Hayy ibn Yaqzan (The Improvement of Human Reason)

A child grows up alone on an island under the equator, nursed by a doe. When she dies he opens her body to find what has left it, and from that first question he reasons his way, year by year, through anatomy, physics and astronomy to the existence of a single Creator and to a life of contemplation. Only then does he meet another man, Asal, who has come to the island seeking solitude; together they visit the neighbouring kingdom and discover that most people want the outward forms of religion rather than the truth Hayy has reached on his own.

Ibn Tufail, physician and vizier at the Almohad court in the twelfth century, wrote Hayy ibn Yaqzan as a philosophical tale; it was put into Latin in 1671 and into English by the orientalist Simon Ockley in 1708, under the title used here. Peter Tucker reads Ockley's version alone, in a little over three hours.