Aesthetics of Islam: From Baumgarten's Definition to the Qur'anic Aesthetic Proof of God

Abstract

UDK
28:111.852 Baumgarten A.G.

The question of aesthetics within contemporary Islamic thought has largely been overshadowed by legal or purely ethical discourses, thereby obscuring its fundamental role in the cognition of both the world and Divine Revelation. This paper seeks to affirm aesthetics not merely as the study of beauty, but as the primary faculty of sensory cognition (iḥsās al-maʿrifī). Beginning with the historical and etymological foundations of aesthetics as an independent philosophical discipline in the eighteenth century, the study traces the development of the concept from A. G. Baumgarten’s notion of cognitio sensitiva to the Islamic understanding of harmony and perfection (itqān). At the heart of this study is an analysis of the Qur'an as the supreme aesthetic source, synthesizing the categories of beauty (jamāl) and goodness (ḥusn). By exploring the relationship between spiritual and sensory cognition, the paper argues that Islamic aesthetics is not merely ornamental but constitutes an essential preparation of the human being for an authentic experience of the theocentric universe, in which every sign (āyah) simultaneously reflects Divine Beauty.