Quranic createdness

In Islamic theology, Quranic createdness is the doctrinal position that the Quran was created, rather than having always existed and thus being "uncreated".

One of the main areas of debate in Islamic theology was about God's attribute of kalam (lit. word, speech) revealing itself through wahy and it was a counterpart reflection of the logos) in Greek philosophy meaning 'aql or reason.^[1] If the logos was accepted as part of "God's essence" or nature (then the Kalam was one of God's attributes), it was out of the question for it to be created. On the other hand, the word consists of human-made Arabic letters and words, and it was out of the question for these to be eternal.^[2]

The dispute over which was true became a significant point of contention in early Islam. The Islamic rationalist philosophical school known as the Mu'tazilites held that if the Quran is God's word, logically God "must have preceded his own speech".^[3] The Mu'tazilites and the Jahmites negated all attributes of God, thus believed that God could not speak, hence the Quran was not the literal word of God, but instead a complete metaphor of his will.^[4] In the Muslim world, the opposite point of view — that the Quran is uncreated — is the accepted stance among the majority Muslims. Shia Muslims, on the other hand, argue for the createdness of the Quran.