The
story of Hayy Ibn Yaqzan takes place on
an island uninhabited by human beings. There Hayy is found alone as an infant. Philosophers were of the opinion that he was born spontaneously when the mixture of elements reached an
equilibrium state, making it possible for this mixture to receive a
human soul from the divine world. Traditionalists
believed that he was the son of
a woman who chose to keep her
marriage to her relative, Yaqzan, secret from her brother who ruled a
neighbouring island and did not find any man qualified to marry his sister. After breastfeeding Hayy well, she put him in
a box and threw it into the waters, which took him to the uninhabited island.
A deer who had just lost
her son and was still experiencing the feelings of motherhood heard Hayy's cries. She suckled him, protected him from harmful things and took care of him until she died when
he was seven years of age. By then he had learned to imitate other animals in
speech, and he covered parts of his body with leaves after noticing that those
animal parts are covered with hair or feathers. The deer's death transformed Hayy's life from one of dependency to one of exploration and discovery.
In an effort to find out
the reason for the deer's death, he
dissected her with sharp stones and dry reeds. Noticing that every bodily
organ has a proper function and that the left cavity of her heart
was empty, he concluded
that the source of life must have been
in the cavity, and must have abandoned it. He reflected on the nature of this vital thing, its
link to the body, its source, the place to which it has departed, the manner of
its departure and so on. He realized
that it was not the body but this vital entity that was the deer and the source
of its actions. With this realization he lost interest in the deer's body. While
he could not decipher the nature of this vital thing, he observed that the
shape of all deer was similar to that of his mother. From this he concluded
that all deer were managed by something similar to the vital thing that managed
his mother's life.
After his discovery of life, he came
across a fire. He noticed that, contrary to other natural objects, which move
downward, fire moves upward. This indicated to him that the essence of fire is
other than that of natural things. He
continued to investigate other parts of nature: animal organs, their
arrangement, number, size and position, as well as the qualities that animals,
plants and inanimate things have in common and those that are proper to each of
them.
Through continued reasoning he grasped the concepts of matter
and form, cause and effect,
unity and multiplicity, as well
as other general concepts concerning
the earth and the heavens. Asking himself whether the world is eternal
or produced in time, he found that there are two plausible answers to this
question, which he left unanswered. But in each case he was led to the conclusion that there exists a necessary being who is the creator of all other being and
who is exempt from all corporeal qualities and inaccessible to the senses or
the imagination. He maintains the world and is superior to it in the order of
His being as well as by His eternity. Hayy then determined the degree of His
power on all created things, also His eternity and omnipotency. He found Him, furthermore, endowed with complete perfection and exempt
from all imperfection.
When Hayy reached his thirty‑fifth year, he was completely absorbed in thinking about this
creator. Sure of the existence
of a Perfect Being, Hayy wanted to find out how he came to know Him. He realized that he could not have known Him through the senses. These, being divisible, were not
capable of knowing what was indivisible, spiritual, and not subject to
corruption. He must have come to know Him through something that must be the
very essence of his own being, that was, his soul. This, consequently, was indivisible,
spiritual, and not subject to corruption.
He thus came to know that
the Necessary Being is perfect and exempt from all privation, and that
He is known by something whose nature is unlike the physical/material bodies.
This led him to see that the perfection
of the soul consists in the constant use of reason in this life. If one does not use reason, his soul becomes nothingness
after death. Also, if he has
known the Necessary Being, but turned away from Him in order to follow
his passions, he will be deprived of
the intuitive vision and will suffer infinitely, whereas if one turns wholly toward God and dies while
enjoying the intuitive vision, he will enjoy eternal bliss. These
considerations led Hayy to seek divine ecstasy by concentrating his thoughts on the Necessary Being.
However, the senses, sensible images, plus the physical needs of the body, would
obstruct him. He was afraid death would overtake him while he was still
being distracted from the Necessary Being. Hoping to find a remedy for his
plight, he examined the actions and
goals of all animals to find out whether they seek after God so that he
could learn from them how to save himself. To his dismay, he discovered that
they do not seek after God. He next
examined the celestial bodies and found out that they possess an intelligent
substance, like his, and that they eternally behold the Necessary Being.
He realized that he resembles, on the one hand, the Necessary Being through that noble
part of himself– the immaterial intelligent substance, his soul– and, on
the other, the animals through
that vile part of himself that is his
body. From this he concluded
that his action should be carried out on three levels:
(1)
the actions emulating those of the animals,
(2)
the actions emulating the celestial bodies, and
(3)
the actions emulating the Necessary Being.
It became clear to him that his ultimate end consists in the third
emulation, that this is not obtained without long
exercise and practice in the second,
and that the continuation of the second
depends on his first emulation. And he also realized that the first emulation, although
necessary, is as such a hindrance and
a help only accidentally. Consequently, he forced himself to reduce the first emulation to bare necessity,
that is, the strictly required amount below which the animal spirit would not
subsist.
In the opposite island where Hayy
was born, there existed religion conveyed by the earlier prophet. The religion
was spread widely in the island. There, lived two men who love goodness and
virtue, namely Salaman and Absal. They both learnt about the religion and very
faithful to the religion, by practicing their religious rituals and reading
religious texts. Absal liked to isolate himself from the world, whereas Salaman
interested to involve in community in order to practice the religion. Because
of their difference in thought, Absal decided to separate from Salaman and left
the island. He went to the opposite island and spent his time alone in
worshipping the Absolute Truth.
At the age of 50, when he had not
communicate with anyone except himself, he
met Absal; an anchorite refugee from a land of conventional 'true
believers'. Absal was a perfect model
of a religious man, a believer who has learnt many languages to gain
mastery of scriptural texts. His first reaction was a deep sense of fear for
his faith as he encountered an exotic being (Hayy). But his fears were dropped
soon as he came to know that Hayy did not have a clue of any language. In good
faith he tried to teach him to speak
and communicate in order to make him aware of knowledge and religion.
However he soon discovered that Hayy was
already aware of the 'truth'; to foresee which, his own (Absal's)
intellect bears nothing except revealed symbols.
Hayy formally proselytized judging Absal's good intentions and the
trueness of his message and as the duo associate with one another, Absal introduced Hayy to his culture and
people. As Hayy got familiarized with this civilization, two basic
questions continue to puzzle him in great deal. Firstly, "Why people must
need symbols to assimilate and express the knowledge of the Divine?" and
continue understanding matters of Divine world literally. Secondly, being
completely oblivious to ritualistic sense, he continued to wonder why there is
an obligation to indulge one's self in rituals of prayer and purity. He finally decided to accompany Absal to his land, thinking that it might be through him that people encompass the true vision and 'realize' truth rather than
'believing' it with their seemingly narrow kens.
His audience on the other hand, reacted in their uneasiness and being intellectual slaves to their
prejudices closed their ears. He
consequently realized that these people
were unable to go beyond their usual appetites and inclination. He also grasped that masses of the world are only capable to receive through
symbols and regulatory laws rather than being receptive to unstained and
plain truth. Both men returned back to
their isolated world but this time Hayy became the teacher and Absal as
his disciple. They continued searching their ecstasies until they met their ends.
