Araeen begins his manifesto by critiquing Hegel’s philosophy of aesthetics, primarily through how they are conceived and formulated in relation to humanity’s self-consciousness mainly through a Christian perception of God and image making. Araeen underscores Michael Inwood’s introduction to Hegel’s Aesthetics: “‘The absolute becomes self-conscious in man’s cognitive and practical activities. But man’s central motive for such activities is, in Hegel’s view, to become self-conscious himself, and, since the absolute in this phase is not distinct from man, the absolute becomes self-conscious only in the self-consciousness of man.” 

Araeen’s summarizes Hegel’s exclusion of Islam and Judaism from the world’s philosophical history: “My main concern is with Hegel’s concept and theories, of man’s self-consciousness, man’s place and his role in the universe, and his need to express himself in art; from which in fact emerges Hegel’s world view and world history […] Islam, in my view, is not merely a set of religious ceremonies and rituals that Muslims have to perform […] It is also a philosophical system, the invisibility of the Divine being its central idea, which represents its own unique worldview […] It was Islam, not Christianity, which opened the way for Europe’s enlightenment; which subsequently created the modern world.”  

In Islam, God is seen as the eternal creator and sustainer of the universe, with no physical body or gender. God has no image, only attributes. To elaborate on this, Araeen suggests the idea that there is such a thing as what he calls the “Spirit of Geometry,” which he sees as a divine force that guides the evolution of geometry in the world. The “Spirit of Geometry” was first quinessentialized by the Islamic philosophy through the building of the Kaaba. (The simple structure made in the shape of a cube in the city of Mecca, that has served as the most sacred Islamic pilgrimage site since the 7th-century C.E). “This laid the foundation of what subsequently emerged, historically, as art in the Islamic world, from which the presence and representation of man, and/or all living beings, was removed, and which provided a radical alternative of geometry […] It is not only the geometry of the Kaaba but its symmetry which is fundamental to the Islamic Spirit, its vision and worldview; which is then not only the basis of Arab/Islamic civilization but also its achievements in all areas of (secular) knowledge.”

Araeen argues: “It is the Spirit of Geometry, originating in Kaaba and then traveling through the historical movements of ideas, and reaching Europe after about thirteen centuries, which in fact connects Cubism and the Kaaba […] The important point here is the shift, from figural to geometry.” He then continues: “It was in fact the journey of the Spirit of Geometry which emerged from the Kaaba and continued in the Muslim world before reaching Europe, influencing the production of knowledge all the way, particularly the geometric art. When this reached Aix-en-Provence in France, it seemed to enter the consciousness of Cézanne, who then began to see nature geometrically, in the form of ‘cylinder, sphere and cone.’ However, despite this his work seemed to have remained in the classical tradition of European art, with the human figure in it, except that this figure was treated somewhat geometrically. It seemed the spirit of geometry was there, but hidden within the work, to be uncovered and somewhat realized its full potential by the next generation of artists. When Cézanne’s work was shown in Paris in 1907, the audience were overwhelmed. The message of this exhibition was so effective that it changed the whole course of Western art. It was the imagination of Picasso and Braque, however, which picked up the spirit of geometry hidden within Cézanne’s work, and led them to laying the foundation for the modernism of the 20th century, Cubism.”

Elaborating further on the Muslim world today, Araeen writes: “Equipped now with the liberated mind and the ability to receive knowledge from all cultures and use it critically, the Spirit of Geometry offers humanity a vision from which the centrality of man is removed. In fact, the rationality of geometry, enshrined in the Kaaba, now became fundamental to the Islamic Spirit, vision or worldview.”