Ibn Tufayl's Hayy ibn Yaqzan

Hayy ibn Yaqzan (Alive, son of Awake) is a philosophical tale written around 1175 by Ibn Tufayl (c. 1110 to 1185), a physician and courtier from Guadix in Andalusia who served the Almohad rulers. It borrows its title and hero from a visionary story by Avicenna. A child grows up alone on an island, raised by a doe or, in another version of the opening, born spontaneously from the earth. He teaches himself by observation. Dissecting a dead doe, he finds the seat of life, then reasons his way from the natural world to astronomy, to the existence of a creator and of a soul, and finally to mystical union with the divine.¹²

Then he meets Absal, a pious man from a neighboring island, and they find that what Hayy learned by reason matches what revealed religion teaches in symbols. They go to Absal's island, where Hayy tries to preach the truth plainly and the people cannot follow. Hayy concludes that religion's images suit the masses, and the two return to the island. The book answers al-Ghazali's attack on the philosophers and argues that reason and revelation agree. Edward Pococke's Latin translation of 1671 spread it through Europe, and some scholars see it behind Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, though this is debated.²