The thirteenth Quality of God is Speech (_kalam_). It is an eternal quality, subsisting in God’s essence, not a word or sound, and far removed from order of preceding and following, from inflection and structure, opposed to the speech of originated beings. And by the Speech that is necessary to God is not meant the Glorious Expressions (_lafz_) revealed to the Prophet, because these are originated and the quality that subsists in the essence of God is eternal. And these embrace preceding and following, inflection and chapters and verses; but the eternal quality is bare of all these things. It has no verses or chapters or inflections, because such belong to the speech which embraces letters and sounds, and the eternal quality is far removed from letters and sounds, as has preceded. And those Glorious Expressions are not a guide to the eternal quality in the sense that the eternal quality can be understood from them. What is understood from these expressions equals what would be understood from the eternal quality if the veil were removed from us and we could hear it. In short, these expressions are a guide to its meaning, and this meaning equals what would be understood from the eternal Speech which subsists in the essence of God. So meditate this distinction, for many have erred in it. And both the Glorious Expressions and the eternal quality are called Qur’an and the Word (_kalam_) of God. But the Glorious Expressions are created and written on the Preserved Tablet (_al-lawh-al-mahfuz_); Jibril brought them down [_i.e._, revealed them] to the Prophet after that they had been brought down in the Night of Decree (_laylatu-l-qadr_; Qur. 97, 1) to the Mighty House (_baytu-l-izza_), a place in the Heaven nearest to the earth; it was written in books (_sahifas_) and placed in the Mighty House. It is said that it was brought down to the Mighty House all at once and then brought down to the Prophet in twenty years, and some say, in twenty-five. And it is also said that it was brought down to the Mighty House only to the amount that was to be revealed each year and not all at once.