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

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.