The Knower said: "This is impossible, for He cannot turn Himself away from His own state." The questioner asked: "Then how did He come to have a form?" The Knower, Mighty is His Might, said: "Due to the need of the created beings for it, just as they need speech; for there is no speech except from a form, and no recognition except through power. So He came to them from where they could recognize Him." Then the Knower, Mighty is His Might, said: "Know, O questioner, that all of time belongs to the Lord Almighty. Just as He appeared at its beginning, so He appears at its end and its middle. Do not deny His appearance, nor deny the times or limit them for Him. Just as He acted with justice toward His first creation, He acts with justice toward the last and the middle; and as He acted with justice toward the angels, He acts with justice toward the humans."

(172) Among what has also been mentioned: The Creator, Exalted and Loftiest is He, appeared to the worlds in the form of a vanishing old man, in the form of a small, near child, and in the form of a strong young man of pillar-like strength with twisted mustaches, riding upon a lion of light in the form of wrath. When the two worlds—the human and the spiritual—saw that in every appearance He manifested power among them and then became hidden from them, while the power did not change though the forms changed, they did not doubt. They said to their Creator, Glory be to Him and Loftiest is He: "Appear in whatever You wish, however You wish, for You are You." This was by His granting them success and guidance to the people of affirmation, and to establish the proof against the people of denial and rejection.