Abstract
Love of beauty has long been recognized as a major theme in Sufi literature. Among numerous Sufis who spoke on beauty, Rūzbihān Baqlī (d. 1209) stands out for the amount and sophistication of his discussion on beauty, expressed in prose and verse. His ontological analysis of beauty may appear reminiscent of Plotinus’ thought, though it is virtually impossible to prove the latter’s influence on Rūzbihān. Instead of attempting to prove or disprove ‘influence’, the present study compares Plotinus and Rūzbihān—with occasional reference to the Arabic Plotinus corpus—on key questions of beauty, including its origin and role in cosmogony, why human beings find beauty to be attractive and pleasurable, proper attitude to bodily beauty, and why beauty mattered to Rūzbihān and Plotinus. A three-directional comparison of Plotinus, Rūzbihān, and the Arabic Plotinus on questions of beauty reveals unexpected affinities and divergences of thought among them.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Faces of the Infinite: Neoplatonism and Poetics at the Confluence of Africa, Asia and Europe |
| Editors | Stefan Sperl, Yorgos Dedes |
| Place of Publication | Oxford |
| Publisher | OUP/British Academy |
| Chapter | 4 |
| Pages | 148-168 |
| Number of pages | 21 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2022 |