How do we respond to those who say that the description of the donkey in the Quran as "the most unpleasing of sounds" is an insult to one of God's creatures, and that there are other sounds more unpleasing than it?

The Salaf (pious predecessors) disliked questioning matters that yield no benefit. The question posed by the inquirer is of this type: the unintelligent do not need it, and the intelligent gain nothing from it.

A believer holds that the Quran is the word of Allah, free from any distortion or deficiency, and any doubt about this indicates a defect in one's faith. The approach of a believer, when such thoughts arise within them, is to submit to Allah and to what has come in His Book, as stated by Allah Almighty: "And those firm in knowledge say, 'We believe in it; all [of it] is from our Lord.'" (Quran 3:7)

The intellect is only praiseworthy when it follows the Book and the Sunnah (definition). Submitting our limited intellects to judge the Book of Allah is the foundation of deviation and error.

Furthermore, there is no insult to the creature in describing the sound of a donkey as the harshest of sounds; rather, it is a description of a factual reality. One must be wary of following such deviants, whose hearts have been taken over by Satan.