Abstract

The relationship between the body, self-cultivation, and the experience of beauty constitutes one of the fundamental issues in contemporary philosophy of art, situated at the intersection of philosophical anthropology, ethics, and aesthetics. Despite the expansion of body-oriented approaches in modern thought, relatively few studies have undertaken a systematic comparison between classical Islamic philosophical traditions and contemporary aesthetic theories in this regard. Focusing on the theme of “body, self-cultivation, and the experience of beauty,” this article seeks to examine comparatively the place of the body in the thought of IKHWĀN AL-ṢAFĀ and in Richard Shusterman’s somaesthetics, demonstrating how both traditions-despite differences in their ontological and teleological foundations-conceive the body as the ground of a form of existential cultivation and aesthetic experience. The aim of the study is to elucidate and compare the role of the body in the process of self-cultivation and its relation to the experience of beauty within these two intellectual frameworks. The main research questions are as follows: (1) How is the place of the body in the process of self-cultivation and existential formation explained in these two systems of thought? (2) What relationship is established between bodily harmony and the perception of beauty in each framework? (3) How can a theoretical account be developed that connects somaesthetics with a practical reading of the aesthetics of the body in the thought of IKHWĀN AL-ṢAFĀ? The research adopts a qualitative analytical–comparative method. Data were collected through library-based research and documentary study of the Epistles of IKHWĀN AL-ṢAFĀ and Shusterman’s principal works on somaesthetics. In the analytical stage, key concepts related to the body, self-cultivation, and the experience of beauty were extracted and compared through qualitative content analysis across four dimensions: the anthropological and ontological status of the body, the role of the body in knowledge and awareness, the body in the process of self-cultivation, and its ultimate purpose and function. The findings indicate that IKHWĀN AL-ṢAFĀ regard the body as a domain of purification and the realization of existential harmony through which the soul ascends to intellectual levels, while beauty is understood as a manifestation of divine order. In contrast, Shusterman, by criticizing the traditional mind-body dualism, understands the body as the locus of lived experience and aesthetic awareness and interprets self-cultivation in terms of bodily cultivation and the art of living. Thus, although both approaches emphasize the importance of cultivating the body, the former considers it a prelude to spiritual transcendence, while the latter regards it as a horizon for enhancing the quality of aesthetic experience in life. This comparison suggests that a shared “aesthetics of self-cultivation,” albeit with different horizons, can be discerned between the purification of the soul in the thought of IKHWĀN AL-ṢAFĀ and the somaesthetic awareness proposed by Shusterman.