Hayy Ibn Yaqzan: A Philosophical Tale

“I want only to bring you along the paths in which I have preceded you and let your swim in the sea I have just crossed, so that it may bear you where it did me and you may undergo the same experience and see with the eyes of your soul all that I have seen.”

This quote uses a metaphor to compare the intellectual process of the reader to a traveler on a long journey. Ibn Tufayl sets himself up as a guide to the reader, showing them the correct route by example so that they can learn by seeing the same things that he has seen. This analogy helps to set up the educational philosophy of the text, suggesting that the reader can only achieve spiritual enlightenment by experiencing the same stages that Hayy does throughout his life.

“The doe felt sorry for the infant and nuzzled him tenderly. She gave him her udder and let him drink her own delicious milk.”

The doe who nurses Hayy when he is an infant is personified in such a way that she takes on the characteristics of a human mother. By denoting that the doe feels sorry for the baby and behaves tenderly toward him, Ibn Tufayl ascribes human-like characteristics to the deer. Hayy’s connection to the animal world reflects the text’s overall notion that humans and animals are mostly similar in their physical bodies, but that humans possess a unique immortal soul with the capacity to reflect the light of God.

“If this image grows so strong in a man that its reality eclipses all other forms, the splendor of its light setting afire all it apprehends so that it alone remains, then it is like the mirror reflecting on itself, burning everything else. This happens only to prophets, the blessings of God upon them.”

Mirrors are an important symbol in the text. By using analogy and symbolism, Ibn Tufayl explains the unique qualities of a prophet by using the image of a mirror. While other human souls are compared to mirrors that can reflect the image of God, the text distinguishes prophets by comparing them to mirrors that reflect sunlight so intensely that they can set things on fire. The mirror is therefore not reflecting any of the material world, but only showing its own light, denoting the way that prophets such as Muhammad are able to reveal the Word of God to the mortal world without being corrupted by materiality.

“His self esteem rose a bit as he observed how superior his hands were to those of an animal. They enabled him to cover his nakedness and to make sticks for self-defense, so he no longer needed natural weapons or the tail he had longed for.”

The story of Hayy’s childhood uses irony to draw attention to how humans are both inferior to and superior to animals. While Hayy initially focuses on his physical defects in comparison to animals, he begins to realize that he has superior qualities once he begins to use reason. Hayy notices his skilled hands, but hints that the real value of his dexterous hands is related to his ability to craft tools. This supports the text’s overall argument that human reasoning can lead a human to spiritual perfection, introducing Observation Versus Intuitive Reasoning.

“These observations led him to believe that not only his sense, but every one of his other bodily functions were liable to obstructions that might block its work. When the block was removed it would return to its normal functioning.”

Hayy uses logical syllogisms to try to understand his doe mother’s death. Hayy first develops a major premise that his sensory organs stop working when they are blocked, such as when he covers one eye or plugs his nose. Since the major premise is true, Hayy applies his mother’s lack of sensory function as a minor premise, therefore concluding that her body must have some blockage within it. However, this syllogism is revealed to be flawed, as the issue with the deer is an absence of spirit rather than a blockage of the physical body.

“I can only believe that what I was searching for was here but left, leaving the chamber empty and the body without sensation or motion, completely unable to function.”

In this quote, Hayy corrects his early syllogism by adding to his understanding of medical knowledge. Hayy posits the premise that no organ of the body would be empty and have no purpose. When he discovers an empty chamber in the doe’s heart, he therefore concludes that it must have once held something and that the thing’s absence is the cause of her death. This logical deduction made through sensory observation and scientific thinking eventually leads Hayy to develop a concept of the soul, suggesting The Compatibility of Science and Theology.

“Seeing how it always moved upwards, as though trying to rise, he supposed it must be one of those jewel-substances he saw shining in the sky.”

This quote calls attention to the captivating and special nature of fire. Hayy notices the tendency of fire to move upwards, bringing his attention to the stars in the sky. He compares the stars to jewels, emphasizing their beauty. Hayy’s appreciation for stars will eventually lead him to develop Sufi meditation practices, such as whirling in imitation of orbits. His discovery of fire foreshadows his later developments as he begins to consider astronomy.

“Cutting into the heart, he saw the chamber filled with a steamy gas, like white mist. He poked in his finger—it was so hot it nearly burnt him, and the animal died instantly.”

Through the process of vivisection, Hayy discovers material evidence of the soul. The simile that compares the gas to white mist implies that the soul is similar to the elements of air and fire. Like air and fire, the soul is inclined to rise, suggesting its innate draw toward the heavens and therefore toward spiritual perfection. This discovery helps to establish the theme of The Compatibility of Science and Theology, especially the study of medicine.

“So he judged that he himself was many and so was everything else.”

When Hayy comes to recognize the unity of all material things, the text utilizes a short sentence and parallel structure to make this revelation stand out. The parallel structure conveys that the word “many” applies to both Hayy and everything else, creating a greater sense of unity. The author seeks to draw the reader’s attention to this moment by varying his syntax, summing up a complex explanation with a shorter statement.

“The spirit itself was one. And it was this which was his real self, all other organs serving as its tools. He thus established for himself that he himself was one.”

Ibn Tufayl employs personification and allegory to explain the relationship between the soul and the body. Rather than viewing the body as a part of a person’s individual identity, the text constructs the body as a tool being used by the spirit. The spirit is therefore the true self, while the body is simply a form of technology. This analogy illuminates the author’s argument that the material, sensory world is less important than the spiritual, metaphysical world.

“Before him loomed the forms of physical things in all their diversity. This was his first glimpse of the spiritual world. For these forms cannot be apprehended by the senses, but only by reasoning.”

This quote employs imagery and metaphorical language involving sight to explain Hayy’s discovery of the world of forms. By describing the forms “looming” and Hayy “glimpsing” this world, Ibn Tufayl creates an impression of the forms as large objects that Hayy begins to perceive with his sight. This metaphorical language alludes back to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, the image originally used to describe all material objects as shadows on the wall of a cave, while the real object casting the shadow is outside in the light.

“He was able to see how a great number of bodies participate in a certain form, from which emanates a given mode or given modes of behavior.”

The use of the term “emanates” in this sentence suggests an allusion to the Neoplatonic philosophy of Plotinus (204-207 CE). Ibn Tufayl suggests that forms are what give material objects certain qualities such as heaviness, dryness, or heat. The form emanates these qualities to many types of material objects, causing them to take on that particular physical characteristic. The logic of emanations becomes critical when Hayy realizes that there must be a singular entity from which all creation originally emanates, leading him to his first conception of God.

“Processing now a broad if indistinct notion of this great Subject, Hayy found in himself a burning desire to know Him more fully.”

When Hayy first conceives of the existence of a Creator, the text employs metaphorical language associated with fire to suggest the intensity of Hayy’s desire. By describing the feeling as “burning,” the text harkens back to Hayy’s earlier fascination with fire as a substance that seeks to rise toward the heavens, as well as the allegory of prophets burning with the light of God. Fire is associated with religious passion, implying that Hayy’s intellectual desire to understand the Creator is a sign of his advancing spiritual state.

“Now every motion requires a mover.”

This statement uses the rhetorical device of aphorism, a short statement that presents a principle as universally true. In this context, the use of aphorism serves to emphasize the logical nature of Hayy’s discovery of God. Since the aphorism is true in physics, the author suggests that it must therefore be true when it comes to the creation of the universe, thus necessitating the existence of an all-powerful Creator.

“It was as an expression of the Maker’s power that he saw each thing now, marvelling at His wonderful craftsmanship, the elegance of His plan and the ingenuity of His work.”

Ibn Tufayl uses an analogy, comparing God’s creation of the universe to a craftsman building something. This analogy was common in many medieval works, drawing attention to the way that the material world can be interpreted to gain knowledge of God because of His role in building it. While many religious traditions practiced asceticism and warned against a fixation on material things, the analogy of God as craftsperson speaks to the productive role that sensory observation can have in leading a person to spiritual perfection.

“He is being, perfection, and wholeness. He is beauty, power, and knowledge. He is He.”

This sentence features the literary device of anaphora, wherein the writer repeats a word or phrase at the beginning of subsequent sentences or clauses. By repeating “he is” at the beginning of each sentence, Ibn Tufayl emphasizes the significance of these revelations as well as adding a sense of grandeur and dramatic rhythm to the prose. The final sentence uses repetition to convey the paradoxical and enigmatic nature of the divine—suggesting that the Creator is so all-powerful that He can only be expressed as a symbol of Himself.

“If there is a Being Whose perfection is infinite, Whose splendor and goodness know no bounds, Who is beyond perfection, goodness, and beauty, a Being such that no perfection, no goodness, no beauty, no splendor does not flow from Him, then to lose hold of such a Being and having known Him to be unable to find Him must mean infinite torture as long as He is not found.”

This quote employs an asyndeton, a literary device where coordinating conjunctions between words are deliberately eliminated. The long list of qualities associated with the divine is made more overwhelming by the elimination of conjunctions such as “and,” creating a long sentence. The impact of this technique is a sense of overwhelming positive qualities, thus creating a jarring break at the idea of losing access to the divine.

“All of them would turn to nothing, or next to nothing.”

In this quote, Hayy understands himself as significantly different from other animals because animals lack awareness of God and do not possess the same immortal soul capable of comprehending divinity. Since the animal soul is not able to turn toward God, Hayy determines that animals are not eternal. The repetition of the word “nothing” draws attention to the insignificance of animal life in comparison to human life.

“This tormented Hayy, for he knew it was a blot on the purity of the experience, division of his attention as if with some other God. Hayy made a concerted effort to purge his awareness-of-the-Truth, die to himself.”

As Hayy attempts to achieve a state of ecstatic awareness of God, he is troubled by his subjectivity asserting itself and distracting him. The author employs imagery and metaphor to suggest that Hayy’s sense of himself is like a blot on an otherwise clean surface, blocking his view of God. Similarly, the concept that Hayy must “die to himself” uses the metaphor of death as a symbol of absence, indicating the extreme lengths that Hayy must go to in order for his subjectivity to not get in the way of his path to spiritual perfection.

“It seems to be a bat that interrupts me, its eyes blinded by the sun, baffled in the meshes of its own mad confusion, crying ‘This time your hair-splitting has gone too far. You have shed what the intelligent know by instinct and abandoned the rule of reason. It is an axiom of reason that a thing must be either one or many.’”

This quote uses an analogy and features a moment of interjection by the authorial voice rather than a continuation of the narrative. The analogy of a blind, confused bat annoying the author suggests that any readers questioning the metaphysical philosophy of the text are similarly obnoxious and ignorant. Rhetorically, Ibn Tufayl constructs an imaginary critic as another speaker within the text so that he can more effectively address the possible criticism of his logic while speaking to the theme of Observation Versus Intuitive Reasoning.

“As the world of the senses loomed back into view, the divine world vanished, for the two cannot be joined in one state of being—like two wives: if you make one happy, you make the other miserable.”

Using a simile, Ibn Tufayl compares Hayy’s inability to see both the divine and the sensory world at the same time to a husband’s inability to please two different wives. This simile creates a comedic tone after the elevated and serious description of the divine and The Inexpressible Nature of Ecstasy that preceded it. By including this simile here, the author signals to the reader that the philosophical tale is shifting back to a less-magnificent subject.

“Hayy, for his part, had not the least idea what Absāl was, since he had the form of no animal he had ever laid eyes on. Besides, he was wearing a long, black cloak of wool and goat hair, which Hayy took to be his natural coat.”

The first encounter between Hayy and another human, Absāl, employs perspective and irony to emphasize Hayy’s ignorance about the wider world. While Hayy has achieved great wisdom in spiritual matters, his failure to initially recognize another human because of his clothing shows how his isolation has caused him to be extremely naïve about other humans. This detail foreshadows how Hayy will fail to find spiritual equals among the other humans on Absāl’s island and eventually return to living in isolation.

“Thus they served God on the island until man’s certain fate overtook them.”

The conclusion of the text employs a euphemism, a form of figurative language wherein a term indirectly expresses another topic, often one seen as taboo or unpleasant. In this quote, the term “man’s certain fate” is a euphemism for death. The impact of the euphemism serves to remind the reader that death is inevitable for all humans, and therefore humans should rationally spend their lives seeking to prepare their souls for the afterlife.