Hayy Ibn Yaqzan: A Philosophical Tale

Hayy Ibn Yaqzān is the protagonist of the philosophical tale and the only character for the majority of the text. He is a human man who lives alone on a remote equatorial island.

Ibn Tufayl offers two explanations for his origin; the more conventional that he was the abandoned son of a princess who entrusted her baby to the ocean, or the alternative that he was spontaneously generated in the clay of the island due to its perfectly balanced climate. Ibn Tufayl explains how a baby could be conceived in this way, relating that “those who claim Hayy came into being spontaneously say that in a pocket of earth on that island, over the years, a mass of clay worked until hot and cold, damp and dry were blended in just the proper way, their strength perfectly balanced” (106). The ideal combination of the elements of physical matter eventually forms a heart with a spirit inside and then a body forms around it. This explanation aligns with Hayy‘s eventual perfection of spirit, his physical formation from basic matter to higher complexity paralleling his education through observation, deduction, and eventually, intuition.

The text revolves around Hayy’s development and process of spiritual enlightenment, dividing his life into a sequence of 7-year periods. Each of these periods marks an evolution of his understanding of the world until by the age of 50 he is regularly able to achieve ecstatic union with God and finds the material world entirely irrelevant. When he is finally brought into contact with the outside world, Hayy initially seeks to become a teacher and reveals the truths he has learned to other men. However, after realizing that most men lack the wisdom to understand what he is teaching them, Hayy returns to isolation and eventually dies back on the equatorial island.

The descriptions of Hayy‘s physical condition suggest that his aging serves as an allegory for the development of all human civilization. As a child, Hayy is raised by a doe and lives essentially like an animal. He is initially ashamed of his human form in comparison to the animal body: “[H]e looked back at himself and realized how naked and defenseless he was” (110). To compensate for his deficiencies, he makes clothing out of eagle feathers and eventually out of animal skins. He develops simple technologies such as spears, and eventually fire. By the time he is an adult, Hayy is easily able to dominate the island and bend animals to his will, taming wild horses and using tools to hunt.

Once he masters these technologies, he ironically stops using them. As Hayy gains spiritual enlightenment, he begins to subsist only on plants, eating only the fruits that are naturally dropped. He is annoyed by the needs of his material body and subsists on as little food and water as possible: “[H]e would stay riveted to his station, turning away only to attend to the needs of his body, which had by now so wasted away that a more meagre figure could scarcely be found“ (155-56).

However, the text is careful to note that his ascetic practices do not render him disgusting or animalistic, as “Hayy made sure to always be clean, washing frequently with water, getting all dirt and grime off his body, cleaning his teeth, nails, and every nook and cranny of his body” (146). Hayy’s journey from defenseless child to master of technologies to, ultimately, the purified ascetic represents the civilizing narrative of all humanity, positing the transition from material to spiritual focus as the ultimate goal for all society.