Anything which is pre-existent and eternal is indestructible...

Anything which is pre-existent and eternal is indestructible, let alone having in need of any protection.

And in another place, it is thus stated: ﴿ وَإِنْ أَحَدٌ مِّنَ الْمُشْرِكِينَ اسْتَجَارَكَ فَأَجِرْهُ حَتَّى يَسْمَعَ كَلاَمَ اللّهِ ﴾ “If any of the polytheists seeks asylum from you, grant him asylum until he hears the Word of Allah.” [^5] Characteristics such as “originated” ( muḥdath ), “listening to the Reminder and Word of God,” “sending down” ( nuzūl ), and “protection” ( ḥifẓ ) all point to the truth that the word of God consists of letters and sounds; that is, it is a verbal speech which is created and contingent.[^6] The Ash‘arīs and Māturdīs The Ash‘arīs and Māturdīs have classified word or speech ( kalām ) into two, viz.

verbal ( lafẓī ) and intrinsic ( nafsī ). [Accordingly,] the Qur’an and other heveanly books which have been revealed to prophets of God are verbal word and contingent, but the verbal word is not the essence of the word (or the real word). The essence of the word or the real word is the intrinsic word ( kalām-e nafsī ); that is, the truth in the self or essence of the speaker which is represented by the verbal word.

The intrinsic word with respect to God is the Attribute of Essence and is Eternal. The main disagreement with the Ash‘arīs and Mārturdīs is in proving the intrinsic word. Once it is proven, there will be no dispute that it is essential and eternal. Similarly, there will be no doubt that a verbal word cannot be without any source and that there is something in the human being which the verbal word represents.

But the bone of contention is whether or not this truth is distinct from knowledge, or free-will and compulsion. The proponents of the intrinsic word maintain that sometimes a person reports something which he knows to be the contrary or he doubts its accuracy. Therefore, that which is the origin of the verbal word cannot be knowledge.[^7] This argument is not complete because in the above assumption, knowledge is not assented to ( taṣdīqī ) yet there is conceptual ( taṣawwurī ) knowledge.

That is, a person who knows the incorrectness of a subject makes a conception of it and relays this conception. The same is true with doubt. Their other argument is that sometimes a person commands to do a certain thing or forbids it without having the will or abhorrence, as the case may be, to do so.

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