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Virtues of Greatness in the Arabic Tradition
Introduction to the Virtue of Greatness of Soul
There are few ideals of character as distinctive and divisive as the ancient virtue of greatness of soul. A larger-than-life virtue embodying nothing less than a vision of human greatness, it has often been seen as a relic of the Homeric world and its honour-loving heroes. In philosophy, it found its most celebrated expression in Aristotle's ethics, and it has lived on in the minds of philosophers and theologians in different forms ever since.
The Arabic Tradition of Heroic Virtue
Yet among the many lives this virtue has led in intellectual history, one remains conspicuously unwritten. This is the life it led in the Arabic tradition. A virtue of Greek warriors and their democratic epigones — what happened when this splendid virtue made landfall in the Islamic world? This world, too, had its native heroes, who bequeathed their conception of extraordinary virtue to posterity.
Exploring Heroic Virtue and Its Aspirations
Heroic virtue is above all expressed in a boundless aspiration to what is greatest. Could we admire such virtue enough to want it as our own? What can we learn from the Arabic tradition of the virtues?
The Virtues of Greatness
In answering these questions, Sophia Vasalou elucidates a larger family of virtues that are united by their preoccupation with all things great: the virtues of greatness. An important constituent of the character ideals expounded within the Islamic world, this type of virtue tells us as much about the content of these ideals as about their kaleidoscopic genealogies.
