Ibn Tufayl - Hayy ibn Yaqzan / Bent el-Khass

"Living Son of the Vigilant" / "The Awakening of the Soul".

"In which is demonstrated by what Methods one may...attain the Knowledge of things NATURAL and SUPERNATURAL".

Translated from the Arabic original by Simon Ockley and edited by Edward Abbott van Dyck.

This intense philosophical tract, which also surveys the major thinkers of the age besides making its own hypothesis in the form of a kind of "novel", was widely read, and came to inspire the British author Daniel Defoe to write his Robinson Crusoe.

Appended is a very rare work in French and Arabic called La Légende de Bent El Khass / "The Legend of Bent el-Khass" (not by Ibn Tufayl).    

۩  English, French & Arabic, bookmarked, facsimile PDF eBook, 25 Megabytes, 84 pages - £1

Note: As well as being available individually, this item is also included in the Antioch Gate Islamic Golden Age Library on DVDROM, priced £49.95 plus £4 P&P - see our main page for details. To purchase the DVDROM, you may use the electronic PayPal service (press the DVDROM's "Add to Cart" button below):

Or you may post a cheque, Draft Order or Postal Order made payable to Antioch Gate, addressed to:

Antioch Gate

PO Box 14507
Birmingham
B25 9ET
UNITED KINGDOM

HUMAN REASON,

EXHIBITED IN THE LIFE OF

Written in ARABIC above 600 Years ago,

By what Methods one may, by the mere light of nature, attain the Knowledge of things natural and supernatural ; more particularly the Knowledge of god, and the Affairs of another Life.

Translated from the Original Arabic by Simon Ockley, A. M., Vicar of Swavesey in Cambridgeshire, and Printed by Edm. Powell in Blackfriars.

Ibn Tufayl's thought can be captured in his only extant work, Hayy Ibn Yaqzan (The Living Son of the Vigilant), a philosophical treatise in a charming literary form. It relates the story of human knowledge, as it rises from a blank slate to a mystical or direct experience of God after passing through the necessary natural experiences. The focal point of the story is that human reason, unaided by society and its conventions or by religion, can achieve scientific knowledge, preparing the way to the mystical or highest form of human knowledge. The story also seeks to show that, while religious truth is the same as that of philosophy, the former is conveyed through symbols, which are suitable for the understanding of the multitude, and the latter is conveyed in its inner meanings apart from any symbolism. Since people have different capacities of understanding that require the use of different instruments, there is no point in trying to convey the truth to people except through means suitable for their understanding.

Abu Bakr Muhammad Ibn 'Abd al-Malik Ibn Muhammad Ibn Muhammad Ibn Tufayl al-Qaysi is known to the West as Abubacer. It can be estimated that he was born in the first decade of the sixth century ah (twelfth century ad), based on the fact that he was in his sixties when he met Ibn Rushd in A.H. 564/1169 C.E. Born in Wadi Ash (Guadix), a small town in Spain about sixty kilometres northeast of Granada, he died in Marrakesh, Morocco in A.H. 581/1185 C.E. Ibn Tufayl was the second most important Muslim philosopher in the West, the first being Ibn Bajja. Ibn Tufayl was also a physician and he served as vizier to the Almohad prince, Abu Yaqub Yusuf. He is noted for having introduced Averroës to the court, helping his career.

With the exception of some fragments of poetry, his only extant work is Hayy Ibn Yaqzan ("The Living Son of the Vigilant", or "Walk On, You Bright Boy"), which represents his mystical philosophy in the form of a novel. The title and names of characters of this work are borrowed from two of Ibn Sina's philosophical treatises, Hayy Ibn Yaqzan and Salaman and Absal, and its framework is borrowed from an ancient eastern tale, The Story of the Idol and of the King and His Daughter. The title is taken from the name of the main character, Hayy Ibn Yaqzan. In the introduction and conclusion, the author addresses the reader directly; in other parts of the work, he uses a 'thin veil', a symbolic form, a story to express his philosophical views.

Taken from an article of the Encyclopaedia of the Orient  

A boy (called Hayyā (= "walk on!") is brought up in isolation on an island.

All by himself, the boy investigates the universe, passing through several stages, each lasting seven years. At the highest level, the boy comes to understand the ultimate nature of universe: the emanations coming from the One that go from level to level, how spirit takes material form, and how the spirit strives to approach the One.

The boy finally returns to human world, where he grasps that his ultimate understanding is the same as the revealed religion (Islam), but that not all can reach this highest form of understanding.

In the novel, Ibn Tufayl divides human beings into 3 groups:

He comes into contact with a man trained in religion, the point of the work being the conflict between philosophy and religion. Hayyā tries to enlighten people, but fails, and returns to his island. The moral seems to be that each of these groups of people should accept their standing, and not strive for more.

This novel was translated into Latin and in the 17th Century was also translated into several other European languages. It was widely read, and came to inspire the British author Daniel Defoe to write his Robinson Crusoe.

In the introduction the author presents some of the views of his predecessors, al-Farabi, Ibn Sina, al-Ghazali and Ibn Bajja. Al-Farabi is strongly criticized for what is said to be his inconsistent view concerning the afterlife. No criticism of Ibn Sina is given; on the contrary, it is said that Ibn Sina's oriental wisdom will be expounded in the rest of the work. Ibn Bajja's views are said to be incomplete, mentioning the highest speculative state but not the state above it, that of 'witnessing' or mystical experience. While al-Ghazali's mystical experience is not in doubt, none of his works on mystical knowledge are said to have reached the author. The introduction is intended to announce the author's intention, namely the elaboration of Ibn Sina's oriental wisdom and to show how the work differs from those of his predecessors.

Hayy is found alone as an infant on an equatorial island uninhabited by human beings. Philosophers were of the opinion that he was born spontaneously when the mixture of elements reached an equilibrium state, making it possible for this mixture to receive a human soul from the divine world. Traditionalists believed that he was the son of a woman who chose to keep her marriage to her relative, Yaqzan, secret from her brother who ruled a neighbouring island and did not find any man qualified to marry his sister. After breastfeeding Hayy well, she put him in a box and threw it into the waters, which took him to the uninhabited island.

A deer who had just lost her son and was still experiencing the feelings of motherhood heard Hayy's cries. She suckled him, protected him from harmful things and took care of him until she died when he was seven years of age. By then he had learned to imitate other animals in speech, and he covered parts of his body with leaves after noticing that those animal parts are covered with hair or feathers. The deer's death transformed Hayy's life from one of dependency to one of exploration and discovery.

In an effort to find out the reason for the deer's death, a reason which he could not locate by observing her appearance, he dissected her with sharp stones and dry reeds. Noticing that every bodily organ has a proper function and that the left cavity of her heart was empty, he concluded that the source of life must have been in this cavity, and must have abandoned it. He reflected on the nature of this vital thing, its link to the body, its source, the place to which it has departed, the manner of its departure and so on. He realized that it was not the body but this vital entity that was the deer and the source of its actions. With this realization he lost interest in the deer's body, which he then viewed as a mere instrument. While he could not decipher the nature of this vital thing, he observed that the shape of all deer was similar to that of his mother. From this he concluded that all deer were managed by something similar to the vital thing that managed his mother's life.

After his discovery of life, he came across a fire. He noticed that, contrary to other natural objects, which move downward, fire moves upward. This indicated to him that the essence of fire is other than that of natural things. He continued to investigate other parts of nature: animal organs, their arrangement, number, size and position, as well as the qualities that animals, plants and inanimate things have in common and those that are proper to each of them. Through continued reasoning he grasped the concepts of matter and form, cause and effect, unity and multiplicity, as well as other general concepts concerning the earth and the heavens. Concluding that the universe is one in spite of its multiple objects, he moved on to consider whether it is created or eternal. Through highly sophisticated reasoning, he found that neither the idea of creation nor that of eternity is immune to objection. Though he could not rationally decide whether the universe is created or eternal, he concluded that it must have a cause on which it remains dependent and that this cause or necessary being is non-physical and above it in essence, even if not in time.

He also concluded that the thing in him which knew this cause must also be non-physical. The more detached this non-physical thing in him was from sensory perceptions, the clearer was its vision of this cause, a vision that gave the highest joy. Even though sensations obstructed this vision, he felt obliged to imitate animals by experiencing sensations to preserve his animal soul, which would enable him to imitate the heavenly bodies. Imitating the heavenly bodies by doing things like circular movement provided him with continuous but impure vision, for attention in this type of imitation is still paid to the self.

By knowledge of the necessary being, Hayy sought to imitate this being's positive attributes; by an attempt to transcend the physical world, he sought to imitate the negative ones. Imitation of the necessary being for the sake of this being involved no attention to the self and hence provided him with pure vision. Not only was Hayy's self or essence obliterated in this state, but so also was everything other than the necessary being. No human sight, hearing or speech could grasp this state, as it lies beyond the world of nature and sense experience. Therefore no explanation of necessary being can be given, only mere signs, as Ibn Sina contends in al-Isharat wa-'l-tanbihat (Remarks and Admonitions). One who seeks an explanation of this state is like one who seeks 'the taste of colours inasmuch as they are colours'. Verification requires direct experience. Using human language, which is described as an inadequate instrument, to hint at the truth Hayy is said to have witnessed in this state, the necessary being is said to pervade the universe as sunlight pervades the physical world. Trying to express the inexpressible, the author says that Hayy realized in this state that the whole is one, even though unity and multiplicity, like other contraries, exist only for sense perception. The Neoplatonic pantheistic tendency is here obvious.

On a neighbouring island a group of people, including the king, Salaman, practised a religion which was sound yet provided the masses with symbols, not direct truths. Absal, a friend of Salaman, observed the rituals of this religion but, contrary to others who adhered to its literal meaning, he delved into its inner truths. Being naturally inclined to solitude, which was in agreement with certain passages of the Scripture, Absal moved to the island on which Hayy lived. When he encountered Hayy he was frightened, until Hayy made it clear that he intended no harm. Absal then taught Hayy human language by pointing to objects while uttering the corresponding words.

With the acquisition of language, Hayy was able to explain to Absal his development in knowledge. At hearing this, Absal realised that what Hayy had witnessed were the realities described in his own religion: God, the angels, the holy books, prophets, afterlife and so on. When Absal discussed the truths as detailed in his religion, Hayy too found these truths in agreement with what he had come to know. However, Hayy could not understand why Absal's religion resorted to symbols and permitted indulgence in material things.

Hayy expressed interest in visiting the neighbouring island to explain to its people the pure truth. Absal, who knew their nature, reluctantly accompanied him. Addressing the most intelligent group on this island, Hayy was shown respect until he tried to go beyond the literal meaning of their Scripture. The people then shunned him, distracting themselves from the truth by commercial activity. Hayy understood then that such people are incapable of grasping the direct truth and that religion is necessary for their social stability and protection. Social stability and protection, however, in no way secure happiness in the afterlife. Only preoccupation with the divine, which is rare among people of this kind, can provide such security. In contrast, the preoccupation with this world in which the majority of people indulge results in darkness or hell. While the truths of reason and revelation are the same, the majority of those adhering to the latter do so for worldly success and hence achieve eternal misery. Realizing that an attempt to enlighten those incapable of vision will only destabilize them without preparing them for happiness, Hayy asked people to continue practising their religion, warning them only against indulgence in worldly matters. Hayy and Absal returned then to the deserted island to practise their mysticism in isolation.

Ibn Tufayl ends the work by describing it as 'containing a piece of discourse not found in a book nor heard in ordinary speech'. How is this to be understood when he had already told us in the introduction that the work is an elaboration of Ibn Sina's oriental wisdom? Perhaps the answer can be found in Ibn Tufayl's emphasis on the novelty of a certain 'discourse' or 'speech', not on the novelty of its content. If so, the originality of the work would seem to lie only in its form.

SHAMS C. INATI
Copyright © 1998, Routledge.

List of works (beside the publication here offered by Antioch Gate)

Ibn Tufayl (before 1185) Hayy Ibn Yaqzan (The Living Son of the Vigilant), ed. L. Gauthier, Beirut: Catholic Press, 1936; trans. L. Goodman, Ibn Tufayl's Hayy Ibn Yaqzan, a Philosophical Tale, New York: Twain Publishers, 1972. (Ibn Tufayl's only extant work, this book captures his main philosophical thought.)
 

Conradi, L.I. (ed.) (1996) The World of Ibn Tufayl: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Hayy Ibn Yaczan, Islamic Philosophy, Theology and Sciences Series, vol. 24, Leiden: Brill. (Contains a large bibliography of works on Ibn Tufayl.)

Goodman, L. (1996) 'Ibn Tufayl', in S.H. Nasr and O. Leaman (eds) History of Islamic Philosophy, London: Routledge, ch. 22, 313-29. (Good examination of Ibn Tufayl's life and thought.)

Hawi, S. (1973) 'Ibn Tufayl's Hayy Ibn Yaqzan, Its Structure, Literary Aspects and Methods', Islamic Culture 47: 191-211. (Focuses on the most essential elements of the work, insisting that it is not a 'symbolic expression' but a 'philosophical discourse'.)

Hawi, S. (1974a) Islamic Naturalism and Mysticism: A Philosophical Study of Ibn Tufayl's Hayy Yaqzan, Leiden: Brill. (Study of Hayy Ibn Yaqzan.)

Hawi, S. (1974b) 'Beyond Naturalism: A Brief Study of Ibn Tufayl's Hayy Ibn Yaqzan', Journal of the Pakistan Historical Society 22: 249-67. (Lucid and shows a good grasp of Ibn Tufayl's view of mystical experience.)

Hawi, S. (1976) 'Ibn Tufayl's Appraisal of His Predecessors and Their Influence on His Thought', International Journal of Middle East Studies 7: 89-121. (An attempt to show Ibn Tufayl's originality and the influence on him of al-Farabi and al-Ghazali, rather than Ibn Sina.)

Hourani, G. (1956) 'The Principal Subject of Ibn Tufayl's Hayy Ibn Yaqzan', Journal of Near Eastern Studies 15 (1): 40-46. (An excellent article, which reconsiders the principal subject of Ibn Tufayl's Hayy Ibn Yaqzan. It rejects Gauthier's thesis that the essential subject of the work is the harmony of religion and philosophy, arguing instead that it is the ascent of unaided human reason from elementary to mystical knowledge.)

______________________________________

 

When Mr. Pococke first published this Arabic Author with his accu­rate Latin version, Anno 1671, Dr. Pococke his father, that late eminent professor of the oriental languages at the University of Oxford, prefixed a preface to it ; in which he tells us that he has good reason to think that this author was contemporary with Ibn Rushd, who died very an­cient in the Year of the Hijrah 595, which is coincident with the Year 1198 of our Lord ; according to which account the Author lived some­thing above 500 Years ago.

He lived in Spain, as appears from one or two passages in this book. He wrote some other pieces, which are not come to our hands. This has been very well received in the East ; one argument of which is that it has been translated by Rabbi Moses Narbonensis into Hebrew, and illustrated with a large commentary. The design of the author is to show how human capacity, unaided by any external help, may, by due application, attain to the Knowledge of natural things, and so by degrees find out its dependence upon a Superior Being, the immortality of the soul, and all things necessary to salvation.

How well he has succeeded in this attempt, I leave to the reader to judge. It is certain that he was a man of parts and very good learn­ing, considering the age he lived in, and the way of studying in those times. There are a great many lively strokes in it ; and I doubt not but a judicious reader will find his account in the perusal of it.

I was not willing (though importuned) to undertake the translating into English, because I was informed that it had been done twice alre­ady ; once by Dr. Ashwell, another lime by the Quakers, who imagined that there was something in it that favored their enthusiastic notions. How­ever, taking it for granted that both these translations were not made out of the original Arabic, but out of the Latin, I did not question but they had mistaken the sense of the author in many places. Besides, observing that a great many of my friends whom I had a desire to oblige, and other persons whom I would willingly incline to a more favorable opin­ion of Arab Learning, had not seen this book ; and withal, hoping that I might add something by way of annotation or appendix, which would not be altogether useless ; I at last ventured to translate it anew.

I have here and there added a note, in which there is an account given of some great man, some custom of the Muslims explained, or some­thing of that nature, which I hope will not be unacceptable. And lest any person should, through mistake, make any ill use of it, I have subjoined an appendix, the design of which the reader may see in its proper place.
 

Simon Ockley.

 

When I first undertook the publication of this English Translation, I thought it would not be amiss to present the world with a specimen of it first. But, since the introduction is such that the reader can no more by it give a guess at what is contained in the book itself, than a man can judge of his entertainment by seeing the cloth laid ; I have thought it necessary to give him a Bill of Fare.

The design of the author, who was a Muslim philosopher, is to show how human reason may, by observation and experience, arrive at the knowledge of natural things, and from thence to supernatural ; par­ticularly the knowledge of God and a future state. And in order to this, he supposes a person brought up by himself, where he was altogether destitute of any instruction, but what he could get from his own observation.

He lays the scene in some Fortunate Island, situated under the Equinoctial ; where he supposes the philosopher, either to have been bred (according to Ibn Sina's hypothesis, who conceived a possibility of a man's being formed by the influence of the planets upon Matter right­ly disposed) without either father or mother; or else exposed in his infancy, and providentially suckled by a roe. Not that our author believed any such matter, but only having designed to contrive a convenient place for his philosopher, so as to leave him to reason by himself, and make his observations without any guide. In which relation he proposes both these ways, without speaking one word in favor of either.

Then he shows by what steps and degrees he advanced in the knowledge of natural things, till at last he perceived the necessity of acknowledging an infinite, eternal, wise Creator, and also the immateriality and immor­tality of his own soul, and that its happiness consisted only in a continued conjunction with this supreme Being.

The matter of this book is curious, and full of useful theorems ; he makes most use of the Peripatetic Philosophy, which he seems to have well understood ; it must be confessed indeed that when he comes to talk of the union with God, etc., (as in the introduction), there are some enthusiastic notions, which are particularly considered and refuted by the editor in his appendix.

Whose design in publishing this translation was to give those who are as yet unacquainted with it, a taste of the acumen and genius of the Arab philosophers, and to excite young scholars to the reading of those authors which, through a groundless conceit of their impertinence and ignorance, have been too long neglected.

And though we do not pretend to any discoveries in this book, es­pecially at this time of day, when all parts of learning are cultivated with so much exactness ; [Antioch Gate note: Islamic philosophy is still a vibrant - possibly the most vibrant - genre in the field] yet we hope that it will not be altogether unac­ceptable to the curious reader, to know what the state of learning was among the Arabs five hundred years since. And if what we shall here communi­cate shall seem little in respect of the discoveries of this discerning age ; yet we are confident that any European, who shall compare the learning in this book with what was published by any of his own coun­trymen at that time, will find himself obliged in conscience to give our Author fair quarter.