even if it’s very short like “Behold We have bestowed upon thee (Innā a‘ṭaināka),(108:1) and from someone illiterate like him.
The Sixth Level: If it isn’t possible for you to have it produced by someone illiterate, get an adept scholar or skilful writer to do it.
The Seventh Level: If that’s too hard for you too, a number of you co-operate to produce it.
The Eighth Level: And if you can’t do that, seek the help of all men and jinn, and the assistance of all the results of their shared knowledge from the time of Adam till the end of the world, as well as those ideas found in the books available to you about the Arabic language and its styles, written with the desire to imitate [the Qur’an] or out of obstinacy by those wanting to dispute it. To say nothing of authoritative scholars, if a person of scant intelligence or an ignorant one even were to study them, he would declare that none of them was similar to [the Qur’an]. So it is either inferior to all of them, and this is impossible as is unanimously agreed, or it is superior to all. And this is what was wanted, as was mentioned above. Indeed, it has not been [successfully] disputed in thirteen centuries. And as that was true in the past, so it will be in the future, till the end of time.
The Ninth Level: It says: Don’t remonstrate saying you don’t have any witnesses and we don’t testify for you either. Go and call your witnesses and your partisans and let them consult their consciences; will they be so bold as to uphold what you claim disputing [the Qur’an]?
If you have understood these levels, consider now how the Qur’an is miraculous in its conciseness, indicating these levels, silencing them effectively and loosening their bridles [giving them the opportunity to reply].
Understand too that human incapability to dispute even the shortest sura is a clear argument from effect to cause (innīyatuhu badīhīyya). As for its being argued from cause to effect (limmīyyatuhu), it is said “Allah the Most High prevented men from disputing it.” The most correct school in the latter question [the argument from cause to effect] is that followed by ‘Abd al-Qāhir al-Jurjānī, al-Zamakhsharī, and al-Sakkākī. This states that “it is beyond human power [to compose the Qur’an’s] elevated word-order.” Moreover, al-Sakkākī preferred [the view] that its miraculousness can only be sensed (dhawqī) and cannot be expressed or explicated. It can only be experienced.” But the author of Dalā’il al-I‘jāz [al-Jurjānī], preferred [the view] that it is possible to express it [in words], and we subscribe to his school in this question.
The choice of “sūra” rather than such words as “najm, ṭā’ifa, or nawba,”