Aesthetics in Arabic thought : from pre-Islamic Arabia through al-Andalus
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Aesthetics in Arabic thought : from pre-Islamic Arabia through al-Andalus
（Handbuch der Orientalistik = Handbook of Oriental studies, section 1 . The Near and Middle East ; v. 120）
Brill, c2017
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Historia del pensamiento estético árabe : al-Andalus y la estética árabe clásica
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Text in English and Arabic
Originally published: Madrid: Akal, 1997 (2nd ed.)
Includes bibliographical references (p. [855]-883) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
In Aesthetics in Arabic Thought from Pre-Islamic Arabia through al-Andalus Jose Miguel Puerta Vilchez analyzes the discourses about beauty, the arts, and sense perception that arose within classical Arab culture from pre-Islamic poetry and the Quran (sixth-seventh centuries CE) to the Alhambra palace in Granada (fourteenth century CE). He focuses on the contributions of such great thinkers as Ibn Hazm, Avempace, Ibn Tufayl, Averroes, Ibn 'Arabi, and Ibn Khaldun in al-Andalus, and the Brethren of Purity, al-Tawhidi, al-Farabi, Avicenna, Alhazen, and al-Ghazali in the East.
The work also explores literary criticism, calligraphy, music, belles-lettres (adab), and erotic literature, and highlights the contribution of Arab humanism to shaping the field of Aesthetics in the West.
Table of Contents
Preface to the English Translation
Acknowledgments
List of Figures
Introduction
1) Contemporary Historiography of Arab-Islamic Aesthetic Thought
a) Western Criticism
b) Arabic Criticism
2) Aesthetic Theory and Arab Andalusi Aesthetics
1. Beauty and the Arts in the Rise of Written Arabic Culture
1.1. Pre-Islamic Sensibility and the Vocabulary of Aesthetics
1.1.1. The Supernatural Origin of Artistic Creation
1.1.2. The Physical and Luminous Character of Beauty in Pre-Islamic Poetry. Woman as an Aesthetic Object and Agent
1.1.3. The Arts and Architecture in Pre-Islamic Poetry
1.2. The Great Message of Revelation and Its Aesthetic Dimension
1.2.1. Beauty and Absolute Perfection in the Word and the Divine Order
a) The Inimitability of the Quran
b) The Creator
c) Creation
1.2.2. Artistic Creation in the Sacred Texts
a) The Problem of Figurative Representation
b) Architecture and Sculpture in the Quran
c) Prophethood and Poetry
d) Music in the Hadith
1.2.3. The Development of the Arts under the New Politico-Religious Order of Islam
2. The Arts on the Margins of Knowledge: Ideas and Concepts of Arts in Classical Arab Culture
2.1. The Arts in the Arab-Islamic Encyclopedia
2.1.1. The Arts in the Classification of Knowledge in the East
2.1.2. The Arts in the Classification of Knowledge in al-Andalus and the Maghrib
a) The Arts in the Zahiri System of Knowledge
b) Ibn Bajja: the Practical Arts and Classifications of Intellectual Knowledge in the Founding of Andalusi Falsafa
c) Ibn Tufayl's Self-Taught Philosopher: Man in a state of Nature Neither Produces nor Conceives of the Arts
d) The Arts and Knowledge in Ibn Rushd's Rationalist Scheme
e) The Arts in Ibn Khaldun's Study of Society
2.2. The Brethren of Purity's Neopythagorean and Neoplatonic Concepts of Art, and al-Tawhidi's School in Baghdad
2.2.1. The Brethren of Purity's Pythagorean Theory of Art
a) The Geometric Order of the Universe
b) The Harmonious Concord of the Cosmos
c) Ideal Proportion, the Key to Artistic Perfection
d) The Manual Arts and Artistic Creativity
2.2.2. The Aesthetic Neoplatonism of al-Tawhidi's School in Baghdad
a) Thought, Art, and inspiration
b) Artistic Form and the Unicity of God
c) Artistic Creation as the Emanation of the Soul and the Perfection of Nature
d) The Nature of Beautiful Form
e) The Language Arts: Prose, Verse, and Rhetoric
f) Musical Harmony and Its Affinity with the Soul
g) Abu Hayyan al-Tawhidi's Treatise on Calligraphy and the Foundations of the Genre in Arabic
2.3. Calligraphy among the Sciences of Language in Ibn al-Sid of Badajoz
2.4. Revelation, Morality, and Art in the Work of Ibn Hazm
2.4.1. The Divine Origin of the Arts and their Human Transmission
2.4.2. The Perfection and Immutable Order of Divine Creation
2.4.3. Man's Works and Revelation: Architecture, Images, and Music in Ibn Hazm's jurisprudence
a) Mosques in a Juridical Treatise from Tenth-Century Cordoba. A Moral Warning about Architecture
b) Religious and Lay images in Ibn Hazm
c) The Zahiri Faqih on Music
2.4.4. Ibn Hazm's Theory and Criticism of Poetry
a) The Moral Character of Poetry
b) Poetic Concepts and Classes: Technique, Naturalness, and Skill
c) Ibn Hazm's Rhetoric
d) The Quran is Radically Inimitable
2.5. Mimesis as the Definition of Art in Eastern Falsafa
2.5.1. The Origin and Development of the Concept of Mimesis in Classical Eastern Islam: Matta, al-Farabi, and Ibn Sina
a) Matta and the Arabic Version of Mimesis
b) Mimesis in al-Farabi's Theory of Art: Ethics, Politics, and Imagination
c) Ibn Sina (Avicenna) and his translation of Aristotle's Poetics
2.5.2. Mimesis as a Unifying Concept of the Arts in Eastern Falsafa
2.5.3. Artistic Fulfillment: Elements for an Aesthetics of Falsafa
2.6 The Theory of Artistic Mimesis in Andalusi Thought and Criticism
2.6.1 Rhetoric and Poetics in Ibn Rushd's Ethical and Rationalist Thought
2.6.2 Ibn Rushd's Poetics between Rhetoric and Ethics
a) Ibn Rushd's Talkhis Kitab al-Shi'r and Its Greek original
b) The Nature and Types of Arabic Poetry. The Averroist Concept of Mimesis
c) The Ethical Purpose of Poetry
d) The Components of Eulogy
e) Harmonious and Unified Composition
f) The Relationship of Poetry to Truth
g) Representation of Misfortunes and Defects
h) The Characters that Eulogy Should Represent
i) Modes of Imitation in Poetry
j) Rhetorical Elements: Extrinsic Aspects, Wordplay, and Taghyir or Alteration
k) Criticizing Poets' Falsehoods
2.6.3 The Pleasures of Imitation as a Path to Ethical Education in Ibn Rushd's Versions of the Rhetoric and the Poetics
a) The Various Mimetic Arts: Natural Disposition, Technique, and Faithfulness
b) The Enjoyment That Every Artistic Imitation Brings
c) The Pleasure of Poetry Should Serve its Ethical Goals
2.6.4 Hazim al-Qartajanni: From the Theory of Mimesis to a Total Arabic Aesthetics
a) Theory and Definition of Poetic Ideas
b) Poetry's Perceptual and Intellectual Dimension
c) Truth is not an Issue in Poetry. Definition of Poetry
d) Muhakat and Takhyil: A Profound Conception of the Imitative Arts
e) Toward a General Arabic Aesthetics: Imitation, Imagination, Astonishment, Pleasure. An Aesthetics of Light and Reflection
f) Harmonious Composition of the Qasida. Critical Judgment
2.7 The History, Sociology, and Definition of the Arts in Ibn Khaldun's Muqaddima
2.7.1 The Arts in the Development of Human Civilization and as a Manifestation of Power
a) The Geographic Factor, and Moderation as the Physical, Moral, and Aesthetic Ideal
b) The Arts in the Nomadic-vs.-Sedentary Debate. Necessity and Opulence
c) The Arts in Ibn Khaldun's Semiotics of Power
2.7.2 Ibn Khaldun's Urbanism
a) Urban Life Follows the Rise of State Power
b) The City's Site and Basic Services
c) The Ancient Arabs and Architecture
2.7.3 Ibn Khaldun's Definition of the Arts
a) The Arts Consist of Both Theory and Practice
b) The Art of Construction
c) The Art of Carpentry
d) The Art of Calligraphy
e) Ibn Khaldun's Concept of Poetry
3 Aesthetic Perception and the Definition of Beauty in Classical Arabic Thought
3.1 Theory of Knowledge and Definition of Beauty in the Thought of Ibn Hazm of Cordoba
3.1.1 Reason versus Imagination. Ibn Hazm's Theory of Knowledge
a) The Nature of the Human Soul
b) The Perceptive Structure of the Soul. Rational, Sensory, and Linguistic Knowledge
c) The Importance and Specificity of Visual Perception
d) Ibn Hazm's Theory of Colors and Classical Arab Physics
3.1.2 Physical Beauty in Ibn Hazm's Writings on Love
a) The Ethical Framework of Love
b) Conceptualization of Love and Beauty
c) Spiritual Affinity and Physical Forms
d) Love against Reason. Transformations in Aesthetic Judgment
e) Ibn Hazm's Participation in the Aesthetics of Light
f) The Fleeting Nature of Beauty
3.1.3 The Metaphysical Meaning of Ibn Hazm's Aesthetics
a) Beauty as a Spiritual Accident
b) The Divinity and Supernatural Beings Cannot be Defined in Aesthetic Terms
3.1.4 Ethical and Moral Beauty
3.2 Aesthetic Syntheses in Arabic Erotic Literature after Ibn Hazm
3.3 The Metaphysics and Perception of Beauty in Classical Arabic Falsafa
3.3.1 Aesthetic Principles and Concepts in the Arabic Version of Plotinus's Enneads
3.3.2 Al-Farabi's Metaphysical Aesthetics
a) The Beauty and Perfection of the First Cause
b) The Perfection and Beauty of Non-Corporeal Substances and Heavenly Bodies
c) Perfection and Beauty of the Human Being Compared to Those of the First Cause
d) Modes of the Perception and Fulfillment of Beauty
3.3.3 Divine, Intellectual, and Physical Beauty in Avicenna's Metaphysics
a) Definition of Divine Beauty and Goodness
b) Perception of Beauty in Ibn Sina's Theory of Knowledge
c) Metaphysical Perception vs. Sensory Perception: Pleasure and Appropriateness, the Ascent to Supreme Felicity
3.4 Theory of Perception and Aesthetic Contemplation in the Andalusi Falsafa of Ibn Bajja and Ibn Tufayl
3.4.1 Ibn Bajja's Theory of Perception
a) Faculties of the Soul and the Theory of Forms
b) Sense Perception. Vision and Color Theory. Acoustic Perception
c) Intermediate Faculties: Common Sense and the Imaginative
d) The Rational Faculty: Universals, Spiritual Forms, and Higher Knowledge
3.4.2 Parameters of Ibn Bajja's Transcendental Aesthetics
a) Ibn Bajja's Theory of Pleasure. Contemplative Aesthetic Delight
3.4.3 Ibn Tufayl and Gustatory Union with Divine Beauty
3.5 Sensibility and Intellection: Ibn Rushd's Shaping of Aesthetics as a Conceptual Field
3.5.1 Ibn Rushd's Theory of Sensibility. Visual Perception as the Nucleus and Paradigm of Sensory Knowledge
a) The Judicious Function of the Senses
b) Visual Perception and Color Theory
c) Sensibles in the Soul
3.5.2 Common Sense, Imagination, and Cogitatio: The Judgment of the Senses and Artistic Composition
3.5.3 Reason, Imagination, and Intellection
3.5.4 Nature, Art, and Knowledge. Ibn Rushd's Aesthetic Order
3.6 Ibn al-Haytham's Optics and the Creation of an Arabic and Universal Theory of Aesthetic Visual Perception
3.6.1 Visual Knowledge and Aesthetic Knowledge
a) The Distinctive Faculty and Its Syllogistic Visual Functions
b) The Innate and Experiential Nature of Aesthetic Knowledge
3.6.2 Ibn al-Haytham's Theory of Aesthetic Perception
a) The Beauty of Individual Visible Properties
b) Beauty as a Combination of Visible Properties. Proportion and Formal Harmony
c) Ugliness as the Absence of Beauty
d) Circumstances and Alterations of Aesthetic Perception. General Moderation of Visual Factors
3.6.3 On Ibn al-Haytham's Artistic Terminology
3.7 Al-Ghazali's Aesthetics between Theology (Kalam) and Sufi Mysticism (Tasawwuf)
3.7.1 Love for Both Sensible and Divine Beauty
3.7.2 Definition of Sensible and Artistic Beauty
3.7.3 The Superiority of Internal Beauty
3.7.4 Spiritual Faculties for Mystical Knowledge and Aesthetic Taste
3.8 Harmony and Appropriateness: Aesthetics in the Historical Evolutionism of Ibn Khaldun
3.9 The Other Side of Reason. The Aesthetic Core of Ibn 'Arabi's Sufism
3.9.1 Mystical and Universal Love
a) "God Is Beautiful and Loves Beauty"
b) "Beauty Reached in Thee Her Utmost Limit: Another Like Thee Is Impossible"
c) "God Created Adam in His Own Image"
3.9.2 Imagination versus Reason
a) Theory of Gnostic Understanding
b) The Science of Imagination
3.9.3 Divine Beauty and Majesty. Ibn 'Arabi's Aesthetics in the Dialectic of Tanzih and Tashbih
a) Tanzih and Tashbih: The Form of God
b) The Aesthetics of the One and the Many
c) Beyond Iconoclasm
d) Seeing God
e) Divine Majesty and Beauty in the Soul
3.10 The Aesthetic Vocabulary of the Poems of the Alhambra
3.10.1 The Divine Origin of Beauty
3.10.2 The Sovereign as Aesthetic Agent
3.10.3 The Aesthetic Narcissism of Architecture
Conclusion
1 Aesthetics at the Center of Arab Anthropology and Humanism
2 Arabic Aesthetic Concepts and Islamic Art
3 Arabic Aesthetic Thought in al-Andalus
Bibliography of Primary Sources
Bibliography of Secondary Sources
Index
by "Nielsen BookData"
