Overview

In Aesthetics in Arabic Thought from Pre-Islamic Arabia through al-Andalus José Miguel Puerta Vílchez 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 Ḥazm, Avempace, Ibn Ṭufayl, Averroes, Ibn ʿArabī, and Ibn Khaldūn in al-Andalus, and the Brethren of Purity, al-Tawḥīdī, al-Fārābī, Avicenna, Alhazen, and al-Ghazālī 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.

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9789004695979

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Reviews

""This is an English translation of the major work on the topic in modern times, and is well worth having. It is an excellent translation, clear and fluent. [...] The book is an impressive size, over 900 pages and represents an impressive scholarly contribution to the area."" - Oliver Leaman, University of Kentucky, in: Journal of Semitic Studies 64/1 (2019)

Author Information

J.M. Puerta Vílchez is Professor of Islamic Art and Aesthetics at the University of Granada. His publications include La aventura del cálamo. Historia, formas y artistas de la caligrafía árabe (2007), Leer la Alhambra (2010), The Poetics of Water in Islam (2011), and The Artistic Sense of Qurtuba (2015), as well as “Art and Aesthetics in the Work of Ibn Ḥazm of Cordoba” in Ibn Ḥazm of Cordoba, ed. C. Adang, M. Fierro and S. Schmidtke (Leiden: Brill, 2012). He co-directed the Biblioteca de al-Andalus (9 vols., 2003-2013) and curated the exhibit “Arts and cultures in al-Andalus. The power of Alhambra (2013-2014).”

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