A00263 - Book of the Month for April 2024: Hayy Ibn Yaqzan by Ibn Tufayl: The Encounter with the Real World
"...Hayy undertook to expel all this from himself, for none of these things was conducive to the ecstasy he now sought. He would stay in his cave, sitting on the stone floor, head bent, eyes shut, oblivious to all objects of the senses and urges of the body, his thoughts and all his devotion focused on the Being Whose Existence is Necessity, alone and without rival. When any alien thought sprang to his imagination, Hayy would resist it with all his might and drive it out of his mind.
"He disciplined himself and practiced endurance until sometimes days could pass without his moving or eating. And sometimes, in the midst of his struggles, all thoughts and memories would vanish--except self-consciousness. Even when immersed in the beatific experience of the Necessarily Existent Truth, his own subjecthood would not disappear. This tormented Hayy, for he knew it was a blot on the purity of the experience, division of his attention as if with some other God. Hayy made a concerted effort to purge his awareness-of-the-Truth, die to himself. At last it came. From memory and mind all disappeared, "heaven and earth and all that is between them," all forms of the spirit and powers of the body, even the disembodied powers that know the Truly Existent. And with the rest vanished the identity that was himself. Everything melted away, dissolved, "scattered into fine dust." All that remained was the One, the True Being. Whose existence is eternal, Who uttered words identical with himself: "Whose is the Kingdom on this day? God's alone, One and Triumphant!"
"Hayy understood His words and "heard" the summons they made. Not knowing how to speak did not prevent him from understanding. Drowned in ecstasy, he witnessed "what no eye has seen or ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man to conceive." (pgs. 148-149.)
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According to the text, Hayy lived alone on the island until he turned fifty. At that time another religious ascetic, a fellow by the name of Absal, arrived on the island. Ultimately, Absal met Hayy and, after a time, they began to communicate with each other. Absal was impressed with Hayy's relationship with God and thought that Hayy should share his experiences and philosophy with others. The two men left the island and came to a land that Absal knew well. Hayy then began his "ministry".
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"Hayy Ibn Yaqzan began to teach this group and explain some of his profound wisdom to them. But the moment he rose the slightest bit above the literal or began to portray things against which they were prejudiced, they recoiled in horror from his ideas and closed their minds." (pg. 163.)
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"In the end Hayy despaired of helping them and gave up his hopes that they would accept his teaching. Then, class by class, he studied mankind. He saw "every faction delighted with its own." They had made their passions their god, and desire the object of their worship. They destroyed each other to collect the trash of this world, "distracted by greed 'til they went down to their graves." Preaching is no help, fine words have no effect on them. Arguing only makes them more pig-headed. Wisdom, they have no means of reaching; they were allotted no share of it. They are engulfed in ignorance. Their hearts are corroded by their possessions. God has sealed their hearts and shrouded their eyes and ears." (pg.163.)
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Hayy and Absal soon abandoned their ministry and returned to their island. There they continued their own practice of being with God ... in peace ... and in enlightenment.
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The story of Hayy Ibn Yaqzan is enlightening ... in more ways than one.
Peace,
Everett "Skip" Jenkins
Fairfield, California
May 1, 2024
----- Forwarded Message -----
From: skipjen2865@aol.com <skipjen2865@aol.com>
To:
Sent: Tuesday, April 16, 2024 at 04:37:12 AM PDT
Subject: Book of the Month for April 2024: Hayy Ibn Yaqzan by Ibn Tufayl
"Hayy ibn Yaqzan is the story of a man growing up alone on an equatorial island, passing through the phases of individual and civilizational development, and ultimately reaching a spiritual plateau that seems to Ibn Tufayl far more stable than the delicate natural platform from which we all set out, and on which we try to keep our balance as long as we draw breath." (Preface to the 2009 Edition, pg. x.)
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"Hayy's wisdom begins as he approaches thirty-five, when he begins to relate to God not merely by knowledge, but by love. God becomes a passion for him that absorbs ll his attention and distracts him from everything else. The soul recognizes itself as non-material and comes to see its task as the active seeking of God. Hayy is ready to enter a final pair of seven-year phases. He finds in himself resemblances to the animals, to the stars, and to God Himself. He realizes that his well-being, his happiness and self-fulfillment lie in promoting those resemblances. The physical needs of his animal soul are necessary encumbrances. Beyond them, he must heighten his resemblance to the stars: he must be clean and kindly, graceful in his movements, and ascetic in his habits. But just as the spiritualization of practical reason marked the two-stage transition from adolescence to young manhood, so the spiritualization of his wisdom, its rise from exercise to experience, marks the end of tutelage and beginning of maturity, the fulfillment of self-awareness in the realization that all that has gone before is a "ladder of love" to union with God; for, at the end of his seventh set of seven years, Hayy attains the beatific experience." (pgs. 11-12.)
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"If we see in Rousseau's admittedly pedantic teaching the practical meaning of Platonic "reminiscence", the active use of Socratic mid-wife methods, we still must ask what sort of faith made Ibn Tufayl able to wager with nature that a child, even granted optimum endowments of potentiality, and seclusion from "the highway", could realize his potential without a preceptor and utterly alone.
"The answer is, of course, that Hayy never is alone. Not only is the fitra he is endowed with the gift of God, but the realization of its potential is not a tutor's work, but God's; for the philosophy that makes possible Hayy Ibn Yaqzan's remarkable story is radical monotheism, the belief in a Deity so great that His presence pervades the Universe, and Who is the place of the Universe, Whose unity is so absolute that it is polytheism to claim there is any power but in Him." (pgs. 14-15.)
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The story of the spiritual evolution of Hayy Ibn Yaqzan is proving to be very illuminating indeed.
Peace,
Everett "Skip" Jenkins
----- Forwarded Message -----
From: skipjen2865@aol.com <skipjen2865@aol.com>
To:
Sent: Tuesday, April 2, 2024 at 03:15:07 AM PDT
Subject: Book of the Month for April 2024: Hayy Ibn Yaqzan by Ibn Tufayl
It is April 2024 and Ramadan continues. As part of this year's Ramadan observance, I have selected Hayy Ibn Yaqzan as the Book of the Month for April 2024. For those who are unfamiliar with this classic you can, of course, read more about the book at
and most importantly read
Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān (Arabic: حي بن يقظان, lit. 'Alive son of Awake'; also known as Hai Eb'n Yockdan[1]) is an Arabic philosophical novel and an allegorical tale written by Ibn Tufail (c. 1105 – 1185) in the early 12th century in Al-Andalus.[2] Names by which the book is also known include the Latin: Philosophus Autodidactus ('The Self-Taught Philosopher'); and English: The Improvement of Human Reason: Exhibited in the Life of Hai Ebn Yokdhan. Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān was named after an earlier Arabic philosophical romance of the same name, written by Avicenna during his imprisonment in the early 11th century,[3] even though both tales had different stories.[4] The novel greatly inspired Islamic philosophy as well as major Enlightenment thinkers.[5] It is the third most translated text from Arabic, after the Quran and the One Thousand and One Nights.[6]
and understand the monumental influence this book had on not only Arabic and Islamic literature but also on European literature and modern Western philosophy
Beyond leaving an enormous impact on Andalusi literature, Arabic literature, and classical Islamic philosophy, Hayy ibn Yaqdhan influenced later European literature during the Age of Enlightenment, turning into a best-seller during the 17th-18th centuries.[10][5] The novel particularly influenced the philosophies and scientific thought of vanguards of modern Western philosophy and the Scientific Revolution such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Christiaan Huygens, Isaac Newton, and Immanuel Kant.[11] Beyond foreshadowing Molyneux's Problem,[12] the novel specifically inspired John Locke's concept of tabula rasa as propounded in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690),[13] subsequently inspiring the philosophies of later modern empiricists, such as David Hume and George Berkeley. The novel's notion of materialism also has similarities to Karl Marx's historical materialism.[14] The first English translation by orientalist Simon Ockley inspired the desert island narrative of Daniel Defoe's classic Robinson Crusoe.[15][16][17][18]
I am really looking forward to reading Hayy Ibn Yaqzan.
As for the Book of the Year, Dante's The Divine Comedy, I am now 150 pages into my 895-page journey and I am beginning to adapt to Dante's poetic cadence. I will continue to read and comment on The Divine Comedy.as my journey through Hell, Purgatory and Paradise continues. However, we can walk and chew gum at the same time. So reading both books in April, should be fun.
Peace,
Everett "Skip" Jenkins
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From: skipjen2865@aol.com <skipjen2865@aol.com>
To:
Sent: Friday, March 29, 2024 at 12:59:38 AM PDT
Subject: Must See TV for the Month of March 2024: PBS: Dante and Book of the Year for 2024: Dante's "The Divine Comedy": The Descent Into Hell
It is now Good Friday of 2024, and I am on page 118 of my 895-page journey to read Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy
The Divine Comedy begins with Dante's descent into Hell on Good Friday of 1300.
As depicted in the PBS documentary, Dante has placed himself into his grand work ostensibly as a way to ultimately reunite with the love of his life Beatrice Portinari.
a woman that Dante only met twice before she died in 1290.
After spending 100 pages accompanying Dante on his descent into Hell, I found myself wondering why someone would spend so much effort on such a dark work. I watched the PBS documentary and I read the Wikipedia article on Dante
and I came away with the thought that something may have been lost in the translation from Italian to English causing the beauty of this masterpiece to be lost. It may also be that my concept of the afterlife is so fundamentally different than that of Dante. Fundamentally, I find the notion of an eternal Hell where people are confined without any recourse to salvation to be contrary to my own theology. I suppose that colors my perception of The Divine Comedy so far. However, we shall see what happens during the journey through Purgatory and Paradise.
Stay tuned.
Peace,
Everett "Skip" Jenkins
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From: skipjen2865@aol.com <skipjen2865@aol.com>
To:
Sent: Tuesday, March 19, 2024 at 04:21:23 AM PDT
Subject: Must See TV for the Month of March 2024: PBS: Dante and Book of the Year for 2024: Dante's "The Divine Comedy": The Inferno
By some "divine" coincidence, the following was the quote from the Monday, March 18, 2024, page of "A Year of Zen" calendar;
"The mountain of release is such that the
ascent's most painful at the start, below;
the more you rise, the milder it will be.
"And when the slope feels gentle to the point that
climbing up sheer rock is effortless
as though you were gliding downstream in a boat,
"then you will have arrived where this path ends."
Dante
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I do not know where this Dante quote comes from, but what I do know is that the Monday, March 18, 2024, episode of PBS's "Dante" covered the life of Dante through the year 1306 and covered Dante's Divine Comedy through The Inferno. The program has been insightful and profound.
I highly recommend that everyone watch the program and ponder on Dante's motivation for writing this monumental work.
Both the watching and the pondering could prove to be life changing in and of themselves.
Peace,
Everett "Skip" Jenkins
----- Forwarded Message -----
From: skipjen2865@aol.com <skipjen2865@aol.com>
To:
Sent: Friday, March 1, 2024 at 04:14:06 AM PST
Subject: Must See TV for the Month of March 2024: PBS: Dante and Book of the Year for 2024: Dante's "The Divine Comedy"
On March 18 and 19, PBS airs the four-hour documentary by Ric Burns entitled "Dante"
Dante (March 2024) | Steeplechase Films (ricburns.com)
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As my Program Listings guide explains: "Explore the stunning power and drama of Dante Alighieri's great masterwork, "The Divine Comedy" -- inarguably one of the greatest artistic masterpieces in the history of literature. This documentary by Ric Burns dives into the riveting life and times of the poem's maker, the politics and culture of the late Middle Ages, the birth of the Italian language, and the birth of humanism itself."
Based on this intriguing description, I have made Ric Burns' "Dante" documentary my Must See TV for the Month of March 2024.
Also, in anticipation of actually having some background on the actual text of "The Divine Comedy" masterpiece, I recently purchased a copy of "The Divine Comedy" from Amazon. The book I received is 895 pages long and is divided into three parts: The Inferno, The Purgatorio and The Paradiso. The Inferno -- The Hell -- is some 270 pages long. If I am diligent, I think I can finish The Inferno by the time the documentary airs but I cannot read the entire book by the time. Accordingly, just as I did with "The Autobiography of a Yogi" and "The Song of Bernadette" in 2023, I am making Dante's "The Divine Comedy" my Book of the Year for 2024.
It should be a very interesting March.
Peace,
Everett "Skip" Jenkins
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