3 Review(s)

"The Texture of the Divine" explores the central role of the imagination in the shared symbolic worlds of medieval Muslims and Jews. It looks closely at three interrelated texts known as the "Hayy ibn Yaqzan" cycle (dating roughly from 1000-1200 CE) to show the interconnections not only between Muslims and Jews, but also between philosophy, mysticism, and literature. Each of the texts Aaron W. Hughes examines, by the writers Avicenna, ibn Tufayl, and Abraham ibn Ezra, are initiatory tales that combine philosophy, poetry, and allegory to recount a journey through the ascending layers of the universe. Their narratives culminate in the imaginative apprehension of God, in which the traveler gazes into the divine presence. The tales are beautiful and poetic literary works as well as probing philosophical treatises on how the individual is able to know the unknowable. In this groundbreaking work, Hughes reveals the literary, initiatory, ritualistic, and mystical dimensions of medieval Neoplatonism. "The Texture of the Divine" also includes the first complete translation of Abraham Ibn Ezra's "Hay ben Meqitz".