Monday, March 19, 2012 CVSP 202 General Lecture [email protected]

IBN TUFAYL AND THE PHILOSOPHUS AUTODIDACTUS (self-taught )

I. Brief historical background II. Abu Bakr Ibn Tufayl Al Qaisi: Life and works III. Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān – a philosophic parable on mysticism? a. General introduction - Overall purpose and aim of the parable b. Ibn Tufayl’s own introduction to the parable: Critique of Al-Fārābī, Ibn Bājjah, Ibn Sīnā, and Al-Ghazālī c. The two accounts of Hayy’s coming to be on the island: science/philosophy and tradition/? d. The life of Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān: i. First stage (which extends to his 3 rd septennial, i.e. until he is 21 years of age): learning and discovery through observation and empirical ; from particulars to universals… ii. Second stage (which follows the first and extends to his 5 th septennial, i.e. between the ages of 21 and 35): from the observable world to the intelligible world; from matter, to form, to essence; to the unity of the Whole… iii. Third stage (which follows the second and extends to his 7th septennial, i.e. between the ages of 35 and 49): beyond the observable and intelligible worlds; seeking the Divine Essence… the path of true happiness and felicity; the three emulations: of animal life, of the celestial beings, and of the Necessary Being… iv. Post-enlightenment period : a. Encountering Asal b. Desiring to enlighten the believers c. Return to the ‘uninhabited’ island

IV. Conclusive remarks: i. Are we restricted by our social constructs in our quest for the attainment of the Divine? ii. As we can never truly be Hayy, are we at best capable of Asal’s attainment? Or are we to strive to be Hayys? iii. Is Salaman truly ignorant? Or is he perhaps protecting the populace, and as such wiser than our friends in their early attempts at enlightening the many?

1 Central quotations from Ibn Tufayl’s Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān:

“The that the disclosure of this secret and the tearing of its veil were made easy for us was the appearance, in our present time, of corrupt opinions aired and broached by some contemporaneous pretenders to philosophy, till they spread all over the countries, and the mischief caused by it has now become common. Fearing lest the weak ones who have rejected the authority of the prophets and who would want to imitate the fools, should think that these opinions are the secrets guarded against the ones unworthy of them, and so increase their inclination to, and love of, them, we decided to give them a glimpse of the secret of secrets in order to attract them to the side of selffulfillment and avert them from this road. Nevertheless, we have not left whatever secrets we confided to these pages without a thin veil and a delicate curtain, which is easy to break by those worthy of doing so, but which turns thick for the ones unworthy of going beyond it so that they would be unable to go any further.”

“O God, thou form’dst this Child out of nothing, and didst cherish him in the dark Recesses of my Womb, till he was compleat in all his parts…”

“For this Spirit emanates continually and abundantly from the Most High and Glorious God, and may be compared to the Light of the Sun which is sent forth continually and abundantly over the World”.

“He began to imagine that the hurt was in some Organ which was remote from the sight and hidden in the inward part of the Body… and that if this Organ suffer any hurt, the damage was General, and a cessation of the whole ensu’d.”

“Whereas at first sight Things had appeared to him innumerable and not to be comprehended; now he discovered the whole Mass and Bulk of Creatures to be in Reality only One.”

“That there was an Agent, that was not Body, nor separated from it, nor within it, nor without it…”

“He that continually has it present to him must needs enjoy uninterrupted Delight, boundless Felicity, and Infinite Joy and Gladness.”

“Let not thy heart crave a Description of that which the Heart of Man cannot conceive… and whosoever asks to have that State explain’d, asks an impossibility… However, I shall not dismiss you without some Indications whereby I shall convey to you in some Measure what wonderful things he saw when in that Station, but all figuratively and by way of Parable, without knocking upon the Door of Truth.”

[All excerpts above taken from: Hayy Ibn Yaqzan by Abu Bakr , translated by Simon Ockley, Revised with an introduction by A. S. Fulton, London Chapman and Hall limited, 1929]

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