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Recordings › Prof. Dr Khalil Andani | The Oral Text & the Ontology of The Quran | Mindtrap with Mufti #28 · 3 Jul 2020 › Segment 21 of 23

Is the Quran eternal, or was it created?

ilm al-kalam kalaam theology ash'ari ashaira asha'irah ashariyyah ash'arite maturidi maturidiyyah maturidite mutazilite mu'tazilah koran quraan al-quran mufassir mufasir mufassireen quran commentator

Does the Quran have a beginning, or has it always existed?

QuestionLive chat · questioner not identifiedAnswered 3 Jul 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth Segment 21 of 23 in the recording2020-07-03-S21

Includes guest speechQuoted view · not his position

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This segment1:36:51 to 1:38:38 · 1 min 47 sA view quoted in order to be discussed, not a position held

The answer in brief

machinesummary, machine-written

The guest says the Arabic Quran in the tablet is, on most views, pre-existent but created; only God's languageless speech is eternal for Ash'aris and Maturidis.

In more detail

A chat question asks whether the Quran has a beginning or has always existed. The guest says many mufassirun and some theologians held that God created the Arabic Quran in the tablet before the world, so that it is pre-existent but still created, while for Ash'aris and Maturidis God's eternal speech has no language and is pure meaning, a different concept. He says the Mu'tazila also held the Quran was in a tablet but always created, and that the popular idea of an eternal Quran in an eternal tablet makes no sense by most Muslim theological standards, since a tablet is a bodily thing.

Question as read aloud · questioner not identified
What does the professor say about the Quran having a beginning? Has it always existed?

Position stated

This segment presents a view in order to discuss or respond to it. It is recorded as quoted, never as held, and no position is attributed from it.

Kind: a view quoted in order to be discussed, not a position held Speakers: host and guest; guest speech is labelled and excluded from positions

Transcript

machine1:36:51 to 1:38:38 · click a time to seek · dotted terms open the glossary

A guest speaks in this segment. Guest speech is labelled and is excluded from the positions layer.

This segment states a view in order to discuss it. It is recorded as a quoted view, not as a position held.

Tying in question there, Abbas Aga asks, "What does professor say about if about the Quran having a beginning? Has it always existed?" Okay. So, for for the like one view on this is the Quran as Arabic, the Arabic text, according to the many mufassirun and some theologians, God created the Arabic Quran before the world, but he created it in the tablet.

According to So, in in either case, like the Arabic Quran in this view, it's preexistent, but it's still created the Arabic text. When people say the Kalam Allah, the speech of God is eternal, at least for Ash'aris and and Maturidis, the eternal speech of God is not the same thing as the Arabic Quran. The eternal speech of God has no language. It's pure meaning. That is eternal.

That's an eternal attribute of God. This These two claims, the preexistent Quran in the tablet, is not the same as the eternal speech of God. These are two completely different concepts. They do Sometimes they coexist and sometimes they don't coexist. So, Mu'tazilis believe that the Quran is was in a tablet. They believe that, but they believe that it's always been created.

Right. So, the Mu'tazilis, if you say it was in a tablet, they'll say, "Yeah, it's in a tablet." Totally. I mean, many Mu'tazilis believe this. Some don't. But they still think that if it's in a tablet, it's created. The tablet is a material tablet. So, of course it has to be created. So, people confuse this and it it it sort of morphs into this weird idea of the Quran was eternal in an eternal tablet. And actually by most Muslim theological standards, you can't have eternal tablets.

Like it doesn't make any sense cuz a tablet is a bodily thing. All right. So, a quick question here and we'll start to wrap up. Somebody says The Quran says Allah loves not the disbeliever. Mhm. Right. Uh Is I know that can go into a huge topic right there. I don't know if there's any quick words on that. So, so, so, look, a very literalistic reading is you could take all the groups that Allah does not love and you could literally say, "Okay, Allah is very preferential in his loving." You could say that if you wanted.

Paragraphs overlapping 1:36:51 to 1:38:38. Full text on the recording page.

Cite this segment

Stable id, transcript version and tier are part of the citation. Every change to a transcript is logged.

Mufti Abu Layth Archive, segment 2020-07-03-S21, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/xznxiyp0b5s/s/21/ (accessed 1 November 2026)

APA 7

Mufti Abu Layth. (2020, July 3). Is the Quran eternal, or was it created? [Video, segment 2020-07-03-S21, auto-transcribed, may contain errors]. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Retrieved November 1, 2026, from https://muftiabulayth.org/r/xznxiyp0b5s/s/21/

Chicago author-date

Mufti Abu Layth. 2020. "Is the Quran eternal, or was it created?" Video, segment 2020-07-03-S21, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Recorded July 3, 2020. Accessed November 1, 2026. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/xznxiyp0b5s/s/21/

BibTeX

@misc{abulayth-2020-07-03-S21,
  author = {Mufti Abu Layth},
  title = {{Is the Quran eternal, or was it created?}},
  year = {2020},
  month = {7},
  date = {2020-07-03},
  howpublished = {\url{https://muftiabulayth.org/r/xznxiyp0b5s/s/21/}},
  url = {https://muftiabulayth.org/r/xznxiyp0b5s/s/21/},
  organization = {Mufti Abu Layth Archive},
  urldate = {2026-11-01},
  note = {Segment 2020-07-03-S21, auto-transcribed, may contain errors}
}

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