{"id":35542,"date":"2026-02-11T15:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T14:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pluriel.fuce.eu\/videos\/the-contemplation-of-gods-signs-according-to-ibn-barrajan-of-seville-towards-an-ethics-respectful-of-the-natural-world\/"},"modified":"2026-07-25T08:11:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T07:11:12","slug":"the-contemplation-of-gods-signs-according-to-ibn-barrajan-of-seville-towards-an-ethics-respectful-of-the-natural-world","status":"publish","type":"videos","link":"https:\/\/pluriel.fuce.eu\/en\/videos\/the-contemplation-of-gods-signs-according-to-ibn-barrajan-of-seville-towards-an-ethics-respectful-of-the-natural-world\/","title":{"rendered":"The contemplation of God’s signs according to Ibn Barraj\u0101n of Seville: towards an ethics respectful of the natural world"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paper presented at the 5th international congress of the University Platform for Research on Islam (Pluriel)<\/a>, held in Cordoba from 10 to 14 February 2026 on the theme “Ethics and Aesthetics in Islam”. Florence Ollivry<\/strong> (Ibn Haldun University, Istanbul) spoke as part of Strand 1, Ethics and aesthetics in the Islamic heritage.<\/em><\/p>\n

Summary of the paper<\/h3>\n

This paper examines the invitation addressed by Ibn Barraj\u0101n (d. 536\/1141) to contemplate the divine signs (\u0101y\u0101t All\u0101h<\/em>) 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 criticised for their anthropocentrism, examining his work leads us to rediscover another vision of the natural world, one that links the aesthetic, spiritual and philosophical contemplation of nature to the adoption of an ethical stance towards it.<\/p>\n

In the philosophical and spiritual tradition of the Muta\u02beabbir\u016bn<\/em> (the contemplatives) of al-Andalus, Ibn Barraj\u0101n invites the reader to absorb himself in the contemplation of nature understood as theophany, as divine manifestation. True spiritual knowledge, he argues, does not lie solely in reading the Qur\u02bean, but also in attentive observation of nature: contemplating the divine signs allows one to transcend visible forms and opens a path towards higher spiritual realities. Nature is thus no longer an object to be exploited, but a sacred text to be deciphered. The human being who contemplates and adopts a posture of cosmic humility draws nearer to the divine, and each being is recognised as a master who imparts a teaching (\u02bfibra<\/em>). Rereading this work of the past helps us redefine our relation to the natural world today and to sketch the foundations of an ethics respectful of nature.<\/p>\n

\nRead the panel synthesis by Khalid El Khadiri<\/summary>\n
\n

This synthesis was written in the aftermath of the congress by Khalid El Khadiri<\/strong>, under the Pluriel student-fellowship programme. It covers all three papers of the panel.<\/em><\/p>\n

Aesthetics, knowledge and ethics in medieval Islamic thought: crossed approaches<\/h4>\n

The panel devoted to the relations between ethics and aesthetics in classical Islamic thought put to the test one central intuition: the beautiful and the good do not belong to separate spheres, but to one and the same dynamic of knowledge and transformation of the subject. Through three figures \u2014 Ibn Arabi, Abu Hayyan al-Tawhidi and Ibn Barajan \u2014 the papers proposed distinct approaches to this articulation. Between metaphysics, moral anthropology and contemplation of the world, they sketch pathways to rethink today our relation to ourselves and to the living.<\/p>\n

The starting point of the panel lay in a structuring tension: whereas Western modernity has tended to dissociate the beautiful from the good, several thinkers of the Islamic tradition have elaborated frameworks in which aesthetic experience directly engages an ethical transformation. The three papers, however, avoided any reduction to a homogeneous continuum, and brought to light differentiated ways of thinking this articulation.<\/p>\n

The paper devoted to Ibn Arabi offered a metaphysical reading of beauty as theophany. Beauty is not there only an aesthetic category, but a mode of manifestation of the divine in the world. Drawing on an approach that mobilises recursivity and complexity, the speaker showed that, in Ibn Arabi, aesthetic experience proceeds from an endless unveiling: each perceived form refers back to a deeper level of reality. This dynamic transforms the subject by engaging him in a progressive recognition of the Real. Ethics is not presented here as a set of prescriptions, but as the effect of an ontological transformation bound up with the perception of the beautiful.<\/p>\n

The paper on Abu Hayyan al-Tawhidi displaced the reflection onto the terrain of moral anthropology. Far from an ontology of the beautiful, al-Tawhidi thinks aesthetic experience as a moment in the formation of the subject. Beauty plays a role in the refinement of the faculties, in particular in the capacity for discernment and in the orientation of desire. Through the ideal of adab<\/em> \u2014 understood as culture of the self and just measure \u2014 aesthetics takes part in inner balance and in the construction of ethical conduct. Here, transformation does not proceed from a metaphysical unveiling, but from a work upon human dispositions, in which the sensible contributes to the formation of judgement.<\/p>\n

Finally, the paper devoted to Ibn Barajan opened a hermeneutic perspective centred on nature. The world is here understood as a set of signs calling for contemplation and interpretation. This approach was put in dialogue with the contemporary stakes of the Anthropocene: nature no longer appears as a mere resource, but as a relational reality engaging human responsibility. Contemplation then becomes a form of ethical attention, grounded in humility and in the recognition of an interdependence between the human being and the world. This reading makes it possible to sketch a spiritual ecology, in which the relation to the living is reconfigured.<\/p>\n

Discussions with the room extended these analyses by questioning their conditions of actualisation. The rereading of the notions of khal\u012bfa<\/em> and am\u0101na<\/em> as responsibility rather than as domination proved an important thread for thinking an ethics of care for the earth. Several tensions were nonetheless underlined: the difficulty of translating these perspectives into effective norms, the risk that they remain limited to a spiritual elite, or again the tension between orientation towards the hereafter and concrete engagement in the world. The contemporary fragility of the figure of the “servant” was also mentioned as an obstacle to this transposition.<\/p>\n

In the end, the panel brought to light not a unified doctrine but a plurality of models articulating aesthetics, knowledge and ethics differently. From theophany in Ibn Arabi to the ethics of dispositions in al-Tawhidi, and on to the hermeneutics of the world in Ibn Barajan, a set of conceptual resources takes shape for rethinking the relation to the beautiful as a vector of transformation. This plurality opens perspectives for a contemporary actualisation of mystical thought, attentive to ecological and anthropological stakes, while maintaining a critical vigilance as to its conditions of implementation.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/details>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"date_tournage":"","lieu":"","nature_evenement":"","vt_type":"Conf\u00e9rence","vt_yt_views":104},"video_collection":[854],"class_list":["post-35542","videos","type-videos","status-publish","hentry","video_collection-congres-de-cordoue-2026"],"date_tournage":"","yoast_head":"\nThe contemplation of God's signs according to Ibn Barraj\u0101n of Seville: towards an ethics respectful of the natural world - Pluriel<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/pluriel.fuce.eu\/en\/videos\/the-contemplation-of-gods-signs-according-to-ibn-barrajan-of-seville-towards-an-ethics-respectful-of-the-natural-world\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The contemplation of God's signs according to Ibn Barraj\u0101n of Seville: towards an ethics respectful of the natural world - Pluriel\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Paper presented at the 5th international congress of the University Platform for Research on Islam (Pluriel), held in Cordoba from 10 to 14 February 2026 on the theme “Ethics and Aesthetics in Islam”. 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