Anthropology in the Quran.
In An Anthropology of the Qur’an , Ahmed Achrati explores how the Quran frames representations of God and engagement with the divine. The central claim of his study is unconventional: Achrati argues that the understanding and representations of God within Islamic traditions not only contrast with, but in fact invert, the representation of God as framed in the Quran itself. Whereas Islamic authorities have traditionally emphasized God’s similitude to humans, Achrati contends that God is in fact characterized by an absolute alterity, captured in God’s name al-Quddūs (“the Pure,” “the Holy”). Al-Quddūs , for Achrati, signifies a conception of the divine that lies beyond the limits of human reason. An acknowledgment of God’s otherness therefore holds emancipatory potential, he argues. With high readability and interdisciplinary erudition, Achrati sets out to establish this bold claim, leading the reader past the linguistic intricacy of the Quran and foundational theological debat