The Concept of Beauty and Aesthetic in Quran

In the name of God

The Concept of Beauty and Aesthetic in Quran


This article is part of a long research on the concept of beauty and aesthetics in Islamic thought and Greek philosophy. In this research, two words in the Greek language, Kalon, and in the Arabic language, Al-hosn, have been analyzed.
Plato in Great Hippias begins his treatise with a Greek famous proverb: "Beauty is difficult". But in this treatise and other his writings (for example: Phaedrus, Fylbus, Republica) provides a definition of beauty: the beauty of the sensible and the intelligible world. In his point of view, the sensible beauty has some elements such as fitness, balance and harmony.
But the great disciple of Plato, Aristotle in the definition of beauty tries to make relationship between Good and pleasure: "Pleasure also must be a good; for all living creatures naturally desire it. Hence it follows that both agreeable and beautiful things must be good; for the former produce pleasure, while among beautiful things some are pleasant and others are desirable in themselves". Aristotle also relies on the elements of sensible beauty in Metaphysics: "The chief forms of beauty are order, symmetry and definiteness, which the mathematical sciences demonstrate in a special degree. And since these (e.g. order and definiteness) are obviously causes of many things, evidently these sciences must treat this sort of causative principle also (i.e. the beautiful) as in some sense a cause. But we shall speak more plainly elsewhere about these matters".
Great Muslim thinkers such as Ave Cinna, Abu Nasr Farabi, al-Ikhwan al-Safa, Al-Ghazali (Imam Mohhammad) also have the same Greek philosophers' view.
But in the Quran and Islamic traditions, the emphasis is much greater on intelligible beauty. God emphasizes the beauty of good works such as seasonable life, interpretation, sermon, and …., in over one hundred and fifty verses. And in the other verses, Quran says about sensible beauty like beauty of women and harmony in creations of universe. But the keyword of beauty in Quran is Geometry or Al-Qadr. The word of Al-Qadr has been related with beauty in some verses:
"Indeed, We have created all things according to a measure" (Al-Ghamar -The Moon. Nom.49)
"Who perfected everything He created. He originated the creation of the human from clay" (Al-Sajdeh -The Prostration. Nom.7)
On human body and his beauty:
"Indeed, We created the human with the fairest stature" (Al-Tin -The Fig. nom.4)
And the expression of harmony in creation of the universe:
" We have spread out the earth and set upon it firm mountains. Everything We have caused to grow therein is justly weighe" ( AL-HIJR (AL-HIJR) -19)
"Indeed, We have created all things according to a measure." (AL-QAMAR (THE MOON-49)
So in Quran, beauty has two meaning: sensible beauty and intelligible beauty. The elements of sensible beauty are harmony, geometry, fitness and balance, and intelligible beauty is everything of good work like Prayer ,Charity and …. .
Methods of this research is interpretive analysis method.
Key words: Quran, aesthetic, Beauty, geometry, Harmony.