It is to two English scholars, father and son, Edward Pococke, senior and junior, that the world is indebted for the knowledge of one of the most charming productions Arabian philosophy can boast of.

Generally looked upon as a subject of repulsive aridity, in its strange combination of the most heterogeneous philosophical systems, devoid of the grace and charm of attractive style, unbrightened by brilliancy of wit or spirit, Arabian philosophy has, for centuries past, been subject to sad and undeserved neglect.

Yet I cannot imagine a better and more eloquent refutation of this erroneous view than a rendering, in fresh garb, of this romance of Hayy Ibn Yokdhan, simple and ingenuous, yet fragrant with poetry and withal fraught with deep philosophical problems the interest in which I wish to revive.

It was in the year 1671 that there was published by the Oxford University Press, as one of its first issues of Arabic texts, a book called, “Philosophus autodidactus,” edited by Edward Pococke the son, together with a Latin translation. It had a preface that bore the signature of Edward Pococke, the father, and this fact alone was sufficient to stamp it at once as a work in which vast erudition and thoroughness of investigation had joined hands—for both these savants were men of wide reputation and brilliant attainments.

England, that has put students of Oriental lore under such large obligations, has never given to the world a greater Arabic scholar than Edward Pococke, “the Glory and Ornament of his Age and Nation,” the famous author of the “Specimen historiÆ Arabum”;[1] a veritable store-house of historical, scientific, literary, and religious information, and the equally famous editor of the annals of Eutychius and of the history of Dynasties by Abul faradj.

In the splendid array of famous Arabic scholars the last century has produced there are only two in England that rank with Edward Pococke on the same level—two men whose names stand out in bold relief, namely, Edward William Lane, prince among lexicographers, and William Wright, the brilliant exponent of the theories of the native Arabic grammarians.

The co-operation of Edward Pococke, the father, in the edition of this book, “Philosophus autodidactus,” was indeed the best recommendation. To Edward Pococke, the father, is due the honour of having discovered and unearthed this priceless gem of Arabic philosophical literature, whilst the son, “the worthy son of so great a father,” undertook the task, by no means an easy one, of editing the Arabic text and furnishing it with a Latin translation.[2] This Latin translation was undoubtedly for that time a praiseworthy performance; yet, considering the enormous strides Oriental science has made during the last centuries, and with all the new material at hand, we are to-day able to put the philological groundwork on a more solid basis.

In casting about for the work of an Arabian philosopher for the “Wisdom of the East” Series, I could not think of anything more engaging, more captivating, than this simple romance.

Unfortunately, for reasons of space, I could not give a translation in full, but I have given the most interesting parts. On the passages, however, which I had to leave out, I have dwelt at greater length in this Introduction. In the translation I have tried to preserve the cachet, the archaic flavour and spirit of the book.

The idea underlying the story is, as Ockley puts it, to show how human capacity may, unassisted by any external help, attain to the knowledge of the higher world, and so by degrees find out its dependence upon a superior Being, the immortality of the soul, and other questions of the highest importance. In short, it describes the gradual awakening of the soul, the evolution of an original mind from its first groping in the dark to the most dazzling heights of philosophical speculation.

The great charm of the book lies in its simplicity and ingenuousness; in its entire freedom from affectation of style; in the transparent lucidity of its exposition, which is in pleasant contrast with the ponderous works of other philosophical writers amongst the Arabs.

Yet with all its ingenuousness, what sustained power of thought, what depth of philosophical penetration!

Hayy Ibn Yokdhan—this prototype of Robinson Crusoe—truly a pathetic, yet inspiring figure!

The simple setting of a man, living a solitary life on an Island, entirely given up to meditation and introspection, is used by our author as an arena for the display of his philosophical views, which, in kaleidoscopic transformation, cover the whole range of wisdom of those times—astronomical, geographical, cosmographic, physiological,—and so on, the whole picture touched with the wand of the master.

The author of the story, Ibn Tufail, though he is generally not reckoned among the most prominent in that brilliant array of Arabian philosophers for whom Spain became the rallying-point in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, yet his name will outlive centuries. For the romance which he has given to the world is a work of everlasting beauty, of immortal freshness; one that will never grow stale in the flight of ages.

Little is known of his private life, which seems to have passed by as uneventful as that of many of the philosophers and scientists of those ages.

He was born at Guadix, a little town of Andalusia. After having finished his education, he became a secretary at Granada, and later on we find him as Vezir and Physician to Abu Yakub, one of the first representatives of the dynasty of the Almohades. He died in Morocco, in 1185, leaving, besides his story of Hayy Ibn Yokdhan, only a few poems of insignificant value; whilst his principal work, the Self-taught Philosopher, has secured for him immortality.

In the following pages I will endeavour to give a short rÉsumÉ of this story, though I am painfully aware of the fact that such an analysis can scarcely do justice to the beauty of the language nor to the wealth of philosophical thought and speculation represented therein.

From the outset the atmosphere is created with broad and happy touches.

On an Island in the Indian Ocean, famous for its health-giving atmosphere, abounding in fruits and inhabitants, Hayy Ibn Yokdhan comes into this world, as the son of a Princess, who is compelled to expose the child soon after his birth. The tide carries him to another Island, where he is found by a roe, that takes pity on him, nurses him like a mother, and watches over his every movement with tender affection.

Under her care he quickly develops into a fine strapping boy who is not afraid to venture a passage with wild beasts that dare to oppose him.

After the death of the roe, at which he is grief-stricken, he is wholly thrown on his own resources. Yet he knows how to look after himself. He covers himself with leaves of trees, and finds out other ways to keep himself warm and protected.

As the repairing of the coverings of leaves was very troublesome, he had a design of taking the tail of some dead beast and wearing it himself; but when he perceived that all beasts avoided those which were dead of the same kind, it made him doubt whether it was safe or not. At last, by chance he found a dead eagle, and observing that none of the beasts showed any aversion to that carcase, he concluded that this would suit his purpose, and so he cuts off the wings, the tail, and spreads the feathers open: then he draws off the skin and divides it into two equal parts, one of which he wears upon his back; with the other he covers his breast: the tail he wore behind and the wings were placed upon each arm.

This dress answered different ends: for in the first place it covered his nakedness, helped to keep him warm, and then it made him so frightful to the beasts that none of them cared to meddle with him or come near him.

After awhile he began to make experiments with the body of the roe, anxious to find out its composition.

He noticed, when he shut his eyes or held anything before him, he could see nothing at all till this obstacle was removed; and so, when he put his fingers in his ears that he could not hear till he took them out again. From which he concluded that all his senses and actions were liable to obstacles and impediments, upon the removal of which the same functions returned to their former course.

Now, when he found no visible defect in the external parts of the body of the roe, and yet at the same time perceived a universal cessation of its motions, he began to imagine that the hurt from which the roe had died was hidden in the inward part of the body.

Now he had observed on the bodies of wild beasts and other animals that all their members were solid, and that there were only three cavities, viz. the skull, the breast, and belly. He imagined, therefore, that the part the nature of which he wanted to find out must be in one of these cavities, and he had a strong persuasion that it was in the middlemost of them.

And having by this way of reasoning assured himself that the disaffected part lay in the breast, he resolved to open the breast of the roe; and, providing himself with sharp flints and splinters of dry cane almost like knives, he made an incision between the ribs, and, cutting through the flesh, came to the Diaphragm.

When he found this tough and not easily broken, he assured himself that such a covering must belong to that part for which he was looking out. After great efforts he succeeded in breaking through, and the first part he met was the lungs; and at last he found the heart, which he saw closed with a very strong cover and fastened with strong ligaments and guarded with a membrane.

On finding the same membrane on the inside of the ribs, and the lungs in the same posture as on the other side which he had opened first, he concluded the heart to be the part he looked for. When, however, he found that the being which had dwelt there before, had left its house before it fell to ruin, and forsaken it, the whole body seemed to him an inconsiderable thing.

Then his mind was perplexed with a variety of thoughts as to its substance and subsistence, the reason of its departure, etc. After much deliberation, at last he found that from that part of the heart which had departed proceeded all those actions by which the roe had shown her care of him and her affection,—that the body was only as an instrument or tool, like his cudgel with which he used to fight with the wild beasts. Thus all his regard for the body was over and transferred to that by which the body is governed, and by whose power it moves. So he decides in the end to bury the body.

After its burial, the impression of his loneliness and of his dependence upon himself being deepened, he quickly develops his faculties. In a short time he becomes an expert in different sports, as hunting and fishing. He makes himself clothes and shoes of the skins of wild beasts. By the observations he made upon the swallows’ nests, being taught the art of building, he builds with his hands a room for his own use, a store-house, and a pantry. Then he contrives to make some wild horses so tractable that he can use them for riding, which is a great help to him in his expeditions and excursions.

His material existence thus once firmly established and secured, he begins to indulge in his speculations on all sorts of bodies,—on the different kinds of animals, plants, minerals and different sorts of stones, earth, water, exhalations and vapours, ice, snow, hail, smoke, fire, etc.

By the time he attains to the age of twenty-eight (fourth Septenary), his mind starts to ponder over astronomical problems—over heaven and stars, sun and moon; and in the end comes to the conclusion that the body of heaven is finite and is of a spherical figure.

At last his mind finds itself occupied with the great problem of Creation and Creator. With admirable skill the author delineates here the gradual development of Hayy’s reasonings on the Creator and Mover of the world, and concludes with the panegyric words of the Koran: He is the Existence, He is the Absoluteness, He is the Perfection, He is the Beauty, He is the Glory, He is the Power, He is the Knowledge, He is He, and all Things perish beside Him.

All his thoughts were henceforward confined to the contemplation of this necessarily self-existent Being. In order to do this, he removed all his affections from sensible things, shut his eyes, stopped his ears, and refrained himself as much as possible from following his imagination, endeavouring to the utmost to think of nothing besides him.

Whilst so, on the one side, the imagination and all the other faculties which make any use of the organs of the body grew weak; on the other side, the operations of his essence which did not depend upon the body grew strong, so that sometimes his meditation was pure and free from any mixture, and he beheld thereby the necessarily self-existent Being; but then again corporeal faculties would return upon him and spoil his contemplation, and bring him down to the lowest degree.

Thus he continued, he opposing his corporeal faculties, and they opposing him, and mutually struggling one against another. Then, when he observed that the negative attributes consisted in separation from bodily things, he began to strip himself of all bodily properties—to remove and reject all those things from himself, as being in no wise consistent with that state which he was now in search of.

Thus he continued, confining himself to rest in the bottom of his cave, with his head bowed down and his eyes shut, and turning himself altogether from all sensible things and the corporeal faculties, and turning all his thoughts and meditations upon the necessarily self-existent Being without admitting anything else besides him: and if any other object presented itself to his imagination, he rejected it with his utmost force, and persisted therein to that degree that sometimes he did neither eat nor stir for many days together.

When he succeeded in preventing the admission of an extraneous object into that contemplation, he endeavoured as it were to disappear from himself—to detach himself entirely from his corporeal faculties, so as to be wholly taken up in the vision of that true Being.

And, thereto when at last he attained both the heaven and the earth, all spiritual forms and corporeal faculties, and all those powers that are separate from matter, all disappeared and vanished, and were as if they had never been. And amongst these his own being disappeared too, till at last there remained nothing but this One, True, Perpetually Self-existent Being, who spoke thus in that saying of his (the Koran): To whom now belongs the Kingdom? To this One, the Almighty God.

Thus he deeply immersed himself into this state, and witnessed “that which neither eye hath seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it ever entered into the heart of man to conceive.”

When he came to himself from that state which was like drunkenness—he began to think that his own essence did not at all differ from the essence of that True Being, and that there was nothing in him but this true essence. It appeared to him that this True, Powerful, and Glorious Being was not by any means capable of multiplicity, and that his knowledge of his essence was his very essence, from whence he argued thus: “He that has the knowledge of this essence, has the essence itself, but I have the knowledge of this essence. Ergo, I have the essence itself.”

Now Hayy Ibn Yokdhan being wholly immersed in the speculation of those things, and perfectly abstracted from all other objects, saw in the highest sphere a Being devoid of any maker; it was like the image of the sun which appears in a well-polished looking-glass. In the essence of that separate sphere he saw such perfection, splendour, and beauty, as is too great to be expressed by any tongue and too subtle to be clothed in words. It was, as he perceived it, in the utmost perfections of delight and joy, exaltation of gladness.

The next sphere to it—that of the fixed stars, had an immaterial essence that was not the essence of that True one, nor the essence of that highest, separated sphere, nor the sphere itself, but like the image of the sun that is reflected upon a looking-glass from another glass placed opposite to the sun; and in this essence he observed also the like splendour, beauty, loveliness, and pleasure that he had observed in the essence of the other highest sphere; the same splendour and delight he saw also in other essences. In fact, in all the spheres he observed immaterial distinct essences of the same kind; he saw such beauty, splendour, pleasure, and joy as eye has not seen nor ear heard, until he came to the lower world, subject to generation and corruption, which comprehends all that is contained within the sphere of the moon.

This essence, immaterial like the rest, had seventy thousand faces, and every face seventy thousand mouths, and every mouth seventy thousand tongues, that sanctified and glorified incessantly that One, True Being.

Now, he perceived in his own essence, and in those other ones that were in the same rank with him, infinite beauty, brightness, and light, such as neither eye has seen nor ear heard, nor has it entered into man’s heart, which none can describe nor understand, but those which have attained thereto, and know it by experience.

But, on the other hand, he saw a great many other immaterial essences that resembled rusty looking-glasses, covered over with filth, and having their faces marked from those polished looking-glasses that had the image of the sun imprinted upon them. These essences had so much filthiness adhering to them, and such manifold defects, as he could not have conceived. Besides they were afflicted with infinite pains, that caused incessant sighs and groans; they were compassed with torments and “scorched with the fiery veil of separation.”

Then, when he came to consider the divine essences and heroic spirits, he found them to be free from body and all its adherents, and removed from them at the utmost distance, having no connection or dependence upon them; their sole connection and dependence being that One True Necessary Self-existent Being who is the beginning and the cause of their existence.

Now, though the sensible world follows the divine world as a shadow does the body, and the divine world stands in no need of it and is independent of it; yet, it is absurd to suppose a possibility of its being annihilated, because it follows the divine world: but the corruption of this world consists in its being changed, not annihilated. And that glorious book (the Koran) spoke, where is no mention made of “moving the Mountains and making them like the world, and men like fire-flies, and darkening the Sun and Moon; and eruption of the Sea in that day when the earth shall be changed into another earth and the heavens likewise.”

This is the substance of what Hayy saw when in his glorious state of ecstasy.

When Hayy, after his digression into the higher world, returned to the sensible world, he began to loathe the troubles of this mortal life on earth, and became very anxious to return to the same state he had been in before.—And by dint of continued exercise and strenuous endeavour he was at last able to attain to that state whenever his desire drove him to do so. While in this state he wished that God might detach him altogether from his body and bodily desires and necessities, so that he might give himself up for ever to his delight, and be freed from all grief and pain.

In the meantime he had passed the Seventh Septenary, and had attained to the age of fifty. And then came suddenly the great metamorphosis in his life, viz. his connection and acquaintanceship with another human being, called Asal.

This came about in the following way:

Not very far from the Island where Hayy passed his days, there was another Island to which had retired one of those pious sects which abounded then in that part of the world. Among its votaries were the most zealous and devoted members, two men, named Asal and Salaman. Though both were constant in performing those ceremonies prescribed by the law of this sect, they greatly differed in their character and in their propensities.

Asal, being of a contemplative and meditative disposition, affected retirement from the world and a solitary life as the best means to attain to happiness and salvation. Salaman, on the other hand, with his natural aversion to contemplation, and subtle inquiries into the higher world of things, preferred conversation, human society, and company, as the best means to drive away evil thoughts. Though they were the best of friends, this disparity in their views caused them in the end to separate.

Asal, advised of the fertility and health-giving atmosphere of that Island wherein Hayy Ibn Yokdhan dwelled, decided to go thither. After having sold his goods, and having distributed part thereof among the poor, he hired a ship and was transported into Hayy’s Island.

As Hayy, being wholly taken up in sublime speculations, scarcely ever stirred out of his cave, Asal did not at first light upon him. One day, however, when Hayy was stepping out of his cell to look out for some food, he spied Asal—and the following episode forms one of the most charming chapters of the story in its description of how Hayy brings Asal to book, and how they try to make themselves understood to one another.

Hayy, who is taken by Asal to be one of those religious persons given to solitude, like himself, who had retired to that Island to give himself up to contemplation and prayers, stands, on his part, in wonder and amazement at the appearance of Asal. He could not imagine what it was. For of all the creatures he had ever beheld in his life, there was none that in the least resembled him. And in the end he came to the conclusion that he must be one of the essences, that had the knowledge of the True One. He is anxious to get into closer contact with him; and therefore, when he sees Asal making off with all might and in great haste, he follows him, and, being endowed with great bodily vigour, overtakes him, seizes him, and holds him fast so that he could not get off again.

When Asal looked upon him, and beheld him clothed with the skins of wild beasts, and his own hair so long that it covered part of his body, he felt great fear of him and tried to pacify him by stroking him. Hayy, on the other hand, when he perceived those tokens of his fear, endeavoured to allay it with such vocal expressions as he had learned from some animals, and furthermore by stroking, with great gentleness, his hand, his head, his neck, until he succeeded, by the expression of great kindness and joy, in allaying Asal’s fears.

Then Asal, being a great expert in languages, began to question him concerning his doings and ways of life in all the languages he was master of. But Hayy did not understand anything of all that was said to him; and so they stood for a long time, wrapped up in wonder, looking at one another.

Asal, however, did not lose hope that it should come to pass that he should teach him languages, knowledge, and religion; and by dint of patience and application, he at last succeeded in teaching him the rudiments of language; and then he very quickly advanced him so far that he could converse with him any length of time.

Thereupon, he began to question him about his past and about his manner of living, and Hayy described to him the progress he had made in knowledge until he had attained to that degree of union with God, and told him of those essences that are separated from the sensible world; and of that essence, the True One, the Almighty and Glorious, with all his glorious attributes.

When Asal heard of all this, the eyes of his heart were opened and his mind enlightened, and he realised that all those rules and precepts he had been taught himself in his law, regarding the Almighty and Glorious God, his Angels and Books, his Messengers and the Day of Judgment, Paradise and Hell, were, in fact, resemblances of what Hayy had seen, and that his religion and Hayy’s philosophy were only two different forms of the One Eternal Truth.

Now, when Hayy heard from Asal, in the course of their further conversations and discussions, of the sad state of the inner life which the people on Asal’s Island lived in, he was greatly affected with pity towards them, and a resolution entered into his mind of going over to them in the hope and desire to become an instrument in their salvation. Asal quickly fell in with this plan. So they took the first ship that passed the shore of their Island and repaired to the opposite Island.

When they arrived there, Asal’s friends gathered round him, anxious to hear of his adventures; and when they heard his account of Hayy Ibn Yokdhan, they flocked together from all sides, surrounding him with all tokens of reverence and admiration.

Hayy sets to work at once. He begins to explain to them the mysteries of wisdom, and to inculcate them with those precepts with which he was imbued. But as they were diametrically opposed to the notions deeply rooted in their minds, they began to withdraw themselves from him, and to loathe and abhor him; outwardly, however, in his presence, making a great show of kindness.

Hayy soon found out that it was hopeless to reform these people, whose only God was their lusts and appetites, blinded and captivated as they were by the trifles and vanities of this world, tossed up and down until they tottered to their graves. He saw that God had sealed up their hearts and ears, a thick mist being before their eyes and sore punishment abiding them.

When Hayy saw how things stood—that there was no salvation for this weak, tractable, and defective sort of men, he craved pardon for the things he had spoken and desisted from further efforts in that direction.

Greatly disappointed at being unable to regenerate Salaman’s subjects, he bade him farewell and returned with Asal to his Island. There they continued to devote themselves to contemplation and the search after the Eternal Truth, and did not cease worshipping God until death laid his hands upon them.

These are the outlines of the story of Hayy Ibn Yokdhan.

Both Myth and History are the parents of many of its most touching and tender motives.

Stranded, or rather exposed on an Island by his mother, a Princess—who is not reminded of the same motive in a biblical story?—nursed by a Roe—another favourite motive of semi-mythical periods.

Later on, wholly left to his own resources, yet nothing daunted, by sheer pluck and energy he builds himself up a material existence, then by the sharpness of his wit, the originality and penetration of his thought, the incisiveness of his intuition, he rapidly builds up a spiritual structure of Nature, Heaven, and its Mover and Ruler, God, until, at the age of fifty, he has attained to that highest stage of Sufic evolution, the Ecstasy, the complete immersion in, and absorption by, the One Essence, the True One, that Eternal Being: Ecstasy, the same state which is so beautifully described by that famous Arabian philosopher, Avicenna, when he says:—“Then when a man’s desires are raised to a high pitch, and he is sufficiently well exercised in that way, there will appear to him some small glimmerings of the Truth, as it were flashes of lightning, very delightful, which just shine upon him and then go out. Then the more he exercises himself, the more often he’ll perceive them ... till through frequent exercise he at last attains to a perfect tranquillity: and that which used to appear to him only by fits and starts, becomes habitual; and that which was only a glimmering before, a constant light.”

To detach and deliver the soul—if only for a few hours—from the withering despotism of everyday life and strife, grey and monotonous with its eternal round of toil, worry, and trouble; to bathe the soul in the full sunshine of sublime wisdom, depicted and represented in this simple romance, with its exquisite charm and captivating grace, clear as crystal yet pregnant with ideas that have moved the world—this was the idea which guided me in embarking upon this work.

If I have succeeded in this task, even only in a small degree, by resuscitating this gem of Arabian philosophical literature—then I consider myself richly repaid for the labour I have bestowed on this little book, which has, indeed, been a labour of love.

Paul BrÖnnle.

25th April 1904.

This book, by the way, was the first book in Arabic type which issued from the Oxford University Press, just as his “Porta Mosis,” containing the six Prefatory Discourses of Maimonides on the Mishna, was the first Hebrew text (in fact Arabic with Hebrew characters) printed at Oxford.