".

The Shaykh : "Al-Jawharah." Al-Bajuri has a commentary, and one of the Azhar sheikhs placed a marginal note on the commentary, and he is the well-known Shaykh Muhyi al-Din 'Abd al-Hamid. When he came to the divine speech, he set himself to refute the Mu'tazilah who say that the speech of Allah is created. And the truth is that the Ash'aris, the Mu'tazilah, and the Maturidiyyah all say that the speech of Allah is created, but the difference is what is called here "dubbing."
The student : Deception.

The Shaykh : Deception. Among the good deeds of the Mu'tazilah—and we certainly do not declare them disbelievers either, we misguide them—among their good deeds is that they are explicit and do not twist their words. They explicitly say: "The speech of Allah is created." The Ash'aris and the Maturidiyyah argue with them, saying: "How do you say the speech of Allah is created, and the speech of Allah is an attribute of His attributes?" They mean that it is an attribute of His attributes, the mental speech. So I saw this Azhar sheikh refuting the Mu'tazilah's claim that the speech of Allah is created. He says: "What prevents you from saying that Allah—Mighty and Majestic—: with a mental speech, which is closer to scientific speech, excuse me, to divine knowledge. Then he mentioned this verse that Allah—Mighty and Majestic—addressed Moses with this verse, so Moses understood. Now understand the denial. Moses understood the mental speech as a miracle for Moses, whereas the verse says: It does not say that Allah made Moses hear His speech by His power, but rather that He made him understand the mental speech. All of this stems from likening the Creator to the created. And therefore I said the radical answer to all these problems and doubts is returning to the noble verse: The speech of Allah is a reality and it is heard, explicitly in the Book and the Sunnah. But that does not necessitate that He has two lips, or that He has a throat, or that He has a tongue, which we need in order for a human being to speak, . This is what I have as an answer—also—to this question.

The questioner : May Allah reward you with good.