Surah 21. Al-Anbiya, Ayah 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'an, the above passage amounts to a statement of God's transcendence.

If such an idea as that of play or pastime had been possible with regard to Allah, and if He had wished really to indulge in pastime, He would have done it with creatures of Light nearest to Him, not with the lowly material creation that we see around us.