The Aesthetics of Islamic Ethics

Abstract

Muslim philosophers devoted many books and treatises to ethics as the practical side of their theoretical vision. They never developed clear theories of aesthetics, but they frequently referred to beauty as an underlying rationale for ethical conduct. Their metaphysics was founded on the notion of unity (tawḥīd), and they saw harmony, equilibrium, balance, and beauty as unity’s manifestations. In his treatise on love, Avicenna demonstrates that love drives the Necessary Being to create the universe. Others pointed to the prophetic saying, “God is beautiful, and He loves beauty,” and explained that it is precisely God’s specific love for beauty that brings the universe into existence with a special view toward human beings, whom he created in his own beautiful image. The human task becomes one of actualizing taʾalluh, “deiformity,” which is latent in the soul. “Ethics,” literally “character traits” (akhlāq), is then the practical endeavor of “becoming characterized” (takhalluq) by God’s own character traits, which are designated by what the tradition calls his “most beautiful names” (al-asmāʾ al-ḥusnā). Thus, Avicenna explains, the Necessary Being’s love for beauty is fully realized in God’s love for deiform souls.