Aesthetics in Arabic Thought : From Pre-Islamic Arabia Through Al-Andalus.

Intro -- 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 -- Chapter 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 Ḥadīth -- 1.2.3 The Development of the Arts under the New Politico-Religious Order of Islam -- Chapter 2 - The Arts on the Margins of Knowledge: Ideas and Concepts of Art 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 Ẓahiri System of Knowledge -- b) Ibn Bājja: the Practical Arts and Classifications of Intellectual Knowledge in the Founding of Andalusi Falsafa -- c) Ibn Ṭufayl'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 Khaldūn's Study of Society.

2.2 The Brethren of Purity's Neopythagorean and Neoplatonic Concepts of Art, and al-Tawḥīdī'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-Tawḥīdī'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 -- f) Abū Ḥayyān Al-Tawḥīdī's Treatise on Calligraphy and the Foundations of the Genre in Arabic -- 2.3 Calligraphy among the Sciences of Language in Ibn al-Sīd of Badajoz -- 2.4 Revelation, Morality, and Art in the Work of Ibn Ḥazm -- 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 Ḥazm's Jurisprudence -- a) Mosques in a Juridical Treatise from Tenth-Century Cordoba. A Moral Warning about Architecture -- b) Religious and Lay Images in Ibn Ḥazm -- c) The Ẓahiri Faqīh on Music -- 2.4.4 Ibn Ḥazm's Theory and Criticism of Poetry -- a) The Moral Character of Poetry -- b) Poetic Concepts and Classes: Technique, Naturalness, and Skill -- c) Ibn Ḥazm'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: Mattā, al-Fārābī, and Ibn Sīnā -- a) Mattā and the Arabic Version of Mimesis.

b) Mimesis in al-Fārābī's Theory of Art: Ethics, Politics, and Imagination -- c) Ibn Sīnā (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 Talkhīṣ Kitāb al-Shiʿr 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 Taghyīr 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 Ḥāzim al-Qarṭājannī: 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) Muḥākāt and Takhyīl: 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 Qaṣīda. Critical Judgment.

2.7 The History, Sociology, and Definition of the Arts in Ibn Khaldūn'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 Khaldūn's Semiotics of Power -- 2.7.2 Ibn Khaldūn'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 Khaldūn'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 Khaldūn's Concept of Poetry -- Chapter 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 Ḥazm of Cordoba -- 3.1.1 Reason versus Imagination. Ibn Ḥazm'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 Ḥazm's Theory of Colors and Classical Arab Physics -- 3.1.2 Physical Beauty in Ibn Ḥazm'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 Ḥazm's Participation in the Aesthetics of Light -- f) The Fleeting Nature of Beauty -- 3.1.3 The Metaphysical Meaning of Ibn Ḥazm'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 Ḥazm.

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-Fārābī'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 Sīnā'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 Bājja and Ibn Ṭufayl -- 3.4.1 Ibn Bājja'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 Bājja's Transcendental Aesthetics -- a) Ibn Bājja's Theory of Pleasure. Contemplative Aesthetic Delight -- 3.4.3 Ibn Ṭufayl 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.

Aesthetics in Arabic Thought from Pre-Islamic Arabia through al-Andalus offers a history of aesthetic thought in the Arabic language from the pre-Islamic period to the Alhambra, with special attention to the great Arab philosophers of the Middle East and al-Andalus.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2024. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.