حي بن يقظان

About this book

“حي بن يقظان” is a book by Ibn Tufail in the “Novels & Stories” category, written in Arabic. You can read it in full and for free on Safahat (Hindawi Foundation), under an agreement with its rights holders, using the button above. Similar books are listed below.

About the author

Abu Bakr ibn Tufail (c. 1105–1185) was born near Granada and became physician and adviser to the Almohad caliph Abu Yaqub Yusuf in Marrakesh. He was a patron as well as a philosopher: it was he who introduced the young Ibn Rushd to the caliph and encouraged him to explain Aristotle.

His only surviving book, Hayy ibn Yaqzan, tells of a child raised by a gazelle on a desert island who discovers the truth about nature and God by reason alone. Translated into Latin in 1671 and English in 1708, it was read widely in Europe, and some see in it an ancestor of Robinson Crusoe.