The 100 Greatest Muslims (2022): 82 - Ibn Tufayl, The 12th Century Author of Hayy ibn Yaqdhan (Philosophus Autodidactus), the Precursor for Robinson Crusoe

Ibn Tufayl (or Ibn Ṭufail) (full Arabic name: ʾAbu Bakr Muḥammad bin ʿAbd al-Malik bin Muḥammad bin Ṭufayl al-Qaysiyy al-ʾAndalusiyy; Latinized form: Abubacer Aben Tofail; Anglicized form: Abubekar or Abu Jaafar Ebn Tophail), (b. 1105, Guadix, Andalusia, Almoravid Dynasty [today's Spain] – d. 1185, Marrakesh, Almohad Caliphate [today's Morocco]) was an Arab Andalusian Muslim polymath.  He was a writer, philosopher, theologian, physician, astronomer, and vizier.  

As a philosopher and novelist, Ibn Tufayl is most famous for writing the first philosophical novel, Hayy ibn Yaqdhan.  As a physician, he was an early supporter of dissection and autopsy.

Born in Guadix, near Granada, Ibn Tufayl was educated by Ibn Bajja (Avempace). His family descended from the Arab Qays tribe. Ibn Tufayl was a secretary for several leaders, including the rulers of Ceuta and Tangier, in 1154. He also served as a secretary for the ruler of Granada, and later as vizier and physician for Abu Yaqub Yusur, the Almohad caliph, to whom he recommended Ibn Rushd (Averroes) as his own future successor in 1169.   Ibn Rushd later reported this event and describes how Ibn Tufayl then inspired him to write his famous Aristotelian commentaries:

Abu Bakr ibn Tufayl summoned me one day and told me that he had heard the Commandeer of the Faithful complaining about the disjointedness of Aristotle's mode of expression — or that of the translators — and the resultant obscurity of his intentions. He said that if someone took on these books who could summarize them and clarify their aims after first thoroughly understanding them himself, people would have an easier time comprehending them. “If you have the energy,” Ibn Tufayl told me, “you do it. I'm confident you can because I know what a good mind and devoted character you have, and how dedicated you are to the art. You understand that only my great age, the cares of my office — and my commitment to another task that I think even more vital — keep me from doing it myself.”

Ibn Rushd became Ibn Tufayl's successor after Ibn Tufayl retired in 1182.  Ibn Tufayl died several years later in Morocco in 1185. The astronomer Nur Ed-Din Al-Bitruji was also a disciple of Ibn Tufayl. Al-Bitruji was influenced by Ibn Tufayl to follow the Aristotelian system of astronomy, as he had originally followed the Ptolemaic system of astronomy.

Ibn Tufayl's work in astronomy was historically significant as he played a major role in overturning the Ptolemaic ideas on astronomy.  This event in history is called the ''Andalusian Revolt”, where he influenced many, including Al-Bitruji, to desert the Ptolemaic ideas.

Ibn Tufayl is the author of Hayy ibn Yaqdhan (Ḥayy bin Yaqẓan or Hayy ibn Yaqzan --"Alive, Son of Awake"), also known as Philosophus Autodidactus in Latin, a philosophical romance and allegorical novel inspired by Avicennism and Sufism, and which tells the story of an autodidactic (a self-educated) feral child (Hayy), raised by a gazelle and living alone on a desert island, who, without contact with other human beings, discovers ultimate truth through a systematic process of reasoned inquiry. Hayy ultimately comes into contact with civilization and religion when he meets a castaway named Absal (Asal in some translations). Hayy determines that certain trappings of religion, namely imagery and dependence on material goods, are necessary for the multitude in order that they might have decent lives. However, imagery and material goods are distractions from the truth and ought to be abandoned by those whose reason recognizes that they are. 

The names of the characters in the novel, Hayy ibn Yaqdhan, Ḥayy, Salaman, and Absal were borrowed from Ibn Sina's tales.  The title of the novel is also the same as Ibn Sina's novel. Ibn Tufayl did this on purpose to use the characters and the title as a deliberate reference to Ibn Sina, as Ibn Tufayl wanted to touch upon Ibn Sina's philosophy.

Ibn Tufayl's Philosophus Autodidactus was written as a response to al-Ghazali's The Incoherence of the Philosophers.  In the 13th century, Ibn al-Nafis later wrote the Al-Risalah al-Kamiliyyah fil Siera al-Nabawiyyah (known as Theologus Autodidactus in the West) as a response to Ibn Tufayl's Philosophus Autodidactus.

Hayy ibn Yaqdhan had a significant influence on both Arabic literature and European literature.  The novel went on to become an influential best-seller throughout Western Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries. The work also had a "profound influence" on both classical Islamic philosophy and modern Western philosophy.  It became one of the most important books that heralded the Scientific Revolution and the European Enlightenment, and the thoughts expressed in the novel can be found in different variations and to different degrees in the books of Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Isaac Newton, and Immanuel Kant.   

A Latin translation of Hayy ibn Yaqdhan, entitled Philosophus Autodidactus, first appeared in 1671, prepared by Edward Pococke the Younger. The first English translation (by Simon Ockley) was published in 1708. These translations later may have inspired Daniel Defoe to write Robinson Crusoe, which also featured a desert island narrative.  The novel also inspired the concept of "tabula rasa" developed in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690) by John Locke, who was a student of Pococke.  His Essay went on to become one of the principal sources of empiricism in modern Western philosophy, and influenced many enlightenment philosophers, such as David Hume and George Berkeley.  Ibn Tufayl's ideas on materialism as set forth in the novel also have some similarities to Karl Marx's historical materialism. Ibn Tufayl's work also foreshadowed Molyneux's Problem, proposed by William Molyneux to Locke, who included it in the second book of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Other European writers influenced by Philosophus Autodidactus included Gottfried Leibniz, Melchisedech Thevenot, John Wallis, Christiaan Huygens, George Keith, Robert Barclay, the Quakers, Samuel Hartlib, and Voltaire.  

Ibn Ṭufayl, in full Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn Ṭufayl al-Qaysi, also called Abu Bakr Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn Ṭufayl al-Qaysī, (Latin: Abubacer), was influenced by the works of Ibn Sina (Avicenna) and Ibn Bajja (Avempace), the latter of whom was instrumental in introducing the Islamic philosophical tradition to Spain,  and was a contemporary of Ibn Rushd (Averroes). He served as the court physician and general adviser to the Almohad ruler Abu Yaʿqub Yusuf from 1163 to 1184.

Ibn Tufayl's Hayy ibn Yaqhdan depicts the life and growth of a fictitious figure, born on a desert island in the Indian Ocean.  This figure is able to rise by degrees to the highest level of intellectual insight or discovery. Through observation and reflection, Hayy is able, without any contact with other human beings, to discover the truth about God, the physical world, and the ultimate conjunction with the active intellect.  Unlike his predecessor, Ibn Bajja, Ibn Tufayl argued that the contemplative or intellectual ideal of the Neoplatonists is not enough, because in that ideal the soul is not able to overcome the consciousness of its separate identity in relation to the Necessary Being.  In Sufi fashion, Ibn Tufayl argued instead that to achieve the condition of perfect union with its source, the soul must rise to the level of ecstasy that the Sufis have called extinction in unity.  This represents the total annihilation of selfhood and the recognition that in reality nothing exists other than the True One.  Everything else, spiritual or corporeal, considered in itself is nothing, as the Sufi masters had always contended.

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Hayy ibn Yaqdhan (Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓan) ("Alive, son of Awake") is an Arabic philosophical novel and an allegorical tale written by Ibn Tufayl in the early 12th century in Al-Andalus (Muslim Spain).  Names by which the book is also known include the Latin: Philosophus Autodidactus ('The Self-Taught Philosopher'); and English: The Improvement of Human Reason: Exhibited in the Life of Hai Ebn Yokdhan. Ḥayy ibn Yaqdhan was named after an earlier Arabic philosophical romance of the same name, written by Ibn Sina during his imprisonment in the early 11th century, even though both tales had different stories.  The novel greatly inspired Islamic philosophy as well as major Enlightenment major Enlightenmennt thinkers. Ḥayy ibn Yaqdhan is the third most translated text from Arabic, after the Qur'an and the One Thousand and One Nights.  

Hayy ibn Yaqdhan, along with three poems, is all that remains of the writings of Ibn Tufayl (c. 1105 – 1185), who lived under the Almohads and served Sultan Abu Yaqub Yusuf.  The book was influential among medieval Jewish scholars at the Toledo School of Translators run by Raymond de Sauvetat, and its impact can be seen in The Guide for the Perplexed of Maimonides.  It was "discovered" in the West after Edward Pococke of Oxford, while visiting a market in Damascus, found a manuscript of Hayy ibn Yaqdhan made in Alexandria in 1303 containing commentary in Hebrew.  Edward Pococke's son, Edward Pococke, Jr.,  published a Latin translation in 1671, subtitled "The Self-Taught Philosopher." George Keith, the Quaker, translated it into English in 1674, Baruch Spinoza called for a Dutch translation, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz championed the book in German circles, and a copy of the book went to the Sorbonne.  Daniel Defoe (c. 1660 – 1731), author of Robinson Crusoe, was heavily influenced by the work as well as by the memoir of the Scottish castaway Alexander Selkirk.  

In the Muslim world, the book is an honored Sufi text.

The story revolves around Ḥayy ibn Yaqdhan, a little boy who grew up on an island in the Indies under the equator, isolated from the people, in the bosom of an antelope that raised him, feeding him with her milk. Ḥayy has just learned to walk and imitates the sounds of antelopes, birds, and other animals in his surroundings. He learns their languages, and he learns to follow the actions of animals by imitating their instinct. 

Hayy makes his own shoes and clothes from the skins of animals, and studies the stars. He reaches a higher level of knowledge, -- a level of knowledge only achieved by the finest of intellects.  His continuous explorations and observation of creatures and the environment lead him to gain great knowledge in natural science, philosophy, and religion. He concludes that, at the basis of the creation of the universe, a great creator must exist. Ḥayy ibn Yaqdhan lived a humble modest life as a Sufi and forbade himself from eating meat.

Upon reaching the age of 30 years old, Hayy meets his first human, who has landed on his isolated island. At the age of 49, Hayy is ready to teach other people about the knowledge he gained throughout his life.

Hayy ibn Yaqdhan is an allegorical novel in which Ibn Tufayl expresses philosophical and mystical teachings in a symbolic language in order to provide better understanding of such concepts. This novel is thus the most important work of Ibn Tufayl, containing the main ideas that form his system.

Ibn Tufayl was familiar with the differences in the ideas of al-Ghazali and those of the Neoplatonizing Aristotelianists, al-Farabi and Ibn Sina.  In Hayy ibn Yaqdhan, Ibn Tufayl sought to present a conciliating synthesis of the Islamic speculative tradition with al-Ghazali’s Sufi-influenced recasting of Islamic mysticism and pietism. Ibn Tufayl borrows from Ibn Sina, using the title of one of his allegories and drawing inspiration from his "Floating Man" thought experiment, but transforming the subject's sensory deprivation to social isolation.

With this novel, Tufayl focuses on finding solutions to the three main problems discussed during his period:

1. Humans, on their own, are able to reach the level of al-Insan al-Kamil -- "the person who has reached perfection" or, literally "the complete person" -- by merely observing and thinking of the nature, without any education.
2. The information that is obtained through observation, experiment, and reasoning, does not contradict with revelation. In other words, religion and philosophy (or science) are compatible, rather than contradictory.
3. Reaching the absolute information is individual and is something that any human being is able to achieve.

Beyond leaving an enormous impact on Andalusi literature, Arabic literature, and classical Islamic philosophy, Hayy ibn Yaqdhan influenced later European literature during the Age of Enlightenment, turning into a best-seller during the 17th-18th centuries. The novel particularly influenced the philosophies and scientific thought of vanguards of modern Western philosophy and the Scientific Revolution such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Christiaan Huygens, Isaac Newton, and Immanuel Kant. Beyond foreshadowing Molyneux's Problem, the novel specifically inspired John Locke's concept of tabula rasa as propounded in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), subsequently inspiring the philosophies of later modern empiricists, such as David Hume and George Berkeley.  The novel's notion of materialism also has similarities to Karl Marx's historical materialism.  The first English translation by Simon Ockley inspired the desert island narrative of Daniel Defoe's classic Robinson Crusoe. 

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Adamec, Ludwig W. (2009), Historical Dictionary of Islam; Scarecrow Press. 

Attar, Samar (2010). The Vital Roots of European Enlightenment: Ibn Tufayl's Influence on Modern Western Thought. Lanham: Lexington Books.

Baroud, Mahmud (2012). The Shipwrecked Sailor in Arabic and Western Literature: Ibn Tufayl and His Influence on European. London.

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Jenkins, Everett, Jr. (1999). The Muslim Diaspora: A Comprehensive Reference to the Spread of Islam in Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas, Volume 1, 570-1500; Jefferson, North Carolina, McFarland & Company, Inc.

Khan, Muhammad Mojlum (2008).  The Muslim 100: The Lives, Thoughts and Achievements of the Most Influential Muslims in History, Leicestershire, United Kingdom: Kube Publishing Ltd.

Lapidus, Ira M. (2014).  A History of Islamic Societies; New York City, New York, Cambridge University Press. 

McGinnis, Jon.  Classical Arabic Philosophy: An Anthology of Sources. Hackett Publishing Company. 

Meri, Josef W. (2005); Medieval Islamic Civilization: An Encyclopedia; New York, Routledge.

Nasr, Seyyed and Leaman, Oliver (1996). History of Islamic philosophy. Routledge. 

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autodidacticism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayy_ibn_Yaqdhan

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_Tufail

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ibn-Tufayl

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