{"id":35649,"date":"2026-02-11T15:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T14:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pluriel.fuce.eu\/videos\/annihilation-in-beauty-subsistence-in-ethics-the-unity-of-unveiling-and-ethics-in-ibn-%ca%bfarabi\/"},"modified":"2026-07-25T08:11:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T07:11:13","slug":"annihilation-in-beauty-subsistence-in-ethics-the-unity-of-unveiling-and-ethics-in-ibn-%ca%bfarabi","status":"publish","type":"videos","link":"https:\/\/pluriel.fuce.eu\/en\/videos\/annihilation-in-beauty-subsistence-in-ethics-the-unity-of-unveiling-and-ethics-in-ibn-%ca%bfarabi\/","title":{"rendered":"Annihilation in beauty, subsistence in ethics: the unity of unveiling and ethics in Ibn \u02bfArab\u012b"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paper presented at the fifth 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”. Toni Kahwaji<\/strong> (Saint Joseph University of Beirut) spoke as part of Theme 1 \u2014 Ethics and aesthetics in Islamic heritage.<\/em><\/p>\n

Summary of the paper<\/h3>\n

Question:<\/strong> How is the relation between beauty and ethics manifested in the thought of Ibn \u02bfArab\u012b? And can aesthetic experience be considered as a form of ethical and spiritual realisation?<\/p>\n

The aesthetic vision of Ibn \u02bfArab\u012b constitutes a pathway to the knowledge of the Real, where beauty is a divine attribute that manifests itself in existence and opens the way to a spiritual experience grounded in taste (dhawq<\/em>) and unveiling (kashf<\/em>). Art and beauty do not aim at a practical utility or a traditional convention, but at the lifting of the veils upon truth and the establishing of a direct link with the Absolute. From this perspective, aesthetics and ethics intertwine, for the human being who tastes divine beauty engages in a spiritual ascent through which he rises in the stations of perfection, where the truth is reached neither by the senses nor by reason alone, but by taste and by the assumption of the divine attributes.<\/p>\n

Ibn \u02bfArab\u012b 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 \u2014 for there is no beauty but Him. In this context, extinction (fan\u0101’<\/em>) becomes an aesthetic experience par excellence<\/em>, in which the perfect man realises himself as a true knower of divine beauty. Thus beauty in Ibn \u02bfArab\u012b acquires an ethical dimension, in which the human being is called to shed the blameworthy attributes and to adorn himself with the praiseworthy qualities, in view of union with the divine Truth through love and beauty.<\/p>\n

This study seeks to explore this circular causality between beauty and ethics in Ibn \u02bfArab\u012b, through the analysis of the concepts of theophany, taste, extinction and striving towards God, in order to reveal how the aesthetic experience is transformed into an ethical and spiritual experience, leading the human being to perceive the Real through beauty and to be imbued with His attributes through love. Methodologically, this study draws on an approach that adopts the “complex modelling” method of Jean-Louis Le Moigne and Edgar Morin, which deconstructs cognitive and symbolic systems as dynamic and interactive structures that can only be understood in their relational context.<\/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":47},"video_collection":[854],"class_list":["post-35649","videos","type-videos","status-publish","hentry","video_collection-congres-de-cordoue-2026"],"date_tournage":"","yoast_head":"\nAnnihilation in beauty, subsistence in ethics: the unity of unveiling and ethics in Ibn \u02bfArab\u012b - 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\/annihilation-in-beauty-subsistence-in-ethics-the-unity-of-unveiling-and-ethics-in-ibn-\u02bfarabi\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Annihilation in beauty, subsistence in ethics: the unity of unveiling and ethics in Ibn \u02bfArab\u012b - Pluriel\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Paper presented at the fifth 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”. Toni Kahwaji (Saint Joseph University of Beirut) spoke as part of Theme 1 \u2014 Ethics and aesthetics in Islamic heritage. Summary of […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/pluriel.fuce.eu\/en\/videos\/annihilation-in-beauty-subsistence-in-ethics-the-unity-of-unveiling-and-ethics-in-ibn-\u02bfarabi\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Pluriel\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-07-25T07:11:13+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/pluriel.fuce.eu\\\/en\\\/videos\\\/annihilation-in-beauty-subsistence-in-ethics-the-unity-of-unveiling-and-ethics-in-ibn-%ca%bfarabi\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/pluriel.fuce.eu\\\/en\\\/videos\\\/annihilation-in-beauty-subsistence-in-ethics-the-unity-of-unveiling-and-ethics-in-ibn-%ca%bfarabi\\\/\",\"name\":\"Annihilation in beauty, subsistence in ethics: the unity of unveiling and ethics in Ibn \u02bfArab\u012b - Pluriel\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/pluriel.fuce.eu\\\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2026-02-11T14:30:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-07-25T07:11:13+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/pluriel.fuce.eu\\\/en\\\/videos\\\/annihilation-in-beauty-subsistence-in-ethics-the-unity-of-unveiling-and-ethics-in-ibn-%ca%bfarabi\\\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/pluriel.fuce.eu\\\/en\\\/videos\\\/annihilation-in-beauty-subsistence-in-ethics-the-unity-of-unveiling-and-ethics-in-ibn-%ca%bfarabi\\\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/pluriel.fuce.eu\\\/en\\\/videos\\\/annihilation-in-beauty-subsistence-in-ethics-the-unity-of-unveiling-and-ethics-in-ibn-%ca%bfarabi\\\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/pluriel.fuce.eu\\\/?lang=en\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Annihilation in beauty, subsistence in ethics: the unity of unveiling and ethics in Ibn \u02bfArab\u012b\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/pluriel.fuce.eu\\\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/pluriel.fuce.eu\\\/\",\"name\":\"Pluriel\",\"description\":\"University Platform for Research on Islam\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\\\/\\\/pluriel.fuce.eu\\\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Annihilation in beauty, subsistence in ethics: the unity of unveiling and ethics in Ibn \u02bfArab\u012b - Pluriel","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/pluriel.fuce.eu\/en\/videos\/annihilation-in-beauty-subsistence-in-ethics-the-unity-of-unveiling-and-ethics-in-ibn-\u02bfarabi\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Annihilation in beauty, subsistence in ethics: the unity of unveiling and ethics in Ibn \u02bfArab\u012b - Pluriel","og_description":"Paper presented at the fifth 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”. Toni Kahwaji (Saint Joseph University of Beirut) spoke as part of Theme 1 \u2014 Ethics and aesthetics in Islamic heritage. Summary of […]","og_url":"https:\/\/pluriel.fuce.eu\/en\/videos\/annihilation-in-beauty-subsistence-in-ethics-the-unity-of-unveiling-and-ethics-in-ibn-\u02bfarabi\/","og_site_name":"Pluriel","article_modified_time":"2026-07-25T07:11:13+00:00","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Est. reading time":"6 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/pluriel.fuce.eu\/en\/videos\/annihilation-in-beauty-subsistence-in-ethics-the-unity-of-unveiling-and-ethics-in-ibn-%ca%bfarabi\/","url":"https:\/\/pluriel.fuce.eu\/en\/videos\/annihilation-in-beauty-subsistence-in-ethics-the-unity-of-unveiling-and-ethics-in-ibn-%ca%bfarabi\/","name":"Annihilation in beauty, subsistence in ethics: the unity of unveiling and ethics in Ibn \u02bfArab\u012b - Pluriel","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/pluriel.fuce.eu\/#website"},"datePublished":"2026-02-11T14:30:00+00:00","dateModified":"2026-07-25T07:11:13+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/pluriel.fuce.eu\/en\/videos\/annihilation-in-beauty-subsistence-in-ethics-the-unity-of-unveiling-and-ethics-in-ibn-%ca%bfarabi\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/pluriel.fuce.eu\/en\/videos\/annihilation-in-beauty-subsistence-in-ethics-the-unity-of-unveiling-and-ethics-in-ibn-%ca%bfarabi\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/pluriel.fuce.eu\/en\/videos\/annihilation-in-beauty-subsistence-in-ethics-the-unity-of-unveiling-and-ethics-in-ibn-%ca%bfarabi\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/pluriel.fuce.eu\/?lang=en"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Annihilation in beauty, subsistence in ethics: the unity of unveiling and ethics in Ibn \u02bfArab\u012b"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/pluriel.fuce.eu\/#website","url":"https:\/\/pluriel.fuce.eu\/","name":"Pluriel","description":"University Platform for Research on Islam","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/pluriel.fuce.eu\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pluriel.fuce.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/videos\/35649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pluriel.fuce.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/videos"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pluriel.fuce.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/videos"}],"acf:term":[{"embeddable":true,"taxonomy":"chercheur_tag","href":"https:\/\/pluriel.fuce.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/chercheur_tag\/430"},{"embeddable":true,"taxonomy":"chercheur_tag","href":"https:\/\/pluriel.fuce.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/chercheur_tag\/252"},{"embeddable":true,"taxonomy":"chercheur_tag","href":"https:\/\/pluriel.fuce.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/chercheur_tag\/241"},{"embeddable":true,"taxonomy":"chercheur_tag","href":"https:\/\/pluriel.fuce.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/chercheur_tag\/248"},{"embeddable":true,"taxonomy":"chercheur_tag","href":"https:\/\/pluriel.fuce.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/chercheur_tag\/247"},{"embeddable":true,"taxonomy":"chercheur_langues","href":"https:\/\/pluriel.fuce.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/chercheur_langues\/321"},{"embeddable":true,"taxonomy":"chercheur_langues","href":"https:\/\/pluriel.fuce.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/chercheur_langues\/355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pluriel.fuce.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"video_collection","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pluriel.fuce.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/video_collection?post=35649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}