As-Salaam alaikum,
Muslim theologians and philosophers consider speech as an essential attribute of the Divine reality. In other words, by definition, Allah speaks constantly and forever. In the same way, we come to understand that Allah Ta'ala is also alive, knowing, seeing, hearing, desiring and powerful.
His speech never stops... His Creative Word 'Be'! (Kun) is an eternal word whose fruit is the being (al-kawn) also called the universe (al-alam). If something enters into being, it will also depart from being for nothing has real existence (wujud), but the Real Being. "There is nothing in existence but Allah", as the great al-Ghazali (d.1111) frequently remarked. In the Holy Qur'an, we have it that:--
"EVERYTHING IS PERISHING BUT HIS FACE" (18:88)
The point is nicely made by the poet Labid in a line the Prophet, Sallallahu alaihi Wasallam, called "the truest verse spoken by the Arabs":--
"Is not everything other than Allah unreal,
and every bliss inescapably evanescent?"
In saying that Allah is real, we mean that Allah alone is real and everything else is unreal. To say that Allah speaks is to say that Allah alone speaks and everything else is silent. But if things do in fact receive certain reality from the Real, they also receive certain speaking from the Speaker. As Ibn Arabi (d. 1240), may Allah be Merciful to him, explains, the Divine speech brought all things into existence:--
"We emerged from speech.
That is His word, 'Be'!, So we
came to be. Silence is a state of nonexistence."
Thus everything other than Allah is real in as much as it is Allah's speech, but unreal in itself. Created things are the Speech of Allah, and the words they speak are spoken through them, not by them. In his magnum-opus, Al-Futuhat Makkiyyah, Ibn Arabi explains:--
"The Real speaks to the servants constantly while they stay silent,
giving ear constantly in all of their states, whether moving or resting,
standing or sitting, for their hearing is given over to the Real's Speech.
They never cease hearing the Real's Command that engenders the
states and guises that come within them.
Neither the servants nor the Universe is empty for one instant of
the existence of engendering, so they never cease listening and they
never being silent.
It is impossible for them to enter in along with Him in His speech.
So, when you hear servants speaking, that is the Real's engendering within them."
This cannot be undone and I am sure it will be greatly appreciated.
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