ABSTRACT
This section sets the stage for the main discussion by considering the status of aesthetic experience more generally in al-Ghazālī's thinking. In certain parts of the Revival of the Religious Sciences, al-Ghazālī appears to take an expressly negative view of such experiences, reflecting his negative view of worldly pleasures more broadly. But this attitude belies a more positive understanding of aesthetic enjoyment. A certain type of aesthetic response to nature forms a necessary part of one's spiritual duties and development. A similar importance attaches to certain types of art, notably music. In both cases, aesthetic experience is validated insofar as it establishes a relation to the transcendent realm and provides cognitive and emotional access to it.
