The Creator (Glory be to Him) transcends "How-ness," "What-ness," "Where-ness," and "Quantity." None knows what He is except Himself. Rather, we see Him according to our capacity, and what we see is He; yet He is not as we see Him, nor as we describe Him, nor as intellects imagine or conceive Him, nor as understandings estimate Him. He is the All-Subtle, the All-Aware, and {There is nothing like unto Him, and He is the All-Hearing, the All-Seeing} (Al-Shura 11). Rather, He (Glory be to Him) is described by manifestation and inwardness, by being the First and the Last, by increase and decrease, by perfection, beginning, and return.

"And to Him belongs the highest attribute in the heavens and the earth, and He is ..."

He (Glory be to Him) has never ceased showing us His Essence every day in every matter. Just as this temporal duration is constantly described by night and day, days and hours, weeks and months, seasons and years—and all they contain of summer, autumn, spring, winter, sorrow, joy, luck, misery, death, life, and other things—all of that is from the aspect of the creation of these cosmic things and their attachments, not from the aspect of this temporal duration itself. For the temporal duration has never ceased to be in its state eternally.

Likewise, the Creator (Exalted is His Majesty) is described by what we have presented from the aspect of things and their