“What are the grand themes with which this sacred scripture deals? The Quran contains above all a doctrine about the nature of reality on all its levels, from Absolute Reality Itself, that is, the One God, to the reality of creation both macrocosmic and microcosmic. It provides the full revelation of Allah, or God, as the supreme Reality Whose Oneness is at the center of the Islamic message. God is One, at once impersonal and personal, transcendent and immanent, majestic and beautiful, beyond all that we can conceive and yet nearer to us than our jugular vein, as the Quran itself asserts so poetically (50:16).

The Quran also reveals a galaxy of Divine Names and Qualities, which by virtue of being revealed are sacred and provide the means of not only knowing God, but also of returning to Him. They thus play a central role not only in Islamic metaphysics and theology, but also in the practical and ritual aspects of religious and spiritual life. As the Quran itself states, Unto God belong the Most Beautiful Names (7:180; cf. 17:110; 20:8; 59:24); it then commands the believers to call upon Him through these Names (7:180). Islamic doctrine based upon the Quran distinguishes between the Divine Essence, which is beyond all names, qualities, attributes, and descriptions; His Names, Qualities, and Attributes; and His Acts, which include the creation and sustenance of all the worlds and all creatures within them and the constant operations of His Will in His creation, especially the human order, in which His Love and Mercy as well as Justice and Judgment are ever present.”

~Seyyed Hossein Nasr~  (taken from the Introduction to the Study Quran)