48. Seyyed Hossein Nasr: The Garden of Truth
A Sourcebook in Global Philosophy - Mohammed Rustom
Justin Cancelliere [+]
Description
In his principal work on Islamic spirituality The Garden of Truth, the prominent contemporary philosopher Seyyed Hossein Nasr expounds the nature of beauty from the Sufi point of view. Being a divine quality of the most fundamental kind, beauty in its essential reality is neither definable nor communicable for Nasr, although one can indicate and describe it. Central also to his perspective is the inextricability of beauty and truth, which coincide metaphysically in God. Since for Nasr beauty is an objective reality, human receptivity to the reality of beauty, which at the highest level liberates man from the suffocating confines of his own individuality, is not simply a matter of possessing sound sensory faculties; it also requires struggling to purify the soul of its defects, which in turn requires the exercise of one’s discernment. As he explains, the beauty manifested so powerfully in the created order is ambiguous, spiritually speaking, because it can distract and ensnare the soul. But to experience beauty aright is to be reminded of God and even to see Him, for, from the point of view of Sufi metaphysics, there can really only ever be one Beauty.