al-Insān al-Kāmil, Bāb 23 -- Beauty

ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Jīlī (b. 767 AH / 1365 CE; d. c. 1422-1428 CE)

full parallel manuscript · complete bitext

الإنسان الكامل · الباب الثالث والعشرون في الجمال

canonical early 15th c. (author d. c. 1408-1428 CE) Arabic ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Jīlī (b. 767 AH / 1365 CE; d. c. 1422-1428 CE) tr. Hekhal Targum engine (claude-opus-4-8[session]); AI-assisted draft, editor review pending

The twenty-third chapter of al-Insān al-Kāmil, rendered as a full parallel manuscript: every segment, aligned line by line. The eighth chapter, and the first of the Beauty/Majesty (Jamāl/Jalāl) pair, it treats Beauty as “an expression for His exalted Attributes and His most-beautiful Names” — Mercy, Knowledge, Grace, Bounty among the Jamāl-attributes, while some Names face both poles (al-Rabb, Allāh, al-Raḥmān, against the purely-merciful al-Raḥīm). Beauty is of two kinds: maʿnawī, the meanings of the Names, whose perfection only God witnesses, and ṣūrī, “this whole world,” the disclosure-sites called “creation.” From this unfolds the chapter’s celebrated aesthetic theodicy.

Editorial note. Two things deserve a reader’s care. First, the theodicy: al-Jīlī argues that ugliness (qabīḥ) is never in the thing itself but only “by consideration (iʿtibār)” — the ugliness of sin is by the prohibition, of a foul smell by a nature it does not suit (to the dung-beetle it is sweet), of fire’s burning by the one who perishes (to the salamander, which lives only in fire, it is “the utmost of comeliness”) — so that “absolute ugliness is lifted from existence, and there remains only absolute Beauty.” This is an aesthetic, not a moral, claim: it concerns the metaphysical comeliness of all that exists as a locus of divine self-disclosure, and does not abolish the Law’s distinction between the prohibited and the permitted (the ugliness of sin “by the prohibition” is real on its own plane, exactly as Bāb 12 hard-fenced the act-disclosure against antinomianism). Second, the ʿayniyya qaṣīda (20 verses) carries the book’s strongest coincidentia-oppositorum and identity language (“You are, in truth, the creatures”). Read it within the guardrails al-Jīlī himself sets in the same poem: the barzakh logic of v.22 (“You cut a piece from Your beauty, yet were not joined, nor was there a severing cut”) and the snow/water image of vv.25-27 (creation is to God as snow to its water — nothing but the water, yet “other” by the rule of the Law, until the snow melts and only the water’s rule remains). This is appearance-in, not incarnation-as: the same loan-doctrine of Bāb 7 and the laṭīfa keystone of Bāb 14, here in verse. A second-reader pass is advisable.

الباب الثالث والعشرون في الجمال

Chapter Twenty-Three: On Beauty

اعلم أن جمال الله تعالى عبارة عن أوصافه العليا وأسمائه الحسنى، هذا على العموم.

Know that the Beauty of God Most High is an expression for His exalted Attributes and His most-beautiful Names; this in general.

glossary: asma, sifat

وأما على الخصوص، فصفة الرحمة وصفة العلم وصفة اللطف والنِّعَم، وصفة الجود والرزَّاقية والخلاَّقية وصفة النفع وأمثال ذلك، كلها صفات جمال.

And in particular: the attribute of Mercy, the attribute of Knowledge, the attribute of Grace and Favors, the attribute of Bounty, of Provision-giving, of Creating, and the attribute of Benefit, and the like of that, all of them are attributes of Beauty.

وثَمَّ صفات مشتركة لها وجه إلى الجمال ووجه إلى الجلال، كاسمه الربّ، فإنه باعتبار التربية والإنشاء اسم جمال، وباعتبار الربوبية والقدرة اسم جلال.

And there are shared attributes that have a face toward Beauty and a face toward Majesty, like His Name al-Rabb (the Lord): for in respect of nurturing and bringing-up it is a Name of Beauty, and in respect of Lordship and Power it is a Name of Majesty.

ومثله اسمه الله، واسمه الرحمن، بخلاف اسمه الرحيم فإنه اسم جمال، وقِسْ على ذلك.

And like it are His Name Allāh and His Name al-Raḥmān -- unlike His Name al-Raḥīm, for that is a Name of Beauty. And measure the rest by this.

واعلم أن جمال الحق سبحانه وتعالى وإن كان متنوعاً فهو نوعان:

And know that the Beauty of the Real, glory be to Him and Most High, though it be of many kinds, is of two kinds:

النوع الأول معنوي: وهو معاني الأسماء الحسنى والأوصاف العلا، وهذا النوع مختصٌّ بشهود الحق إياه.

The first kind is meaningful (maʿnawī): it is the meanings of the most-beautiful Names and the exalted Attributes, and this kind is exclusive to the Real's witnessing of it.

glossary: asma, sifat

والنوع الثاني صوري: وهو هذا العالم المطلق المعبَّر عنه بالمخلوقات، وعلى تفاريعه وأنواعه.

And the second kind is formal (ṣūrī): it is this absolute world, expressed by 'the creatures,' in its branchings and its kinds.

فهو حُسنٌ مطلقٌ إلهيٌّ ظهر في مجالي الإلهية، سُمِّيت تلك المجالي بالخلق، وهذه التسمية أيضاً من جملة الحسن الإلهي.

For it is an absolute divine comeliness that appeared in the disclosure-sites of Divinity; those disclosure-sites were named 'creation,' and this naming, too, is part of the divine comeliness.

glossary: tajalli

فالقبيح من العالم كالمليح منه باعتبار كونه مجلىً من مجالي الجمال الإلهي، لا باعتبار تنوُّع الجمال، فإن من الحسن أيضاً إبراز جنس القبيح على قبحه لحفظ مرتبته من الوجود.

So the ugly of the world is like the comely of it, in respect of its being a disclosure-site among the disclosure-sites of divine Beauty -- not in respect of the variety of the Beauty; for it is also of the comeliness to bring forth the genus of the ugly upon its ugliness, to preserve its rank in existence.

كما أن الحسن الإلهي إبراز جنس الحسن على وجه حسنه لحفظ مرتبته من الوجود.

just as the divine comeliness is the bringing-forth of the genus of the comely upon the face of its comeliness, to preserve its rank in existence.

اعلم أن القبح في الأشياء إنما هو للاعتبار لا لنفس ذلك الشيء، فلا يوجد في العالم قبح إلاَّ باعتبار، فارتفع حكم القبيح المطلق من الوجود فلم يبق إلاَّ الحسن المطلق.

Know that ugliness in things is only by consideration (iʿtibār), not by the thing itself; so there is found in the world no ugliness except by a consideration. Thus the rule of absolute ugliness is lifted from existence, and there remains only absolute comeliness.

ألا ترى إلى قبح المعاصي إنما ظهر باعتبار النهي، وقبح الرائحة المنتنة إنما ثبت باعتبار من لا يلائم طبعَه، وهي عند الجُعَل ومن يلائم طبعَه من المحاسن.

Do you not see that the ugliness of acts of disobedience appeared only by consideration of the prohibition, and the ugliness of the foul smell was established only by consideration of one whose nature it does not suit, while to the dung-beetle, and to whomever it suits his nature, it is among things comely?

Witness 'kamā hiya fa-ʿinda al-jaʿl' restored to 'wa-hiya ʿinda al-juʿal' (the dung-beetle), the sense the comparison requires.

ألا ترى إلى الإحراق بالنار إنما كان قبيحاً باعتبار من يهلك فيها ويتلف، وإنما هي عند السمندل من غاية المحاسن.

Do you not see that burning by fire was ugly only by consideration of one who perishes in it and is destroyed, while to the salamander (samandal) it is among the utmost of things comely?

والسمندل طيرٌ لا تكون حياته إلاَّ في تلك النار، فما في العالم قبيح، فكلُّ ما خلق الله تعالى مليحٌ بالأصالة، لأنه صور حُسنه وجماله، وما حدث القبيح في الأشياء إلاَّ بالاعتبارات.

And the salamander is a bird whose life is only in that fire. So there is nothing ugly in the world: all that God Most High created is comely by origin, because it is the forms of His comeliness and His Beauty; and ugliness arose in things only by considerations.

ألا ترى إلى الكلمة الحسنة في بعض الأوقات تكون قبيحة ببعض الاعتبارات وهي في نفسها حسنة، فعُلم بهذه المقدمات أن الوجود بكماله صورةُ حُسنه ومظاهرُ جماله، وما حدث القبيح في الأشياء إلاَّ بالاعتبارات.

Do you not see the good word, at some times, being ugly by some considerations, while in itself it is good? So it is known by these premises that existence, in its perfection, is the form of His comeliness and the loci-of-appearance of His Beauty, and ugliness arose in things only by considerations.

The digital witness carries an OCR duplication of this conclusion across its lines 16-18; merged here to a single clean statement.

وقولنا: إن الوجود بكماله، يدخل فيه المحسوس والمعقول والموهوم والخيال والأول والآخر والظاهر والباطن والقول والفعل والصورة والمعنى، فإن جميع ذلك صورُ جماله وتجلياتُ كماله.

And our saying 'existence in its perfection' includes within it the sensible and the intelligible, the estimated and the imagined, the first and the last, the outward and the inward, the word and the act, the form and the meaning; for all of that is the forms of His Beauty and the self-disclosures of His perfection.

glossary: tajalli, khayal

وفي هذا المعنى قلتُ في قصيدتي العينية:

And in this meaning I said, in my ʿayniyya qaṣīda (rhyming in ʿayn):

تجلَّيتَ في الأشياءِ حين خلقتَها ... فها هي مِيطت عنك فيها البراقعُ

You disclosed Yourself in things when You created them; and lo, within them the veils are drawn back from You.

glossary: tajalli

قطعتَ الورى من ذاتِ حُسنِك قطعةً ... ولم تكُ موصولاً ولا فصلٌ قاطعُ

You cut the creatures, a piece, from the Essence of Your comeliness; yet You were not joined, nor was there a severing cut.

glossary: barzakh The 'neither joined nor a severing cut' is the barzakh anti-ḥulūl guardrail in poetic form (cf. the laṭīfa keystone, Bāb 14 §4-5).

ولكنها أحكامُ رتبتِك اقتضت ... ألوهيةً للضدِّ فيها التجامعُ

Rather they are the rulings of Your rank, which required a divinity in which the opposites come together.

فأنت الورى حقاً وأنت إمامُنا ... وأنت الذي يعلو وما هو واضعُ

So You are, in truth, the creatures; and You are our Imam; and You are the One who is exalted, not the one set low.

Identity-language to be read with the barzakh guard of v.22 (§19) and the snow/water figure following: appearance-in, not incarnation-as.

وما الخلقُ في التمثالِ إلاَّ كثلجةٍ ... وأنت بها الماءُ الذي هو نابعُ

And creation, in the likeness, is but as a snowflake; and You, by it, are the water that wells up.

وما الثلجُ في تحقيقنا غيرُ مائِه ... وغيرانِ في حُكمٍ دعته الشرائعُ

And the snow, in our verification, is naught but its water; yet two 'others' by a rule the Laws have called it.

ولكن بذوبِ الثلجِ يُرفع حُكمُه ... ويوضعُ حُكمُ الماءِ والأمرُ واقعُ

But by the melting of the snow its rule is lifted, and the rule of the water is set in place; and the matter stands.

تجمَّعت الأضدادُ في واحدِ البها ... وفيه تلاشت وهو عنهنَّ ساطعُ

The opposites gathered in the One of splendor; in Him they vanished, and He, beyond them, shines forth.

glossary: wahidiyya

فكلُّ بهاءٍ في ملاحةِ صورةٍ ... على كلِّ قَدٍّ شابهَ الغصنَ يانعُ

So every splendor in the comeliness of a form, upon every stature that the ripe bough resembles,

وكلُّ اسودادٍ في تصافيفِ طُرَّةٍ ... وكلُّ احمرارٍ في العوارضِ ناصعُ

and every blackness in the ranks of a forelock, and every redness, pure-bright, upon the cheeks,

وكلُّ كحيلِ الطَّرفِ يقتلُ صبَّه ... بماضٍ كسيفِ الهندِ حالاً مضارعُ

and every kohl-dark eye that slays its lover, with a cutting glance like the Indian sword, present in the very act,

وكلُّ اسمرارٍ في القوائمِ كالقنا ... عليه من الشعرِ الرسيلِ شرائعُ

and every brownness in limbs like spear-shafts, upon which the flowing hair runs down in streams,

وكلُّ مليحٍ بالملاحةِ قد زها ... وكلُّ جميلٍ بالمحاسنِ بارعُ

and every comely one who has flourished in comeliness, and every beautiful one excelling in graces,

وكلُّ لطيفٍ جلَّ أو دقَّ حُسنُه ... وكلُّ جليلٍ فهو باللطفِ صادعُ

and every subtle one, whether his beauty be great or fine, and every majestic one -- he is, by subtlety, cleaving forth:

محاسنُ من أنشأ ذلك كلَّه ... فوحِّدْ ولا تُشرِكْ به فهو واسعُ

these are the graces of Him who originated all of that; so declare Him One, and associate nothing with Him, for He is All-embracing.

وإياك أن تلفظ بغيريةِ البها ... إليه البها والقبحُ بالذاتِ راجعُ

And beware of uttering the otherness of splendor; to Him the splendor returns -- and the ugliness too, by essence.

فكلُّ قبيحٍ إن نسبتَ لفعلِه ... أتتك معاني الحُسنِ فيه تسارعُ

For every ugly thing, if you ascribe it to His act, the meanings of comeliness come hastening to you within it.

يُكمِّل نقصانَ القبيحِ جمالُه ... فما ثَمَّ نقصانٌ ولا ثَمَّ باشعُ

His Beauty completes the deficiency of the ugly; so there is no deficiency there, and nothing repugnant.

ويرفعُ مقدارَ الوضيعِ جلالُه ... إذا لاح فيه فهو للوضعِ رافعُ

And His Majesty raises the measure of the lowly; when it gleams within it, it is a lifter of the lowliness.

وأطلِقْ عِنانَ الحقِّ في كلِّ ما ترى ... فتلك تجلياتُ من هو صانعُ

So give the rein of the Real free course in all that you see; for those are the self-disclosures of Him who is the Maker.

glossary: tajalli

اعلم أن الجمال المعنوي الذي هو عبارة عن أسمائه وصفاته إنما اختصَّ الحقُّ بشهود كمالها على ما هي عليه تلك الأسماء والصفات.

Know that the meaningful Beauty, which is an expression for His Names and Attributes, the Real alone is singled out for the witnessing of its perfection as those Names and Attributes are in themselves.

glossary: asma, sifat

وأما مطلق الشهود لها فغير مختصٍّ بالحق، لأنه لا بد لكلٍّ من أهل المعتقدات في ربه اعتقادٌ ما أنه على ما يستحقه من أسمائه الحسنى وصفاته العلا أو غير ذلك.

But as for absolute witnessing of it, that is not exclusive to the Real; for every one of the holders of beliefs about his Lord must hold some belief that He is according to what He deserves of His most-beautiful Names and exalted Attributes, or otherwise.

The witness's pronouns waver here ('annā ... astaḥiqquhu'); rendered to the consistent sense (belief about the Lord), and flagged.

ولا بد لكل شهودٍ صورةٌ معتقَدة، وتلك الصورة هي أيضاً صورةُ جمال الله تعالى.

And every witnessing must have a believed form (ṣūra muʿtaqada); and that form, too, is a form of the Beauty of God Most High.

فصار ظهور الجمال فيها ظهوراً ضرورياً لا معنوياً، فاستحال أن يوجد شهود الجمال المعنوي بكماله لغير من هو له، تعالى الله وتقدَّس عما يقولون علوّاً كبيراً.

So the appearance of Beauty in it became a necessary appearance, not a meaningful one; thus it became impossible that the witnessing of the meaningful Beauty, in its perfection, be found for other than the One to whom it belongs. Exalted is God and hallowed above what they say, by a great exaltation.

glossary: tanzih

Collation. Bāb 23, al-Jamāl (Beauty), the eighth chapter and the first of the Jamāl/Jalāl pair. Beauty = His exalted Attributes and most-beautiful Names (Mercy, Knowledge, Grace, Bounty, Provision, Creating, Benefit are Jamāl-attributes); some Names face both Jamāl and Jalāl (al-Rabb, Allāh, al-Raḥmān vs the purely-Jamāl al-Raḥīm). Two kinds: maʿnawī (the meanings of the Names, witnessed in perfection by God alone) and ṣūrī (this whole world, the loci-of-appearance called 'creation'). The chapter's substance is an AESTHETIC THEODICY: the ugly (qabīḥ) is, qua locus of divine Beauty, as the comely (malīḥ); ugliness is only 'by consideration (iʿtibār),' never in the thing itself, so 'absolute ugliness is lifted from existence and there remains only absolute Beauty' (examples: the ugliness of sins by the prohibition, foul smell relative to a nature it does not suit, fire's burning relative to who perishes -- yet to the salamander/samandal, which lives only in fire, it is the height of beauty). At the center is al-Jīlī's ʿayniyya qaṣīda (20 verses, §17-37): the self-disclosure in things, the coincidentia oppositorum 'gathered in the One of splendor,' beauty in every form, and the closing exhortation to give the Real free rein in all one sees. It ends with the epistemology of the believed-form: every witnessing has a believed-form which is itself a form of divine Beauty, but the maʿnawī Beauty in its perfection is witnessed by none but God. Witness handling: lines 16-18 carry an OCR duplication of the conclusion, merged to a single clean statement at §15 and flagged; several kāf-as-alif garbles restored.

Qurʾān. No Qurʾān loci are cited in this chapter (the witness contains no Qurʾānic quotation), so none required verification. Doctrinal cross-reference noted: the snow/water image of the qaṣīda (§22-24, vv.25-27) is the same loan-doctrine figure al-Jīlī draws from al-Bawādir al-Ghaybiyya in Bāb 7 (al-Raḥmāniyya), and the 'neither joined nor a severing cut' of v.22 (§19) is the barzakh anti-ḥulūl guardrail in poetic form.

Apparatus

Beauty in two kinds, the aesthetic theodicy, the ʿayniyya qaṣīda, and the believed-form

Bāb 23 treats Beauty as “His exalted Attributes and most-beautiful Names” (Mercy, Knowledge, Grace, Bounty, Provision, Creating, Benefit among the Jamāl-attributes), with some Names facing both Beauty and Majesty (al-Rabb as nurturer/as power-holder; Allāh, al-Raḥmān; against the purely-Jamāl al-Raḥīm). The two kinds are maʿnawī (the meanings of the Names, witnessed in perfection by God alone) and ṣūrī (“this absolute world… the disclosure-sites named creation”). The chapter’s heart is its aesthetic theodicy: “the ugly of the world is like the comely of it, in respect of its being a disclosure-site of divine Beauty”; ugliness is only “by consideration (iʿtibār), not by the thing itself,” so “the rule of absolute ugliness is lifted from existence, and there remains only absolute comeliness.” The illustrations (the ugliness of sins by the prohibition, foul smell relative to a nature it does not suit, fire relative to who perishes — yet sweet to the dung-beetle and the salamander) make the claim an aesthetic-metaphysical one about existence as divine self-disclosure, not a moral leveling (the Law’s plane stands, as in Bāb 12). At the center is al-Jīlī’s ʿayniyya qaṣīda (20 verses): the self-disclosure in things, the rank-rulings that “required a divinity in which the opposites come together,” the identity-language (“You are, in truth, the creatures”) fenced by the barzakh guard (“not joined, nor a severing cut”) and the snow/water figure (creation to God as snow to its water), the opposites “gathered in the One of splendor,” beauty in every form, and the closing “give the rein of the Real free course in all that you see.” It ends with the epistemology of the believed-form: every witnessing has a believed-form which is itself a form of divine Beauty, but the maʿnawī Beauty in its perfection is witnessed by none but God — “exalted and hallowed above what they say.” Recorded in al-Jīlī’s voice, with the theodicy and the waḥdat-al-wujūd language framed against the mainstream and within al-Jīlī’s own guardrails.

Model: claude-opus-4-8[session]. Glossary: akbarian-sufism-v0.27. Frame: zahir-batin. Drafted: 2026-06-03. Edition: full parallel manuscript (42 segments, complete; one 20-verse ʿayniyya qaṣīda).

Source-text attestation: base from the ibnalarabi.com digital matn (kamil.php?id=26), clean of navigation chrome; the trailing site-search widget excluded. Qurʾān: no Qurʾānic quotation appears in this chapter, so none required verification. Witness handling: lines 16-18 carry an OCR duplication of the conclusion, merged to one clean statement (§15) and flagged; “kamā hiya fa-ʿinda al-jaʿl” restored to “wa-hiya ʿinda al-juʿal” (the dung-beetle, §12); the wavering pronouns of §39 rendered to consistent sense and flagged; several kāf-as-alif garbles restored. Doctrinal framing: the aesthetic theodicy (§9-15) is framed as metaphysical-aesthetic, not moral-antinomian, cross-linked to the act-disclosure fence of Bāb 12; the ʿayniyya qaṣīda’s identity-language (vv.22-24, §21-22) is read within al-Jīlī’s own barzakh guard (v.22, §19) and snow/water figure (vv.25-27, §22-24), cross-linked to the loan-doctrine of Bāb 7 and the laṭīfa keystone of Bāb 14; the believed-form close (§38-41) is read as epistemic humility guarding divine transcendence. Glossary terms engaged: asmāʾ, ṣifāt, tajallī, khayāl, barzakh, wāḥidiyya, tanzīh.

Status: AI-assisted draft, editor review pending; a second-reader pass is advisable (the two-kinds doctrine, the aesthetic theodicy, the ʿayniyya qaṣīda and its guardrails, and the believed-form epistemology). The twenty-third chapter of the full-manuscript edition of al-Insān al-Kāmil.