Theological and metaphysical thought in Islamic contexts has contributed to the development of a value system that played a fundamental role as a social and cultural bond in Muslim-majority societies throughout history. We will see that, beyond logic and rhetoric which constitute a sub-branch of modern axiology, the two major disciplines that are its preferred domains—ethics and aesthetics—are omnipresent in the moral, intellectual, and artistic determination of Islamic civilization. Indeed, ethical concern is central in the profusion of al-adab treatises and the long tradition of 'etiquettes of souls' with the appreciation of good conduct and savoir-vivre. And the particular importance of aesthetics characterized a hedonistic life sensitive to refinement and artistic production, with beauty as supreme theophany and magnificence as transcendent ideal; the contemplation of Creation's splendors in the 'spread book' being in perfect congruence with meditation on the verses of the 'revealed book'. Finally, we will question the disposition of contemporary theological thought, beyond a 'morality of prohibition,' to constitute itself in an innovative and bold vein, as a source of humanist ethics with the aesthetic experience of the love of beauty culminating in a life-giving and elevating spirituality.

The famous polymath Ibn Ḥazm of Córdoba (d. 456 AH/1064 CE), a figure as ambivalent as he is divisive, composed an ethical treatise, the K. al-Aḫlāq wa-l-Siyar. A late work, Ibn Ḥazm presents, in a vivid and personal manner, a series of aphorisms resulting from his observation of his time.

Drawing on his own testimony, certain anecdotal events serve him to elaborate a practical ethics. His treatise differs from other works of the genre through its literary aestheticism and pragmatic adaptation to the tastes and customs of his cultural environment. While the tripartite soul and the presentation of cardinal virtues and vices conform to ancient Platonic or Aristotelian philosophical tradition as defined by Miskawayh, it seems pertinent to compare it with that of the Jacobite philosopher Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī, whose certain details are very similar if not identical. Both philosophers 'moralize' the schema of soul functions. Ibn Ḥazm's definition of happiness—namely, dispelling worries—also closely resembles al-Kindī's Risāla fī-l-ḥīla li-dafʿi-l-aḥzān (Epistle on the Means of Dispelling Sorrows). While there appears to be an influence of Stoicism or Epicureanism on Ibn Ḥazm's ataraxia, its historicity remains difficult to trace. The ṭard al-hamm, Ibn Ḥazm's definition of happiness, semantically echoes al-Kindī's dafʿi-l-aḥzān.

The K. al-Aḫlāq presents no guiding thread. This absence of structure or wandering of thought is, according to Gabriel Martinez-Gros, an attitude faithful to adab and surprising for such an ordinarily rigorous author. The mirror or necklace structure invites creative literary analysis. His ethical treatise is a learned explicit and implicit intertextual blend referring to endogenous and exogenous sources of the Arab-Andalusian cultural context. We therefore propose to examine, in a comparative approach, the ethical and moral treatises of Ibn Ḥazm's time, and to examine the stylistic processes leading Ibn Ḥazm to address politico-religious instability.

This paper proposes a textual analysis of several excerpts from two emblematic works by the Cordoban philosopher Ibn Ḥazm (d. 1064): Ṭawq al-ḥamāmah fī al-ulfah wa al-ullāf and al-Iḥkām fī uṣūl al-aḥkām. Through specific passages, it examines the conditions of possibility for an aesthetic and ethical discourse, where the word becomes a site for the pursuit of beauty as much as moral commitment.

In Ṭawq al-ḥamāmah, the analysis of amorous feelings is not reduced to subjective chronicle; it relies on subtle reflection about the formulation of emotions, the precision of words, and sincerity (ṣidq) as a criterion of truthfulness. Far from indulging in the expression of feelings, Ibn Ḥazm implements a rhetoric of inner testimony, where stylistic elegance (balāgha) never obscures the quest for truth (ḥaqīqa). The text mirrors a moral disposition founded on the loyalty of speaking truth.

In al-Iḥkām, this requirement takes a more normative but no less linguistic turn. The juridical text, seemingly cold, reveals the same attention to discourse structure, lexical rigor, and fidelity to scriptural statements. Respect for the letter (ẓāhir) does not oppose thinking about language; it constitutes its very foundation. For Ibn Ḥazm, language is not merely a tool for transmitting meaning but a divine institution—a revealed deposit whose function is to preserve an order of truth. Thus, the act of speaking entails responsibility, and speech—'the touchstone of true or false' (Roger Arnaldez)—is invested with both ethical and aesthetic value.

Three lines of inquiry will guide this paper:

• How does Ibn Ḥazm articulate his Ẓāhirite fidelity to texts with writing deeply marked by emotion, nuance, and stylistic pursuit?
• How does the shaping of amorous discourse in Ṭawq al-ḥamāmah engage an implicit conception of language as a vector of ḥaqīqa?
• Finally, to what extent can we read, in this tension between normative rigor and aesthetic quest, the outline of a philosophy of language that prefigures certain insights of linguistic philosophy or contemporary discourse analysis?

Ibn Hazm al-Andalusi's Ṭawq al-Ḥamāma (The Ring of the Dove) is considered one of the earliest literary works to address the theme of love. The text remained lost for centuries until it was edited and published by D. K. Petrov in 1914. Since then, scholarly studies have gradually begun to examine and analyze this epistle.

This article focuses on examining and analyzing Arab critical writings—articles and books—that have explored this treatise, employing Tzvetan Todorov's methodology of 'criticism of criticism.' It is evident that the corpus of Arab literary criticism devoted to Ṭawq al-Ḥamāma is not as extensive as one might expect. The first known Arab critical study of the text was written by the Syrian poet Muhammad al-Bazm, who wrote an introduction to the Syrian edition published in 1930. Subsequent studies appeared sporadically, with a notable concentration of critical writings emerging during the 1960s.

The majority of these critical contributions took the form of journal articles, many of which remained scattered across various periodicals. Some were later compiled by their authors into essay collections, as was the case with Taha Hussein's article 'Fī al-Ḥubb,' originally published in al-Kātib al-Miṣrī in February 1946 and later included in his book Alwān. The only book entirely devoted to studying Ṭawq al-Ḥamāma is Céza Qāsim's monograph, which was initially submitted as a master's thesis at Cairo University in 1970.

Accordingly, this article aims to critically examine and evaluate these Arab writings, and to explore the development of modern Arab critical thought throughout the twentieth century by analyzing its engagement with Ṭawq al-Ḥamāma. The study also seeks to situate each critical work within its historical and intellectual context and to assess the extent to which Arab critics have employed the methodologies and tools of modern literary theory in their interpretation of classical Arabic texts.

This article is based on a corpus of twenty-two critical articles published in various Arab literary journals, in addition to the aforementioned work by Céza Qāsim, which—although published in Cairo in 2014—originated from a master's thesis defended in May 1970.

Semiotics in badī'ī discourse represents one of the rhetorical and semantic phenomena that requires reconsidering the aesthetic function of art, not as a mere ornamental mechanism, but as a sign of ethical and cultural content. In the context of the badī'ī school's flourishing during the Abbasid and Mamluk periods, writers, particularly the authors of diwanī letters, devoted themselves to employing badī'ī embellishments in highly elaborate linguistic structures that valorize expression and excel in formulating meanings according to solid rhetorical logic.

However, this intensive work on stylistic ornamentation stemmed not only from a desire for strangeness or dazzlement, but emanated from a deep awareness of the aesthetics of Quranic language, which constituted the supreme model of Arabic expression and an ultimate reference for art, truthfulness, and refinement. Writers assimilated this model as a rhetorical summit and an incarnation of harmony between word and meaning, between form and intention, between expression and ethics. Hence, imitating Quranic aesthetics in their letters was simultaneously an imitation of its rhetoric and its ethics.

In diwanī letters, as in the texts of al-Ṣāḥib ibn 'Abbād, Ibn al-'Amīd, and al-Qalqashandī, verbal ornaments—paronomasia, rhymed prose, antithesis, parallelism, and others—are mobilized to highlight a system of political and ethical values such as wisdom, justice, humility, and good governance. These texts transcend the level of ornamentation to show language's capacity to convey ethical and cognitive meanings, where the signifier shows a close link with the signified, and where noble values such as wisdom and justice are transmitted through badī'ī formulation.

Thus, the badī'ī school is understood not only as an ornamental current, but as a semiotic expressive system embodying an interaction between aesthetics and ethics. Indeed, rhetoric in these texts contributes to shaping a political discourse carrying ethical values within it, reinforced by Quranic language symbolism, reflecting a profound influence on social and political construction.

From here emerges the research problem we will address using the analytical semiotic method, which consists of understanding how these linguistic signs express the ethical dimension in badī'ī discourse present in diwanī letters. How can we interpret the relationship between the signifier and the signified in this context, particularly with the use of badī'ī embellishments to convey ethical and political meanings? Can this art be considered an imitation of Quranic rhetoric, such that it reflects the ethical values embodied in the Quranic text, such as truthfulness, wisdom, and justice? And how does this linguistic structure contribute to shaping the discourse of power and prestige, in light of imitating Quranic aesthetics and its commitment to supreme values?

This paper explores the deep connections between ethics and aesthetics in Averroes' thought, drawing on the concept of Universal Intellect as it unfolds in his Aristotelian commentaries and within the cultural and philosophical framework of al-Andalus. It proposes a rereading of the Andalusian philosopher as an emblematic figure of ethical rationalism, founded on the recognition of cognitive pluralism and the search for intellectual harmony. Faced with the post-Averroist episteme, marked by an exclusive sacralization of revealed truth, Averroes affirms the unity of truth while valuing the diversity of rational paths leading to it, according to each person's intellectual dispositions. This pluralism grounds a genuine ethics of knowledge: a requirement for discernment, measure, and intellectual responsibility, where reason is conceived as humanity's common heritage. The quest for truth thus becomes a moral act, oriented toward the common good and nourished by a cognitive hospitality open to otherness. Parallel to this, the reflection highlights an implicit aesthetics of thought in Averroes: through order, rigor, and demonstrative clarity, truth is embodied in a form that elevates the mind. This aesthetics of reasoning—or beauty of logos—articulates an ethics of discourse with a formal coherence reflecting a broader ontological order. The Universal Intellect thus designates far more than a mere abstract faculty: it represents a living space of shared memory and co-construction of knowledge, the fruit of crossed rational efforts by thinkers from diverse religious traditions. Heir to an Andalusian pluralism founded on the transconfessional circulation of ideas, it also constitutes a normative horizon for our time: it calls for transcending closed affiliations, renewing intellectual dialogue, and conceiving a conviviality of knowledge anchored in mutual recognition. By revisiting this conception in light of contemporary challenges, this paper proposes to consider Averroes not as a figure from a bygone past, but as a transmitter of shared rationality, bearer of an ethical and aesthetic project of living together.

The theory of emanation poses a problem in the general economy of the philosopher al-Fārābī's system (d. 950). It is not found in all his treatises and only assumes its clear and distinct aspect in his work "The Opinions of the Inhabitants of the Virtuous City." In this work, the question of beauty is never approached as a strictly aesthetic category; it is inscribed within a broader metaphysical and cosmological framework, based on a unified and hierarchical conception of being. Beauty is thus deeply rooted in a worldview dominated by order, unity, and intelligibility. Our paper therefore attempts to examine the role of beauty in this system, as it appears by articulating the notions of beauty, order, and ontological perfection. The aim is to show that beauty constitutes not merely a supplement to reality, but an essential expression of the very structure of being. Al-Fārābī's metaphysical system rests partly (this restriction may be discussed at the conference) on the doctrine of emanation (fayḍ), inherited from Neoplatonism, particularly in the Arabized version of Plotinian Neoplatonism through the Theology of Aristotle. According to this doctrine, being emanates gradually from a primary source, absolutely one, simple and immaterial—God or the First (al-Awwal). Each degree of emanation gives rise to a level of reality that preserves, at its degree, a reflection of original unity and perfection. The universe thus conceived is not a fragmented ensemble, but a continuous chain of beings (al-mawjūdāt), hierarchized according to their proximity to the First Cause. This gradation is not arbitrary: it is founded on principles of order, proportion, and intelligibility, which are also the criteria for what is held to be beautiful. We will see that in the reading we propose, beauty is not external to the structure of the world; it is its sensible or intelligible manifestation. It constitutes the visible language of universal harmony.

'Campo Grande was the scene of one of the most exciting performances at the Salvador Carnival: the parade of the Afro bloc Malê Debalê on Carnival Saturday (March 1st). Considered the largest Afro ballet in the world, with more than 2,000 dancers, the group brought beauty and joy to the avenue with a procession full of colors, rhythms, and cultural expressions. With about fifteen wings, percussion groups, and ensembles, Malê Debalê reaffirmed its commitment to maintaining the traditions of Salvador's Black community' (https://www.ba.gov.br/cultura/noticias/2025-03/63142/male-debale-celebra-os-190-anos-da-revolta-dos-males, March 2, 2025). In March 2025, the Salvador de Bahia Carnival, one of the most important in Brazil, was once again marked by the captivating presence of Malê Debalê. Founded in 1979, the Afro 'bloc' Malê Debalê was born as a tribute to the Hausa people who participated in the Malê Revolt, an uprising of Black Muslims that took place in 1835 in Salvador and continues to generate some editorial success (Gilvan Ribeiro, Malês. A révolta dos escravizados na Bahia e ses legado, Planeta, São Paulo, 2023). Among other movements, this aesthetic mobilization of the Malês' memory in the context of the Bahia Carnival continues to fuel a form of Afro-Brazilian cultural resistance within contemporary Brazilian society. These manifestations join a broader current of Black resistance in the Americas which, like the Nation of Islam in the United States, have clearly displayed a Muslim dimension. Can we therefore speak of a Muslim ethics of resistance? Starting from this transatlantic context and some aesthetic manifestations of Muslim-characterized revolts, this contribution will seek to question the existence of a Muslim ethics of resistance.

The title of this research raises a fundamental question linked to values in their ethical and aesthetic dimensions, and to gnosis ('irfān) as a method of Sufi experience that grounds its knowledge on a creative gustatory-affective terrain. In this regard, Ibn Arabi considers that taste (dhawq) is 'the first of the principles of divine theophany,' and that the science of theophany is for him the noblest and highest of sciences. The ethical principles that Akbarian gnosis seeks to construct possess 'merciful' (raḥmāniyya) meanings, through which the 'Breath of the Merciful' is actualized. This mercy, in its cosmic extension, is the 'value of values,' for it encompasses all beautiful and delicate educational acts such as mutual aid, tolerance, coexistence, proximity, and mutual knowledge... The ethical objective is to realize 'creative happiness' in this world as a condition for happiness in the hereafter, through awareness of the rank of 'existence as pleasure and sweetness which is pure Good,' as the 'Sheikh al-Akbar' sees it. Toshihiko Izutsu considers that the concept of God in Abrahamic religions is that of an 'ethical God.' Therefore, the relationship to the divine must necessarily be ethical, for God acts toward the world as 'Good' and 'Just.' The human being has only to respond to this divine act aesthetically: does this require an aesthetic synthesis between the gustatory and the ethical, between reason and heart? Is it through this taste founded on feelings that the essence of Islamic aesthetics is formed? The aesthetic synthesis required in Akbarian gnosis gathers existence in its transformations—theophanies—and the Good in its luminous force. This is the solid foundation of the theosophy—the wisdom—of Islamic art, which unites Light (Unity) and shadows (multiplicity) through radiance. The place of this union—this synthesis—Ibn Arabi calls the 'center of Light, radiance, and shadows,' where it is possible to conjugate Majesty (jalāl) and Beauty (jamāl)—aesthetic Majesty. Through the aesthetic synthesis is determined the wisdom of gnostic ethics leading to beauty (al-ḥusn, natural beauty) and to beneficence (al-iḥsān, spiritual beauty), as well as to the highest gustatory aspiration, what Ibn Arabi calls the 'religion of Love,' capable of being shared among individuals, societies, and religions. The epistemological result of this synthesis is to reconsider the meanings of Truth outside the unilaterality of abstraction and incarnation—transcendence (tanzīh) and resemblance (tashbīh)—but rather to see them in a single focus, that is, in their interpenetration.

In our forthcoming text, with which we aim to participate in this conference, we propose studying a famous passage from Averroes' text translated from Hebrew into Arabic: the Commentary on Plato's Republic, where he compares women and men regarding the place they should occupy for the city's development: 'Women differ from men in degree and not in nature. They are capable of everything men do—war, philosophy, etc.—only to a lesser degree. Sometimes they surpass them, as in music, so that the perfection of this art would be for music to be composed by a man and performed by a woman...' The aim of our study is to try to understand the ethical, aesthetic, and philosophical dimensions of this text by Averroes, based on the analysis of other texts by Plato and Aristotle, against Ernest Renan's clearly racist reading, but also against any other laudatory reading. We believe it is necessary to understand the historical and intellectual motives behind such an attitude from an Arab-Muslim philosopher where gender identity poses no obstacle to participation in public affairs (politics), and how and why music (art) becomes an argument for defending equality in social and political responsibility. Without forgetting to problematize Averroes' idea: what interpretation do we give to this idea, which appears revolutionary for its time? How are the beginnings of an Islamic ethico-aesthetic articulated in this idea? How is the feminine represented while avoiding the socio-political commonplaces widely shared in Averroes' era? Thus, our contribution will attempt to answer some questions formulated in the first axis: Ethics and aesthetics in Islamic heritage: history, language, and philosophy.

In contemporary Iran, 'classical' spiritual poetry is not merely a living heritage preserved in memory and venerated near the tombs of Ḥāfeẓ, Saʿdī, and others. It permeates the theological and even juridical reflections of religious scholars and philosophers of all orientations. On the one hand, they illustrate their arguments by citing spiritual poets from the medieval period, most of whom were Sunni. On the other hand, some theologians and philosophers draw on these poets to develop innovative proposals for the doctrine of faith, moral theology, and dogmatics.

Within their vast poetic heritage, these authors accord a privileged place to Jalāl ol-Dīn Rūmī (1207-1273) and his Mathnawī. The philosopher ʿAbd ol-Karīm Sorūsh (1945- ) maintains multiple relationships with the poet. Not only are his works on epistemology and 'new theology' (in his own terms) punctuated with abundant citations from Rūmī, but he has also edited and taught his works. By combining modern European philosophical hermeneutics with meditation on Rūmī, the theologian Moḥammad Mojtahed Shabestarī (1936- ) has endeavored since the mid-2000s to rethink moral theology and dogmatics, including the dogma on the Quran. Finally, the philosopher Moṣṭafā Malekiyān (1956- ) elevates Rūmī as a beacon to illuminate his questioning about the knowledge of God and his meditation on the place of silence and speech in moral life.

Considering the place of spiritual poetry in the religious culture of contemporary Shi'ite Iran, our proposal aims to analyze the relationships established with Rūmī by three innovative figures in theology and philosophy of religion.

This work aims to contribute, through the example of Islamic finance, to a broader reflection on ethics and aesthetics in Islam. Starting from the substantive unity of both phenomena (Wittgenstein, Ethik und Ästhetik sind eins) or from the primordial unity of symbolic form and function (Nietzsche, All ethics is the ruin of an aesthetic), we propose a delimitation of ethics as a set of criteria guiding human conduct toward an end, versus a conception of aesthetics as a set of rules whose fulfillment represents an end in itself. To the first set we can attribute the rules on human transactions (mu'amalat), while in the second we would frame acts of devotion to God (idabat). The aporia of 'finance' and 'Islamic' invites questions about the tension between terms of efficiency and economic rationality versus notions of transcendence and religious devotion, but also, on a more abstract level, about ethics and aesthetics in the sense we attribute to them here. Islamic finance has shifted from the hegemonic and all-encompassing position it occupied in legal traffic during the early centuries of Islam, to a minority and reactive position in the 20th and 21st centuries. This process of particularization of Islamic Law is the result of the implantation of Western notions of legal order through processes of colonial domination. The interaction between conventional and Islamic norms on finance requires rethinking the notions of rite, principle, and norm. As a result of the particularization process, norms on human transactions (mu'amalat) may be experiencing a shift toward the category of acts of religious devotion (idabat), such that rational conduct would progressively become symbolic conduct or moral beauty (Cassirer). This shift also entails a metamorphosis in the legitimation of contractual norms, which would cease to be a set of ethical criteria founded on achieving a determined end through rational means, to become a set of ritual rules whose fulfillment represents an end in itself and whose legitimation is founded on the aesthetic conception that typically characterizes acts of religious devotion (El-Gammal).

Research question: How does the relationship between beauty and ethics manifest in Ibn Arabi's thought? And can the aesthetic experience be considered a form of ethical and spiritual realization? Abstract: The aesthetic vision in Ibn Arabi constitutes an entry point to the knowledge of the Truth, where beauty is a divine attribute that manifests in existence and opens the way to a spiritual experience based on taste (dhawq) and unveiling (kashf). Art and beauty do not aim at practical utility or traditional convention, but at lifting the veils from truth and establishing a direct connection with the Absolute. From this standpoint, the aesthetic and the ethical intertwine, as the human being who tastes divine beauty embarks on a spiritual ascension through which they rise through the stations of perfection, where truth is not attained through sense or reason alone, but through taste and the adoption of divine attributes. Ibn Arabi considers that aesthetic manifestation is one of the faces of divine theophany, and that love springs from beauty, so that love of the world for its beauty becomes love of God, for there is no beauty but Him. In this context, extinction (fanā') becomes an aesthetic experience par excellence, in which the perfect human being is realized as the true connoisseur of divine beauty. Thus, beauty in Ibn Arabi acquires an ethical dimension, where the human being is called to abandon blameworthy attributes and adorn themselves with praiseworthy qualities, in pursuit of union with divine Truth through love and beauty. This study seeks to explore this circular causality between beauty and ethics in Ibn Arabi, through analysis of the concepts of theophany, taste, extinction, and striving toward God, to reveal how the aesthetic experience transforms into an ethical and spiritual experience, leading the human being to perceive the Truth through beauty and to embody His attributes through love. Methodologically, this study relies on an approach adopting the method of Jean-Louis Le Moigne and Edgar Morin in complex modelic thinking, which deconstructs cognitive and symbolic systems as dynamic and interactive structures that can only be understood in their relational context. Ibn Arabi's aesthetic-ethical vision resembles, in its structure, an intelligible model that links multiple levels (sensory, rational, gustatory, ethical, spiritual...), through processes of symbolization, abstraction, and interpretation that transcend linear explanation. Thus, adopting this method allows reading Ibn Arabi's thought not as a closed system of ideas, but as a living system of intertwined meanings, where 'taste,' 'theophany,' 'love,' and 'extinction' each constitute a functional component in the process of realizing the Truth, where the aesthetic and the ethical intertwine in a single experience.

Classical Islamic thought abounds with figures whose intellectual richness remains largely unknown. Among them, Abū Ḥayyān al-Tawḥīdī (d. 414/1023) stands out for his singular approach to humanity, blending philosophy, literature, spirituality, and social critique. This work proposes a cross-analysis of two central dimensions of his thought: ethics (aḫlāq) and aesthetics (ǧamāliyya). These two domains, although rarely articulated together systematically in the Islamic tradition, occupy an essential place in al-Tawḥīdī's writings, particularly in al-Imtāʿ wa al-muʾānasa and al-Hawāmil wa al-šawāmil. Our study highlights an ethics founded on reason, lived experience, and human nature, conceived in connection with the three souls of man (rational, irascible, and concupiscent) and constantly illustrated through social and literary observations. In parallel, aesthetics in al-Tawḥīdī is constructed from a dual source: Greek and Islamic, between sensible perception and transcendent ideal, with beauty perceived as a reflection of harmony, perfection, and ultimately, divinity. By articulating the good and the beautiful, ethics and aesthetics, al-Tawḥīdī proposes a philosophical anthropology where man is both mirror of the cosmos and artisan of his own perfection. Far from being a mere transmitter of ancient ideas, he asserts himself as an original thinker, concerned with expressing the profound movements of human consciousness. This study thus aims to restore his thought to its rightful place in the field of Islamic philosophy, both as a living heritage and as a source of contemporary reflection.

This paper examines the invitation extended by Ibn Barraǧān (d. 536/1141) to contemplate the divine signs (āyāt Allāh) in the world. In the age of the Anthropocene, while modernity has spread a materialist vision of nature and the religions of the Book are often criticized for their anthropocentric view, examining his work leads us to rediscover another vision of the natural world. This work exhorts us to reconsider the link between aesthetic, spiritual, and philosophical contemplation of the natural world and the adoption of an ethical stance towards it. Ibn Barraǧān, following the philosophical and spiritual tradition of the Mutaʿbirun (or contemplatives) of al-Andalus, invites his reader to immerse themselves in the contemplation of nature considered as theophany, as divine manifestation. This author maintains that true spiritual knowledge does not reside solely in reading the Quran, but also in attentive observation of nature. For him, contemplation of divine signs in nature allows one to transcend visible forms, thus offering a path to knowledge of higher spiritual realities. He advocates a contemplative meditation on the natural world which, far from being limited to a mere accumulation of knowledge, becomes a means of interpreting divine signs. This contemplative approach leads to a deeper understanding of divine wisdom and the harmony of creation. Thus, nature is no longer an object to be exploited, but a sacred text to be deciphered. For this author, the person who contemplates and adopts a posture of cosmic humility draws closer to the divine: spiritual lowering constitutes a vector for elevation. Ibn Barraǧān argues that every natural being or element should be recognized as a master providing teaching (ʿibra), leading to wisdom and harmony. The contemplation of divine signs provides teaching that grounds an ethics based on humility and respect for the natural world. Rereading this work from the past will help us redefine our relationship with the natural world today. By examining the articulation between a contemplative approach and the adoption of an ethical stance towards the natural world, we will identify the possible foundations for an ethics respectful of nature.

This paper examines Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī's (1150-1210) vision of the beauty of the soul in his epistle 'Condemnation of Worldly Pleasures' (Risālat Dhamm Ladhdhāt al-Dunyā). This vision can be described as a critique of the concept of material beauty and a defense of inner beauty. Al-Rāzī considers that wisdom is the pinnacle of spiritual beauty, and that neglecting it opens the door to physical and spiritual illness. He divides worldly pleasures into three categories: the first concerns bodily pleasures, which al-Rāzī considers the lowest; the second category comprises imaginary pleasures, namely the pleasure of leadership and prestige, of which he exposes the good and bad aspects; the third category is intellectual pleasure obtained through knowledge, of which he shows the aspects of attraction and repulsion. This vision will be discussed in the context of the influence of Platonic philosophy (purification of the soul) and Islamic thought (al-Ghazālī's Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn) on al-Rāzī. Keywords: beauty of the soul - physical healing - pleasure. Research question: How does al-Rāzī conceive spiritual beauty?

In his Kitāb Ādāb al-samāʿ wa-l-wajd (Book on the Etiquette of Mystical Audition and Ecstasy), the theologian al-Ghazālī (1058-1111) tackles the thorny and polemical question of mystical ecstasy within sama' ceremonies, Sufi rituals of listening to music and spiritual poetry. The treatment of this question fits into one of the main aims of Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn—of which this book is a chapter—namely, to fully integrate Sufism into Muslim orthodoxy by defining it as a 'purification of hearts' and an ethics indispensable for salvation. While condemning conceptions of ecstasy that seem theologically problematic to him (al-Hallaj's hulūl), he defines the etiquette of religiously licit samāʿ according to various criteria (spiritual or profane context, music, poetry, place, company, permitted physical gestures, etc.). This text has aroused great interest, particularly for its polemical stakes and its condemnation by Ibn Taymiyya [Michot, 1991] and for the question of the influence of falsafa's musical theory [Weinrich, 2019 and 2024]. In this paper, we will focus beyond music on the role played by poetry within this aesthetic experience. Al-Ghazālī treats it in a way that neither reduces it to a mere stimulus enabling the shift into trance, nor to a dimension of ritual to be regulated by the distinction between profane and sacred. He offers considerations on what might be called a 'hermeneutics of trance' and a relationship to meanings (maʿānī) that is profoundly modified within the samāʿ experience: the field of possible interpretation expands, offering greater latitude to choose, in an instrumental relationship to the text, the one most likely to favor the shift into trance. Conversely, the samāʿ experience also allows one to grasp the true hidden meaning of the text, and even to access knowledge of a higher order in a mystical vision that is not exhausted by the ineffable. Ghazālī thus proposes through samāʿ a specific path of knowledge that he links to an aesthetics—musicality playing a key role—as well as to an ethics, emphasizing the purification of the heart that samāʿ promotes and which is indispensable to this knowledge.

The lowering of the gaze (ġaḍḍ al-baṣar), a fundamental principle of Islamic ethics, has rarely been approached through an aesthetic lens. This paper, informed by the interdisciplinary perspective of Islamic sciences proposed by Ṭāhā ʿAbd al-Raḥmān and Seyyed Hossein Nasr, explores how a moral value could constitute conceptual ground conducive to the emergence of an Islamic aesthetics, where sensory experience, taste, self-discipline, pleasure, and spirituality intermingle. The aim is thus to interrogate an aesthetics that does not approach the adjective 'Islamic' as a geo-historical or stylistic category (Grabar, Papadopoulo, Naef), but rethinks it as an epistemological marker, examining in this light the concept of ġaḍḍ al-baṣar as a demonstrative paradigm. The study begins with a semantic analysis of the term baṣar, distinguishing it from other forms of visual perception (naẓar, mušāhada, ru'yā, laḥẓ, taḥdīq), before examining its conceptual evolution in the writings of three Sufi thinkers: al-Muḥāsibī, al-Qušayrī, and al-Ghazālī. This analysis highlights how, in Sufi interpretations, ġaḍḍ al-baṣar transcends a simple moral injunction related to chastity or sexual desire to become an active operator of taste refinement (taḏawwuq, tazkiyah, 'iffah), applying to the perception of various forms of beauty (āyāt). This theoretical approach is then related to phenomena in Islamic art and architecture, where certain elements were designed not to captivate the gaze, but to guide it toward lateral beauty, thus acting as mediators (wāsiṭa). The originality of this approach lies in the inversion of ontologies: while conventional aesthetics places sensory attention as a sine qua non condition of sensory experience and taste judgment, ġaḍḍ al-baṣar proposes an inverted epistemology, opening the way to other perceptive modalities and to a dialectical dynamic of an Islamic science of beauty, situated at the intersection of sensory regimes (ḥalāwa, taḏawwuq, 'uns) and extra-sensory ones (baṣīra, barakah, fatḥ). This reflection thus seeks to open new perspectives for academic research in aesthetics and Islamic arts, anchoring these fields in Islamic sciences as conceptual grounds.

The body has a double and contradictory reality that oscillates between interior and exterior. It is both subject and object of representations and imaginaries. A psychic and physical entity that presents different modes of self-presentation. Islam implies a particular culture of the body that manifests itself, among other things, through clothing. Indeed, Islam presents a variety of ethical norms whose objective is to discipline this body to achieve higher spirituality. The body thus becomes a 'privileged space of discipline and self-management, but also a social showcase that displays the believer's performance.' The mode of dress then serves to communicate our relationship to religion and allows emphasis on negotiations between religious ethics on the one hand and modernity on the other. Appearance is, in fact, an act underpinned by several requirements and desires. On the one hand, the requirement of conformity to the dress ethics of the society in which one lives, and on the other, the desire for personalization, for self-affirmation in the act of appearing. It is in this sense that we have noticed, from the 2000s onwards, the emergence of hijab wearing in Tunisian society as a dress trend that privileges modesty while valuing aesthetics. By claiming both their faith and their style, young Tunisian women seek to express their respect for Islamic ethics of modesty without renouncing taste. This dress choice is part of a concern for bodily ethics: to cover without hiding, to respect without going unnoticed. The 'new veils' thus become a medium for artistic creation, between tradition and modernity. Currently, the hijab is characterized by a diversity of models and colors and an adoption of new dress styles; a 'bricolage' that veil wearers make between modern and traditional clothing, trying to conform to Quranic prescriptions. The veil, like any other garment, is exposed to multiple changes. It is open to several innovations that current fashion establishes through the reconciliation between tradition and novelty on the one hand, and openness to other cultures on the other. How then is this relationship between ethics and aesthetics articulated through clothing in Tunisian society?

How can we think about art in a context of religious tension? This paper will shed light on the influences that nourished Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd's reflection on art, and which ground his inscription in the reformist current. Whether it be currents of thought (Mu'tazilism, Sufism, al-Andalus heritage, modern hermeneutics) or events of his time, Abu Zayd knew how to articulate heritage and context to defend an open, dialogical, and pluralist approach. Faced with the rise of Islamisms, he maintained an ethical stance, embodied in his relationship to freedom of conscience. His thought will be put into perspective with that of Sayyid Qutb, whose transition from a sensitive literary criticism to a reductive ideological vision (hakimiyya) illustrates, for Abu Zayd, the danger of doctrinal withdrawal. Where Qutb assigns art to a moral function, Abu Zayd sees the expression of an existential need. Through his writings and his attachment to hermeneutics, he opposes any attempt to confiscate meaning. This reflection also opens, implicitly, perspectives for dialogue with certain contemporary Christian approaches to theological aesthetics.

This paper proposes to address how the ethics and aesthetics of Islamic heritage are being reinvented in contemporary art through a case study examining exhibitions in Zamalek art galleries, Cairo's cultural epicenter. Through the exhibited works of Mohamed Hasan, Rana Chalabi, and Katherine Bakhoum in particular, we will analyze the visual expressions of Muslim spirituality and ask how Islamic heritage inspires these artists' approaches. What dialogues do they establish between tradition and modernity? How do they translate Islamic concepts into contemporary mediums? What dialogues are established between the sacred and the profane? By combining iconographic analysis with interviews conducted with actors in the field, our paper will thus question the place of Islamic faith in an artistic space perceived as secularized, thereby revealing a subtle but significant reappropriation of Islamic heritage and its resonance with contemporary ethical sensibilities.

La calligraphie arabe, souvent considérée comme l'art islamique par excellence, incarne une synthèse unique entre éthique et esthétique. Cette communication explore comment la calligraphie, au-delà de sa dimension visuelle et décorative, véhicule des valeurs éthiques et spirituelles profondément ancrées dans la tradition islamique. En analysant des œuvres calligraphiques historiques et contemporaines, nous examinerons comment cet art sacré traduit des principes moraux tels que la quête de la beauté divine, la transmission du savoir et le respect de la parole écrite. Nous nous intéresserons particulièrement à la manière dont la calligraphie articule éthique et esthétique à travers trois dimensions : 1. Spiritualité et quête de la beauté divine : La calligraphie, en tant qu'expression de la parole coranique, est souvent perçue comme une voie vers la contemplation du divin. Nous étudierons comment des calligraphes comme Ibn Muqla et Ibn al-Bawwab ont intégré des principes éthiques dans leur pratique artistique, en cherchant à atteindre une perfection formelle qui reflète l'harmonie divine. 2. Transmission du savoir et éthique éducative : La calligraphie a joué un rôle central dans la préservation et la diffusion des textes religieux, philosophiques et scientifiques. Nous analyserons comment cet art a servi de support à une éthique de la connaissance, en mettant en lumière des exemples historiques tels que les manuscrits enluminés de l'époque abbasside. 3. Dialogue interculturel et hospitalité esthétique : Enfin, nous explorerons comment la calligraphie arabe, en tant que patrimoine partagé, a favorisé des échanges interculturels, notamment à travers des œuvres hybrides influencées par des traditions persanes, byzantines et andalouses. Nous évoquerons également des artistes contemporains qui réinterprètent la calligraphie pour aborder des questions d'identité et de dialogue interreligieux. Cette communication s'appuiera sur des exemples concrets tirés de l'histoire de l'art islamique, ainsi que sur des œuvres contemporaines, pour montrer comment la calligraphie arabe continue d'incarner une éthique de la beauté et de la spiritualité, tout en s'adaptant aux défis du monde moderne.

Dans Soufi, mon amour, roman publié en 2010, Elif Shafak constitue plusieurs temporalités narratives et construit un espace où s'entrelacent création artistique et spiritualité : quel est l'héritage du poète Rûmî et de la spiritualité musulmane du XIIIe siècle à aujourd'hui ? À travers la figure de Rûmî et celle de son guide Shams de Tabriz, le roman expérimente une réflexion sur la puissance de l'esthétique, notamment par le biais de la danse, de la musique et de la poésie, face aux interdictions de l'Islam, son histoire et son patrimoine. Dans cette communication, nous proposons d'analyser la tension entre l'esthétique (entendue ici comme une représentation et une pratique artistique) et les contraintes religieuses au sein du roman. De quelle manière la figure du poète soufi incarne-t-elle une posture esthétique et éthique encore éclairante aujourd'hui ? Comment la danse des derviches tourneurs et la poésie peuvent-elles être encore des formes de résistance ? Quels enjeux culturels soulève cette représentation dans la littérature contemporaine, notamment pour un lectorat occidental, l'autrice écrivant en turc et en anglais des romans très largement diffusés en Europe et aux Etats-Unis ? Nous explorerons les dimensions esthétiques de l'œuvre tel que le corps dansant comme un vecteur d'élévation spirituelle, la musique comme un langage mystique ainsi que la parole poétique comme lieu de transmission du divin. À travers ces formes, Soufi, mon Amour interroge l'équilibre fragile entre respect des croyances et liberté créatrice, dans un contexte où l'esthétique est toujours traversée par des enjeux religieux, politiques et identitaires. Cette analyse mettra en lumière les rapports complexes entre l'éthique, l'art et la religion, tout en questionnant la place du sacré dans une œuvre littéraire.

Cette communication propose une réflexion sur les liens entre esthétique et éthique dans les pratiques quotidiennes, à travers l'analyse des choix vestimentaires féminins dans l'Égypte postérieure à la révolution de janvier 2011. En prenant pour point de départ le développement de la Modest Fashion, le mode vestimentaire conciliant respect des prescriptions religieuses et inscription dans une modernité globalisée, ainsi que le phénomène de dévoilement croissant observé au lendemain de la révolution, il s'agira d'interroger les rapports entre normes esthétiques portées par les femmes égyptiennes, les valeurs morales, revendications identitaires et aspirations féministes ayant émergé dans ce contexte de transformation. Le contexte égyptien, marqué depuis 2011 par une recomposition complexe des rapports entre pouvoir politique, autorité religieuse et société civile, place les apparences féminines dans l'espace public au cœur d'enjeux politiques, sociaux et symboliques majeurs. Loin de constituer une simple expression individuelle du goût, le vêtement féminin devient un vecteur d'affirmation de soi, de liberté, de contestation – ou, à l'inverse, un instrument de contrôle – d'identités multiples, prises entre tradition et modernité, religiosité et émancipation, conformité sociale et agentivité individuelle. La Modest Fashion comme le dévoilement, à travers leurs formes locales et leurs circulations transnationales, cristallisent ces tensions. Ils peuvent être envisagés tant comme des stratégies de réappropriation du corps et de l'image de soi par les femmes, que comme des outils de normalisation mobilisés par divers acteurs (États, institutions religieux, classes sociales, médias) au nom d'une certaine conception de la morale publique. Cette intervention s'inscrit dans le prolongement de notre recherche doctorale intitulée « Genre et transitions politiques : la politisation du genre en Égypte post-révolutionnaire ». En articulant les dimensions esthétique, éthique et politique des pratiques vestimentaires, cette communication met en lumière la complexité des régimes de visibilité féminine dans un contexte de transition et de recomposition identitaire, où le corps des femmes notamment depuis l'émergence de la quatrième vague du féminisme, devient un vecteur central des luttes pour le pouvoir symbolique et politique.

La littérature a constamment interrogé les grandes questions qui préoccupent la condition et la vie humaines. Plusieurs approches sont alors employées pour lire telle ou telle œuvre littéraire, ce qui situe la littérature au carrefour de nombreuses disciplines et théories. La littérature maghrébine d'expression française, depuis ses débuts, a attaché plus d'importance au patrimoine islamique qui définit amplement les motivations des personnages et l'orientation de la trame narrative. Nous pensons plus particulièrement à un récent roman de Najib Redouane intitulé Sous le Ciel d'Oran et revenant sur l'histoire de l'Algérie avant et après la colonisation. C'est un arrière-plan où se déroulent les situations humaines et existentielles, mais aussi un espace où le lecteur est invité à découvrir des pratiques et des rituels religieux définissant le bien-être spirituel des personnages, lequel bien-être est à la fois une source de réconfort et une aspiration à la liberté et à la justice individuelle et collective. Cela étant, notre étude du roman de Najib Redouane concerne deux points importants. D'une part, il est question de sonder le paysage islamique en termes de rituels, de relations et de pratiques à travers leur durabilité et leurs changements. D'autre part, l'accent est mis sur l'esthétique du patrimoine islamique tel qu'il est façonné et relaté. Autrement dit, il s'agit de montrer comment le romancier associe ce patrimoine islamique à un fil conducteur permettant de voir l'évolution de la société algérienne, sa lutte pour restaurer les valeurs islamiques pendant les crises politiques.

Dans Le Voyage d'Ibn Fattouma de Naguib Mahfouz, Quindil entreprend une traversée initiatique à travers différents royaumes, chacun prétendant incarner un modèle de société idéale. Cette quête vers Dar al-Jabal, cité utopique jamais atteinte, s'inscrit à la fois dans un imaginaire islamique soufi et dans une structure littéraire empruntant à la fable philosophique et au récit de voyage. À travers cette fiction, Mahfouz construit une critique à la fois éthique et politique : les sociétés qu'explore Quindil se révèlent chacune comme des utopies corrompues, où le pouvoir s'approprie les langages de la vertu, de la liberté ou de la foi pour mieux asseoir sa domination. La quête spirituelle du héros, inspirée des maqāmāt soufies, est détournée à chaque étape par des logiques institutionnelles dysfonctionnelles. En mobilisant les enseignements d'al-Ghazali (notamment dans Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn) sur la purification intérieure, et ceux d'Ibn ʿArabî sur le dévoilement progressif de la vérité (kashf), on peut lire ce voyage comme une allégorie de la tension entre cheminement éthique et entrave politique. L'esthétique du récit, fondée sur une narration allégorique, un lexique symbolique, et une structure circulaire (le voyage comme boucle), joue un rôle fondamental. Elle permet de faire dialoguer le patrimoine islamique classique avec les formes modernes du roman dystopique. Cette tension entre quête intérieure et chaos extérieur, entre élévation mystique et corruption politique, donne au texte sa force critique. À travers une lecture croisée de l'éthique soufie et de l'esthétique narrative du voyage, cette communication mettra en lumière la manière dont Mahfouz élabore une critique subtile des institutions politiques, en révélant comment celles-ci détournent ou trahissent les finalités spirituelles de l'islam. Cette analyse s'inscrit dans une réflexion plus large sur le patrimoine islamique et sur la manière dont la littérature contemporaine réactive ses questionnements essentiels à travers l'imaginaire dystopique.

Qu'elle soit d'inspiration grecque ou d'obédience arabo-musulmane, l'intrication de l'éthique et de l'esthétique traverse la critique littéraire arabe. Dans les travaux des théoriciens de la poésie arabe (Ṯa'lab, Qudāma b. Ǧa'far, al-'Askarī, 'Abd al-Qāhir al-Ǧurǧānī, al-Āmidī, Ḥāzim al-Qarṭāǧannī, etc.), le jugement esthétique oscille entre une soumission à des considérations morales (en particulier le bien et le mal), et une transgression des principes éthiques motivée par une pragmatique verbale. Dans cette configuration, l'efficace du discours prévaut sur son inscription dans un paradigme axiologique ou un contexte doctrinal. La sphère philosophique (al-Kindī, al-Fārābī, Averroès, Avicenne, Miskawayh, etc.) s'est également emparée de cette problématique et s'est interrogée sur la place des considérations éthiques dans l'élaboration d'un canon esthétique. D'où une question centrale qui traverse la poétique et la rhétorique arabes médiévales : le poétique obéit-il à l'éthique ? Quelle est la place de la morale dans la définition de l'esthétique poétique ? Notre intervention vise à mettre au jour l'existence de fractales normatives (religieuse, logique, etc.) qui sous-tendent les travaux de ces deux écoles et la permanence de tensions entre les horizons esthétique et éthique.

During the second half of the 20th century, numerous musical expressions of protest emerged in the United States, in reaction to a capitalist and racist system that marginalized large segments of the population. These movements generally also expressed a rejection of religion, perceived as part of the established order. Hip-hop, rap, and punk rock embody the most radical forms of this phenomenon, deeply rooted in urban peripheries. These musical styles also developed within marginalized Muslim communities in the United States, even incorporating more electronic forms like trap or more extreme ones like punk rock. However, the appropriation of this culture by these communities is not always accompanied by a rejection of religion. On the contrary, we often observe a reaffirmation of Muslim identity, resonating with certain anarchist tendencies in Islam, to the point of seeing the emergence of what has been called taqwacore, a fusion between taqwa (piety) and hard rock. In this way, a transgressive aesthetic becomes a vehicle for expressing a counter-cultural ethics. In our presentation: 1. We will describe these movements through the analysis of their songs and the examination of some interviews. 2. We will observe how they spread to Europe — including Spain — as well as to Muslim, African, or Asian countries, particularly Indonesia. 3. We will study how artists perceive the compatibility between this type of music and their Muslim identity. 4. We will analyze how this rebellious musical aesthetic is rooted in authentically Muslim values — particularly the demand for equality and justice in the face of capitalist inequalities — and how their rejection of authority aligns with anti-hierarchical elements of Islam. Thus, without proposing an anarchist political system per se, these movements outline certain libertarian-inspired practices, resonating with an Islamic anarchist tradition.

Bibliography K. Badawi, The Taqwacores. Muslim Punk in the USA, Brooklyn New York: PowerHouse Books 2009 M. Abdou, Islam and Anarchism: Relationships and Resonances, Pluto Press 2022 O.Majeed, The Birth of Punk Islam: Taqwacore, a documentary film, produced by EyeSteelFilm, 2009

The muezzin's public call to prayer (adhan) is an integral component of Islamic societies' religious and cultural heritage. Nevertheless, it is frequently subject to legal restrictions, even within these societies. In liberal societies, the adhan is frequently perceived as the epitome of missionary Islamism and rejected accordingly. The adhan's function as an overt proclamation of Islamic faith contrasts with the multifaceted meanings attributed to church bells, critiques argue. Undoubtedly, the adhan is an "acoustic occupation of space" that is perceived very differently by different groups in society. In light of this, judicial bodies at all levels – local, national and international – have repeatedly addressed the adhan in recent decades. Significantly, it is often not the content but the loudness of the adhan that is the subject of legal proceedings. The reason for this is to protect the human right to public practice of religion (UDHR, Art. 18; ECHR, Art. 9). However, this right must not conflict with the human right to respect for privacy, family life and home (ECHR, Art. 8). The rejection of public calls to prayer is not a new phenomenon in Europe. Historically, there have been various attempts in regions where Christians and Muslims have coexisted to impose legal restrictions on the adhan, dating back to the Middle Ages. More recently, attempts have been made to neutralise existing or foreseeable conflicts either through virtual calls to prayer via radio or the internet, or through architectural concepts such as the "minaret of light". Against this backdrop, the paper will firstly delineate contemporary debates in liberal societies concerning the public call of the muezzin (1). Following this, historical debates about the adhan will be recalled (2). The third section of the paper will address the delicate balancing act between noise pollution control and religious freedom at various levels of jurisdiction (3). Finally, novel mosque designs that seek to transpose the adhan from the acoustic to the optical realm will be presented (4).

This paper examines the way Sufi music in Morocco serves as a bridge for interfaith dialogue, moving beyond simple religious and cultural differences through its ethics, artistic expression, and socio-political relevance. Specifically, it investigates how Sufi music fosters understanding between Muslims, Christians, and Jews, particularly in the vibrant context of the World Sacred Music Festival in Fes, Morocco. The study looks closely at what makes Sufi music so impactful – its ability to stir emotions, its universal appeal, and how it can create shared moments of spiritual connection. It also considers the important role Sufi music plays in the intricate socio-political landscape of Morocco, where historical and current political and religious narratives influence how different faiths interact. Conversely, this paper argues that although Sufi musical practices have been revived in the Moroccan public sphere as part of a religiosity that promotes interfaith dialogue, universalism, peace, and tolerance, they still remain intertwined with Sharifian politics. Sufi music festivals, in particular, are strategically employed by the government to combat extremist views among the youth in Morocco in an attempt to maintain the so-called "spiritual security" (al-amn al rūḥī) and thus ensure the homogeneity of religious thought among Moroccans. Limiting the concept only to fighting undesirable doctrines, however, suppresses religious heterogeneity and poses ethical concerns about the spiritual implications of Sufism. Drawing upon Michel Foucault's concepts of power, discourse, and resistance, this research frames Sufi musical practices as a form of "counter-discourse" resisting dominant hegemonic narratives of division. The performance of Sufi music is conceptualized as an embodied form of resistance, aligning with Foucault's notion of "subjugated knowledges", thus offering alternative perspectives that challenge authoritarian interpretations of religion and society. Through ethnographic observation and semi-structured interviews with Sufi performers, this study will consider the dynamic interplay between ethics, aesthetics, and politics in Moroccan Sufi music. Data will be analyzed using thematic analysis to identify patterns related to the aesthetics of the music, and ethical values expressed through performance. Keywords: Sufism, performance, ethics, politics

Dance(s) and Spirituality(ies): Stakes and Challenges for Developing Interreligious Dialogue Practices in Contemporary Africa While dance is rarely associated with spirituality in Christian traditions imported by missionaries who established historical, evangelical, or charismatic churches in Francophone Africa, or by those from Salafist or Wahhabi movements returning from Mecca, it is part of the religious and spiritual heritage of African peoples' traditions. This reality shows how dance occupies a complex and even controversial, but above all crucial place in religious and spiritual movements in Francophone Africa. Protestant, charismatic, or Catholic churches, as well as Sufi brotherhoods in Africa such as Tijaniyya or Mouride, have developed liturgical practices marked by the important place of dance, considered as a means of uniting visible and invisible realities. How could spiritual dance, which is a trans-confessional reality, be an important element in developing discourses and practices of dialogue between various religious traditions in Francophone Africa? Our presentation will explore the place, role, and relationships of spiritual dance in various religious traditions in Francophone Africa, as well as its potential in developing theological discourses and practices from an interreligious perspective.

The mystical moment, in the Sufi tradition, stands at the summit of human experience. It is that point of incandescence where the being, exceeded by itself, opens to the invisible. It touches the ultimate, beyond forms, beyond the sayable. Eroticism, too, is a crossing—but through the body. It is fire, breath, loss, cry. Two experiences that everything seems to oppose, yet which meet in their intensity, their gentle violence, their power of transfiguration. This paper proposes a reflection on erotic-mystical thought as it manifests in Sufi texts. We will read there an aesthetics of continuity, where carnal love and divine love extend into each other, interpenetrate, seek each other. Unity is not given; it is lived in ecstasy, in fusion, in loss—until effacement. We will propose a poetic and philosophical reading of what we call spiritual eroticism, through the figures of Abu Nawas, Al Ḥallaj, Rabia al-Adawiyya, Ibn Arabi, and also forgotten or contested authors, whose verses, often marginalized for their audacity, are nonetheless traversed by the presence of the divine. Their poems speak of intoxication, the nakedness of the soul, the trembling of the flesh, the thirst for fusion. For eroticism and spirituality are two poles of the same desire: to transcend the limits of being, to open oneself to the other, to the Other, without partition or judgment. Together they offer a path of freedom, a deep breath of the human—in breath and in touch. What this thought reveals is this: there are bodies that pray in silence, and souls that delight in the invisible, as Al Hallaj's words so profoundly testify: 'I am the one I love, and the one I love is me. We are two souls melted into a single body.'

Islamic ethics presents itself as a complex synthesis of Quranic teachings, pre-Islamic Arab traditions, and non-Arab elements (Greek and Persian in particular), integrated into a general moral structure. It is a process of assimilation and integration of divergent tendencies that coexisted and juxtaposed rather than supplanting one another, lasting at least until the 11th century. Nevertheless, it was the Sunna that played a decisive role in elaborating a properly Muslim ethics, to the point that one could affirm that the hadith corpus constitutes in itself a manual of ethics. It was also Imam al-Shāfiʿī who advanced the normative use of the word adab (savoir-vivre) by using it as a quasi-synonym of akhlāq. Aesthetics in Islam has, in turn, undergone a complex evolution since the orthodox tendency ended up overly limiting the impetus of this creative quest by imprisoning it within the normativity of prohibitions. The proof is that Islam has not always been iconoclastic. Parallel to the juridico-theological grip that would eventually reduce Islamic spirituality to an ethics frozen in a rigid normative framework, openness to the other and the values of hospitality and "Muruwwa" allowed Arab-Islamic civilization to give the best of itself. The experience of al-Andalus is precisely the major articulation of a sublime aesthetic experience combining the ethics of alterity, openness, and inclusion with the refinement of living together among Muslims, Christians, and Jews. Architecture, music, poetry, the intertwining of languages, the marriage of iconographies and culinary arts, setting aside one's language to borrow that of the other, translating and allowing oneself to be translated; aesthetics became the bridge between self, other, and world. It thus transcends a simple exploration of beauty in art or architecture to become the quest for the Human wherever they may be, and the deepening of an Islamic knowledge made universal through its openness. By visualizing artistic works, unique architectural models, and manuscripts, this presentation attempts to analyze the articulation between ethics and aesthetics of a past experience while continuously linking it to the burning current questions of this largely unknown dialectic between ethics and aesthetics.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, numerous artist workshops, Muslim in Mecca and Christian in Jerusalem, produced souvenir images for pilgrims who came in large numbers to these places of worship. The holy sites were reproduced in paintings on canvas that could be rolled up for easy transport. These artistic representations appeared in great numbers during these periods and spread throughout the world thanks to pilgrims. Islamic art developed, through these painted canvases, a symbolic vision of Mecca, with the composition centered on the Kaaba and the representation of an important relic: the Prophet's sandals. The artist allowed the pilgrim, once returned home, to keep a visual memory of their pilgrimage and possibly reactivate the mystical experience lived during their Hajj. Christian art in parallel offered, on these painted canvases called proskynetaria, a reproduction of Jerusalem in the form of a symbolic and spiritual topographic map. Events from the life of Christ and saints are represented in narrative form, with the Holy Sepulchre at the center of the composition and the re-actualization of scenes from Christ's passion-resurrection cycle. The artist allowed the pilgrim to remember the foundational events of their Christian faith. Rather than speaking of mutual artistic influence, these souvenir images testify to a common approach: the pilgrim's relationship to the sacred. Each pilgrim wants to keep the memory of this holy place where they prayed, as a trace for their daily life upon returning home. Is the artistic work then merely a souvenir of a spiritual journey, or does it resemble a prophylactic contact relic connecting the human to the divine through what it offers for contemplation? BIBLIOGRAPHY Flood, F. B., Technologies of Devotion in the Arts of Islam: Pilgrims, Relics and Copies, Paris, Hazan/Louvre éditions, 2019. Immerzeel, M., The Narrow Way to Heaven. Identity and Identities in the Art of Middle Eastern Christianity, Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 259, Leuven, Peeters, 2017.

The art of ecclesiastical painting emerged in the early centuries of Christianity, dividing people between supporters and opponents. Clement of Alexandria (d. 216) and Origen (d. 254) rejected it. However, Saint Basil (d. 379) accepted it and called on Christian painters to glorify the martyrs in their paintings, since "the honor given to images passes to the person they represent," in his own words. The debate over icon veneration continued, and the crisis on this issue erupted in the eighth century when Caliph Yazid ibn Abd al-Malik ordered in 723 the destruction of all images in churches and homes. Jewish and Muslim objections led many Christians of the Arab Near East to question the legitimacy of icon veneration. Arab theologians then defended this practice. Saint John of Damascus (d. 750) wrote three discourses in defense of icons; Patriarch Timothy I (d. 823) answered, in his dialogue with Caliph al-Mahdi, why Christians prostrate before the cross; Theodore Abu Qurra (d. c. 825) composed his Treatise on the Veneration of Icons; and Yahya ibn Adi (d. 974) wrote an article explaining why Christians venerate the Holy Cross. The intellectual openness of Muslim caliphs in the Middle Ages contributed, on one hand, to promoting dialogue between Muslims and Christians on religious and doctrinal matters, and on the other hand, to encouraging Christians to write on various delicate subjects, including icons. This paper aims to study the subject of icon veneration from the perspective of Arab Christians, particularly Theodore Abu Qurra and al-Mu'taman ibn al-'Assal (d. after 1260), within the Islamic context in which they lived. It raises the following problematic: How does the ethical dimension manifest in the veneration of images, particularly those of Christ, the Virgin, and the saints? From this problematic emerge the following questions: How can prostration before images be "veneration" rather than worship? What are the reasons justifying the veneration, glorification, and kissing of the cross? How does veneration of saints' images lead to their intercession as mediators between God and humanity? And how does veneration of Christ's image, particularly the cross, lead to reward?

This paper explores how political violence in Islamic traditions and modern Islamist movements is not only instrumental or doctrinal but deeply aesthetic. It argues that acts of violence—whether textual, corporeal, or symbolic—operate within a field of aesthetic meaning that renders them affectively persuasive and ethically charged. Drawing on Walter Benjamin's critique of the aestheticisation of politics, Judith Butler's theories of grievability and performativity, and Talal Asad's anthropology of pain and ethical formation, the paper examines how violence is seen, staged, and sanctified within Islamic imaginaries.

The analysis begins with classical jihād literature, treating it as a rhetorical tradition where juridical norms are adorned with literary form—embedding divine combat in an aesthetic of moral order. It then turns to the martyrdom imaginary, tracing the affective lineage from Karbala to modern jihadist media, where blood, grief, and death become signs of sacred fidelity. Suffering, too, is aestheticised: pain and dispossession are transfigured into moral capital, rendering grievance not only political but beautiful. This leads to an analysis of the mujāhid as spectacle—his gendered body choreographed, disciplined, and rendered iconic through gesture and visual form. The paper then explores the sacred script of violence, showing how Arabic calligraphy and Qurʾanic inscriptions aestheticise destruction through textual sanctification. The penultimate section examines the narrative aesthetics of apocalyptic jihadism, where militant violence becomes part of a redemptive cosmology that promises not ethical reform but divine rupture. The paper concludes with the sublime of architectural destruction, reading the ruin not as absence but as performative unmaking.

Together, these sections trace a movement from ornament to annihilation, suggesting that the aesthetics of Islamic political violence are not peripheral but central to how it is imagined, legitimated, and made to matter.

The admirable conjunction of artistic styles present in the Mosque-Cathedral of Córdoba, transcending the Islamic era through spolia, makes it a unique laboratory for studying the aesthetic and ethical dialectics between Islamic and Christian architectures and their symbolic meanings, such as the wise use of light and the employment of columns. Antagonism and inclusion resolved themselves in a Christian building that, through various interventions, embraces the ancient mosque in an extraordinary demonstration of architectural dialogue, at once harmonic and discordant, sometimes subtle, sometimes dramatic. After the conquest of 785, Abd al-Rahman I built the foundational mosque, reusing salvaged elements and a peculiar Christian basilical layout. The building extended south and east over the following centuries. On June 29, 1236, the ancient mosque suddenly became a church dedicated to Saint Mary, then a cathedral, but the transformation process was gradual. Unlike other mosques in al-Andalus, the Cathedral of Córdoba was the exception: antagonism gave way to inclusion. Christians recognized its architectural value from the beginning, combining transformation and conservation through six stages: the closing of the doors, the gradual construction of chapels, the conversion into a cemetery, the construction of the first and then the second transept, and the graffiti marking the columns. At the beginning of the 19th century, Bishop Trevilla's enlightened ideas reversed the process, promoting the restoration of the ancient vestibule of the mihrab. ICOMOS and UNESCO have recognized this exceptional monument: the Córdoba Resolution (1973) and the Buenos Aires Assembly (1984) highlighted the unique embrace between Arab architecture and later Christian constructions. The Qatar Assembly (2014) declared the historic center of Córdoba, and especially the Mosque-Cathedral, a site of Outstanding Universal Value, noting that religious use has largely ensured its conservation.

During Spain's transition from Francoist national-Catholicism to the democratic regime, two international Islamic-Christian Congresses of global influence were held in Córdoba in 1974 and 1977. In their final declaration, the expression "Spirit of Córdoba" was coined, later used by Cardinal Duval. These Congresses were supported by the diocese and municipality of Córdoba and by Spanish pioneers of Islamic-Christian dialogue, and featured the participation of prestigious national and foreign speakers, both Catholic and Muslim, as well as the Secretary-General of UNESCO. For the first time since 1236, in the Mosque-Cathedral, during the Congress, in addition to the Mass, Muslim Salat was prayed, with the Khutba delivered by the Jordanian Minister of Religious Affairs and Dean of the Faculty of Theology of his country, Dr. Jayat, and this event was broadcast on Spanish and Algerian television. I addressed this issue tangentially in a previously published article ("Initiatives for Islamic-Christian Encounter in Today's Córdoba," in G. Lora Serrano-J. García Díaz (eds.), "The Mozarabs: Past, Present and Future of Christian Communities under Islamic Rule," Sílex Universidad, 2023, 553-568). The proceedings of these two Congresses and the reflections of their organizers in books and unpublished materials before and after the Congresses, as well as the influence these Congresses have had on other subsequent initiatives, including those recently implemented, will be the subject of this paper. In terms of methodology, I intend to focus on the ethical dimension related to Axis 3 of the Congress (Aesthetic and Ethical Heritages: Tensions, Dialogues and Hospitality). Córdoba, by virtue of its past and its geopolitical situation, is the axis of the West in terms of Islamic-Christian relations in the past and could continue to be so in the future.

On July 22, 2020, Hagia Sophia regained its status as a mosque after 85 years of service as a museum. This new change of function for the monument, inscribed on the World Heritage List (1985), revives debates that the building has continuously fueled since its construction. The four periods that mark its history determine the close links between aesthetics, ethics, and uses of the building—but also the narratives that derive from it—according to the conditions dictated by power. Built in 360 AD, Hagia Sophia was the largest church in Constantinople during the Roman-Byzantine period. Then in 1453, Sultan Fatih Mehmet personally transformed Hagia Sophia into a mosque upon his entry into the city. In a third phase, a decade after the creation of the modern Republic of Turkey and the new meaning it gave to secularism, Hagia Sophia was transformed into a museum (1934). Finally, in 2020, the building was reconverted into a mosque by court decision, driven by Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan. Hagia Sophia has thus always served as a backdrop for political and religious narratives, while embodying an aesthetic and rhetoric of power that transcends cultures and religious references. Indeed, Hagia Sophia's architecture, with its imposing dome and mosaics, has also been a source of inspiration for other religious buildings, both Christian and Muslim. Its architecture, mosaics, and complex history, reflecting political evolutions and cultural exchanges through the centuries, make it a place of memory and encounter, but above all the theater of a fierce debate about how to reconcile aesthetic and political stakes. The latest reconversion into a mosque, which Turkish authorities try to justify through property rights of pious endowments and religious freedom, ignores the different strata and levels of the monument's identity and its symbolic associations for different groups. In fact, the operation intends both to glorify the Ottoman past of the monument and to erase its Byzantine and republican past, the latter characterized by 85 years of museum use.

Eschatology is a difficult terrain in interreligious dialogue between Christians and Muslims. The traditional vision of Judgment and its precursor signs in Islam remains difficult for contemporary Christian theology to understand, having subjected its own eschatological inventory to a demythologizing revision during the 20th century. The suspicion that by advocating a retributive ethic at the doctrinal level, Islam would approach a 'dark' pedagogy and consequently be irreconcilable with the Christian idea of grace leads to treating eschatology with great caution in dialogue, or even not considering it a promising field at all. Through which discourses within contemporary Islam could Christian partners rediscover the relevance of Muslim discourses on eschatology without falling into stereotypes that exclusively associate them with apocalyptic and fundamentalist currents? From the perspective of a Christian theology of dialogue, this paper proposes a dual approach combining comparative theology and literary hermeneutics. Through three texts by Bosnian novelist Dževad Karahasan (1953-2023), the relevance of Muslim eschatology for interpreting contemporary history will be demonstrated. Karahasan, a Muslim man of letters from Sarajevo, uses eschatological motifs in his texts to describe the harmful effects of the Yugoslav Wars (1991-2001). His work lends itself particularly well to an interreligious study that connects aesthetic and ethical dimensions in a reflection on eschatology. He thematizes interreligious coexistence in the Balkan region and describes how threatened it is by ethnic conflicts. By explicitly addressing the motifs of paradise, hell, barzakh, or judgment, Karahasan not only provides proof of the vitality of eschatological thought among intellectuals of his generation but also shows its potential for interreligious dialogue. In our paper, we will first present the use of eschatological motifs in Karahasan. Then, we will show the potential of a comparative theology that focuses not on doctrinal texts but on contemporary aesthetic and literary production.

In Children of Gebelawi, Naguib Mahfouz uses allegory to create an artistic work that questions the tensions between aesthetics, power, and ethics in a plural religious context. The work, both 'religious' and political, offers a re-reading of monotheisms through the figure of the father (Gabalawi, who represents God) and his descendants who successively represent prophetic figures (Gabal/Moses, Rifaa/Jesus, and Qassim/Muhammad). This narrative structure provides a space of symbolic hospitality where Judaism, Christianity, and Islam coexist.

The novel thus becomes a place of interreligious encounter: by drawing inspiration from the 'sacred books' of monotheistic religions, Mahfouz establishes a kind of common denominator between them, particularly around questions of justice and violence. Literary aesthetics is thus used as an ethical tool that critiques politico-religious dominations and calls for questioning them. This transgression is highlighted by the revolts led by the three major prophetic figures of the novel to free the people of the Medina from the yoke of political tyranny, embodied by the figures of the overseer and the futuwwas.

Mahfouz's novel thus articulates ethics and aesthetics in a quest for a more just Arab-Muslim society that protects its most vulnerable citizens. This articulation also aims at writing history in order to provide citizens with a living and interpretive memory capable of making them masters of their destiny. Mahfouz's novel thus reveals that the interweaving of aesthetics and ethics appears more than ever as a duty and a necessity for Arab-Muslim societies.

Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulusi, a Damascene commentator and defender of the Andalusian master Ibn Arabi, was the most prominent religious and literary figure of Ottoman Syria. His works include poetry collections, fatwas, treatises on oneiromancy, metaphysics, prophetology or theology, as well as four travel books. In these rihlas, which gather his experiences throughout his journeys between Egypt, Syria and the Hejaz, along with reflections prompted by an anecdote, a visit, or a vision, the author displays a peculiar approach to the buildings and sacred places that mark his journey. For Nabulusi and his travel companions, the tombs of Christian saints, biblical patriarchs, and even monasteries constitute places of veneration and contemplation. Besides incorporating sacred Christian sites into his travels—which had a clear spiritual intention—another distinguishing feature of Nabulusi's work is his description of landscape and architecture. For this author, the locations of certain buildings and the arrangement of their elements can be interpreted from a symbolic point of view, establishing analogies between distant places or between architecture and certain Sufi conceptualizations, etc. His vision of landscape and architecture goes beyond the principles of aesthetics and historical logic; one could say that for him, each element of the landscape or the city contains a teaching that must be decoded and that can be expressed, as is usual in Sufi language, in an apparently irrational and even paradoxical manner. Upon the real landscape, he superimposes a spiritual landscape.