The Prophets
IN THE NAME OF GOD, THE MOST GRACIOUS, THE DISPENSER OF GRACE
[21:17]
[for] had We willed to indulge in a pastime, We would indeed have produced it from within Ourselves – if such had been Our will at all!


* v.17 : Lit., “if We had [ever] willed to do so”: meaning that, had God ever willed to “indulge in a pastime” (which, being almighty and self-sufficient, He has no need to do), He could have found it within His Own Self, without any necessity to create a universe which would embody His hypothetical – and logically inconceivable – will to “please Himself,” and would thus represent a “projection,” as it were, of His Own Being. In the elliptic manner of the Qur’ān, the above passage amounts to a statement of God’s transcendence.