Hayy Ibn Yaqzan: A Philosophical Tale

Hayy Ibn Yaqzān is a philosophical tale originally written in Arabic by Ibn Tufayl. The text was composed in the early 12th century in Al-Andalus, the region of modern-day Spain and Portugal. Ibn Tufayl was an Islamic writer, theologian, physician, and advisor to the Amir Abu Yaqub Yusuf, the ruler of the Almohad caliphate. Hayy ibn Yaqzān is an allegorical novel that expresses Ibn Tufayl’s Sufi philosophy through the symbolic life of Hayy, an infant raised in isolation on a remote equatorial island without any human contact. Hayy grows up and is able to achieve spiritual perfection by observing the natural world, making reasoned deductions, and eventually experiencing a mystical connection with God without ever having a formal education in Islamic theology.

This guide uses the edition translated by Lenn Evan Goodman and published by The University of Chicago Press in 2003.

Plot Summary

The story of Hayy Ibn Yaqzān is meant to teach a reader how to achieve a state of spiritual ecstasy, which Ibn Tufayl notes has been an infrequently discussed subject given the difficulty of explaining the experience correctly with words. The plot revolves around an infant who grows up on an equatorial island near India without any human contact. Ibn Tufayl offers two explanations for how he came to be there: firstly, that he was spontaneously generated by a combination of elements in a perfectly balanced climate, or secondly, that he was the castaway son of a princess seeking to hide her child from her violently controlling brother. In either case, Hayy is raised by a deer, who nurses him like her own offspring. Hayy learns to imitate animals and survive on the island, but he feels inferior to the animals because his human body lacks natural coverings and weapons.

When Hayy’s deer mother dies, he begins to study anatomy, seeking the reason why she died. He notices an empty chamber of the heart and deduces that an animating faculty must have departed from that chamber. He decides that this absent thing is more worthy of love and attention than the material body. Hayy becomes an exemplary physician by dissecting animals; he also learns to hunt, fish, make fires, use simple tools, and tame animals for his own use.

As Hayy becomes an adult, he begins to spend more time thinking about the nature of the world, relying less on sensory observation and more on logical deduction. He develops the concept of forms, an idea in Neoplatonic philosophy that all material objects have a principal cause that informs their physical qualities. After realizing the unity of all creation through the forms of basic matter, Hayy realizes that the universe itself must have a principal cause, an eternal Creator. He realizes that the goodness of creation attests to the wisdom, power, and benevolence of the Creator and turns all his love and attention to this Creator.

Now a mature man, Hayy begins to pay attention to astronomy, recognizing the planets as the most perfect material creation and the least inclined to decay. He decides to imitate the planets by purifying his body and practicing spinning to mimic the orbit of celestial bodies. In addition, he practices meditation, where he attempts to entirely forget his identity and completely disconnect from his material body. During one of these meditations, he experiences an ecstatic connection to the Creator and he begins to turn away from all material life, as he sees the bliss of God as more important.

However, Hayy’s life is transformed when Absāl, a man from a neighboring island where Islam is practiced, arrives on his island. Absāl is seeking a life of contemplation and isolated meditation, and he teaches Hayy to communicate with him. It is through this encounter that Hayy realizes that Islamic doctrine matches perfectly with what he deduced about the nature of reality, suggesting the compatibility of faith and science. Absāl describes how many men live on his home island and Hayy wishes to travel there to teach some of what he has learned. However, when he and Absāl visit the other island, he finds the people there unwilling to learn his teachings because they are too fixated on the literal meaning of holy texts.

Eventually, Hayy gives up and concedes that, for most people, the best path to salvation is simple adherence to Islamic doctrine. He and Absāl return to the empty island and live out the rest of their mortal lives in peaceful meditation. Ibn Tufayl concludes the narrative by claiming that those who are wise enough may be able to follow Hayy’s steps and achieve the same ecstatic union with God.