As a Plotonian allusion, the arm-as-wing suggests that the proportions
intrinsic to the body of man are also those that enableflight out of
weighted, bodily materiality into the realm of cosmic similitudes and,
ultimately, comprehension of the divine. Echoing the Vitruvian model
adopted by Leonardo da Vinci in his famous drawing of man at the center
of the squared circle, the arm/wing soon becomes geometric, for“when it
stretches its hand out above its head, and a pair of compasses with one
point on its navel is extended to itsfingertips.”^35 These in turn become a
model for the distances between the stars and the planets, ultimately
comparing God to“a creator who has made them [the stars and the strings
of the lute] and a skilled artificer who has constructed them and a benign
composer who has organized them.”^36
The strong connection between mathematics and music led ibn Sina to
include a chapter on music in discussing educational sciences within
philosophy. Although he does not seek a precise relationship between the
cosmos, the states of the spirit, and music, he describes a phenomenology
of music rooted in nature as a manifestation of the divine. Nature perpe-
tuates itself through reproduction, and coupling animals need attraction,
which requires that they produce sound. Among these sounds, music is
unique in its capacity for seduction, which functions as follows:
Thefirst of two notes produces on our soul a pleasant impression, like all unforeseen
desirable things. This sensation is followed by another resembling that which
reminds us of the sudden disappearance of something valuable to us, yet ephemeral.
Following a pleasure, this regret disappears in turn when the second note follows.
Forusthisisbutthereturnofthefirst in another form: it enters into a relationship in
the ear. For one knows that among the causes of pleasure is the surprise of a
harmonious sensation following the regret of one that has been erased...This is
why the orderly combination of sounds, their composition, deeply seduces us, as do
the regular and orderly combination of rhythmic percussions that cause one to
imagine sounds in their relationship with nature.^37
The seductive capacity of music enables it to draw people from bodily to
spiritual pleasures. In hisLightning Flashes Concerning the Refutation of
Those who Declare that Music is Forbidden, Ahmad al-Ghazali (1061–
c.1123) contextualizes audition as appropriate to the correct“time, the
place, and the brethren.”^38 Yet he underscores that it must be available not
only to those already on the path of knowledge, but also to those who might(^35) Wright, 2010 : 146. (^36) Wright, 2010 : 147. (^37) al-Farabi, 1930 , vol. II: 109–10.
(^38) Robson, 1938 : 72. Ahmad al-Ghazali was the brother of the famous theologian Muhammad al-
Ghazali.
66 Seeing with the Ear