Islamic Philosophy from Its Origin to the Present: Philosophy in the ...

Dimensions of the Islamic Intellectual Tradition 153
Aristotle. He was known as Abubacer in the Latin West, but his major
opus, ¡ayy ibn Yaqzån (Living Son of the Awake), did not become
known to the Scholastics. It was translated into Hebrew and later in
the seventeenth century into Latin as Philosophus autodidactus, a work
that had much influence on later European literature and is in fact
considered by some to be the source of inspiration for the Robinson
Crusoe story, as well as on certain forms of seventeenth-century mysticism
concerned with the inner light. This major philosophical romance
takes its title from the earlier work of Ibn S¥nå but seeks a path toward
inner illumination in a manner similar to that of Suhraward¥, who was
Ibn appleufayl’s contemporary. It is of interest to note that at the beginning
of his work Ibn appleufayl refers to the “Oriental Philosophy” that Ibn S¥nå
was seeking in his later works and that Suhraward¥ restored.
In Ibn appleufayl’s “initiatic romance,” the names in the Avicennan
recital are retained, but their function changes. ¡ayy ibn Yaqπån himself
is the hero of the story rather than the Active Intellect. He appears
in a mysterious manner through spontaneous generation from a matter
that is made spiritually active by the Active Intellect. He is helped
and brought up by a gazelle as a result of the sympathy (sympatheia)
that relates all living beings together. As he grows up, he begins to
attain knowledge first of the physical world, then of the heavens, the
angels, the creative Demiurge, and finally of the Divine Principle and
the universal theophany. Upon reaching the highest form of knowledge,
he is joined by Absål from a nearby island where he had been
instructed in religion and theology. After mastering ¡ayy’s language,
Absål discovers to his astonishment that all he had learned about
religion is confirmed by ¡ayy in its purest form. Together they try to
educate the people of the nearby island from which Absål had come,
but few understand what they say.
Far from being a treatise on naturalism denying revelation, as
some have claimed, 56 ¡ayy ibn Yaqz • ån is a work that seeks to unveil
within man the significance of the intellect whose illumination of the
mind is like an inner revelation that cannot but confirm the truths of
the outer revelation and objective prophecy. ¡ayy is the solitary of
Ibn Båjjah, whose inner experience to reach the truth through the intellect—a
truth that is then confirmed to be in accord with the revealed
religious truths learned by Absål—points to one of the major
messages that lies at the heart of Islamic philosophy. That message is
the inner accord between philosophy and religion and the esoteric role
of philosophy as the inner dimension of the truths expounded
by revealed religion for a whole human collectivity. The eminently