philosophical traditions inherited through late antiquity. This observation
institutes two themes in the work: the affinities of Islamic thought with
ancient philosophical, Abrahamic, and Buddhist legacies; and how modern
interpretations of similar sources led Europe down a very different inter-
pretive path.
As in late antiquity, one of the primary subjects of sensory inquiry was
not the image, but music.Chapter 2considers how juridical discussions of
music reflected antique traditions of inward mimesis. The centrality
of music in the Islamic intellectual corpus undermines the oculocentrism
of art history, offering instead afield of multimedial perceptual culture.
Chapter 3examines discussions about the mimetic possibilities of musical
and visual images as reflected in theIskandarnamahof Nizami of Ganj and
The Language of the Birdsby Farid al-Din Attar. The intimacy of the poetry
with Platonic thought suggests that far from inimical, philosophy and
Islamic discourses may be indivisible.
The heart funnels perception through the ear to the soul.Chapter 4
considers how an ontology of perception rooted in the heart emerged
from a hierarchy of the senses implicit in the Quran. It contrasts the
complex ontology of the Quran as representation of the divine tablet as
simultaneously writing and sound, always complete and always imma-
nent, with secular interpretations of its material history. It explores how
the emotive response to Quranic beauty reverberates with discourses of
the heart, the imaginary, and the contemplative faculties in Islamic
thought.
Chapter 5traces the heart as a polished mirror in transformations of the
story of the competition of the artists as retold by al-Ghazali, Nizami, Rumi,
and ibn Khaldun. This story about artistic competition serves as a parable for
the relative merits of Aristotelian demonstrative and symbolic teaching, and
the nature of mimesis, competition, and originality.Chapter 6examines how
later stories about artistic competition, related by al-Maqrizi, Mustafa‘Ali,
and Qadi Ahmad consider painting in the context of deceptive rhetoric in
pursuit of truth, as advocated in Plato’sPhaedrus. The chapter concludes by
comparing this understanding of painting with that rooted in a similar story,
the competition of Zeuxis and Parrhasius. Adopted from antiquity by
German Enlightenment thinkers as the paradigm for representation and
the disinterested observer, this story establishes paradigms of artistry and
mimesis in the Western tradition that cannot account for opposite premises
established in Islamic discourses. The comparison between the two narra-
tives underscores the antique tradition as part of a shared Islamic and
European heritage diverging through distinct histories of interpretation.30 From Islamic Art to Perceptual Culture