"For the Sufi, beauty is an emanation of the divine, beauty is – to use the Platonic term – an archetype, and it is this divine beauty that people love. The source of beauty is not worldly, not sensual lust; the source of beauty is the divine, and when beauty emerges and is evidenced in the world, it is like the reflection of this divine source."

Tage Lindbom, In the Footsteps of Frithjof Schuon

Tage Lindbom (1909-2001), the "grand old man" of Swedish conservatism, sums up in his cogent way Islam’s view of beauty. The Islamic tradition of art has been, and still is with a few exceptions, completely traditional and spiritual, imbued with Platonism and Neoplatonism. It is thus strikingly different from profane Western art as it has developed in modern times.

Plotinos (204-270), who was called Shaykh al-Yunani, or "the Greek master", by Muslims, has had enormous influence in the Islamic philosophical discussion of beaut...