Title:
Hayy Ibn Yaqzan in the 20th century
Author:
Leigh A. Carter
Thesis Advisor:
Frederick C. Bauerschmidt
Committee Member:
David J. Decosimo
Committee Member:
John Kiess
Degree Granting Institution:
Loyola University Maryland--College of Arts and Sciences
Place:
Baltimore (Md.)
Publisher:
Loyola University Maryland
Date Created:
2012
Type of Resource:
text
Genre:
thesis
Language:
eng
Format:
application/pdf
Physical Form:
electronic
Digital Source:
born digital
Abstract:
Ibn Ṭufayl’s Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān, written towards the end of the 12th century, has been thought to be “about” many different things. Some argue that Ibn Ṭufayl was attempting to demonstrate the harmony between religious truths and philosophical truths. Others believe that Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān is about a person’s capacity to be self-educated through their own rational faculties. Some see the novel’s protagonist to be an archetype of man, with the narrative showing the progress of human history throughout the ages like a child growing into an enlightened adult. Or Ḥayy is an archetype of a Muslim philosopher, developing from Aristotelian empiricism to Sufi gnosticism. Ḥayy might be the ideal mystic, living in isolation in total harmony with his surroundings, or the ideal philosopher whose rational capacities drove him to the height of human knowledge. There is also the issue of the treatise’ form: did Ibn Ṭufayl write Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān as a narrative in order to draw a veil over his communication of dangerous philosophical knowledge, hiding it from unworthy eyes? Or was Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān written as a narrative in order to make an oft obtuse philosophical discourse comprehensible to those lacking training in the natural sciences? How autobiographical is this work? Some scholars argue that Ibn Ṭufayl considered himself to be Ḥayy: an enlightened member of the intellectual elite, socially distant from the ignorant throngs of those blindly following religious laws. Others argue that Ibn Ṭufayl disguised his philosophical claims beneath religious symbols and Qur’anic references to keep him safe against the totalitarian and religiously zealous regime of the Almohads. In the present essay, I will draw attention to the diversity of opinions held by scholars since the publication of Léon Gauthier’s critical Arabic edition of Ibn Ṭufayl’s Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān near the turn of the 20th century. This small novel has a very important position in the history of ideas, as many have demonstrated.1 Therefore, it is important to understand the author’s intentions in writing the book as well as his intended message. This is apparently very difficult, as indicated by the diversity of opinions on the matter. However, this is perhaps not due to any ambiguities in the text or to the scarcity of biographical information of Ibn Ṭufayl but rather due to a preconceived disparity among the truths and merits of philosophy and religion and mysticism and the moral life. In a close reading of the text, I will demonstrate that Ibn Ṭufayl himself does not distinguish between a theological definition of a human being and a philosophical, scientific definition. Furthermore, in the narrative of Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān, Ibn Ṭufayl continuously shows God’s relationship as Creator and Sustainer to the whole of creation. Endowed with fitrah, Ḥayy is teleologically ordained towards intimate knowledge of God. By showing that Ḥayy’s mystical union with God necessarily develops from the knowledge of the natural sciences, Ibn Ṭufayl demonstrates the inevitability of the eternal return to the Alone.
Subject:
Electronic dissertations
Degree:
Doctor of Clinical Psychology
Level:
Doctoral
Discipline:
Psychology
Restrictions on Access:
Author has given permission to make this work available online.
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Identifier:
RussellDE-14
