Hayy ibn Yaqzan (حي بن يقظان), also translated as Philosophus Autodidactus and The Improvement of Human Reason, is a twelfth-century philosophical novel by Ibn Tufail.
A boy grows up as a Wild Child on a Deserted Island. Through observation of the natural world and the use of reason, he learns about science and philosophy, and eventually concludes that there must be a God.
Hayy Ibn Yaqzan contains examples of:
- The Aloner: When Hayy realizes he's different from the other animals, he searches the island for anyone who looks like him, but he finds nobody. He doesn't realize that landmasses other than his island exist, so as far as he knows, he's the only human being in the world.
- Caretaker Reversal: When Hayy's gazelle mother becomes old and infirm, he feeds her until she dies.
- Death Is a Sad Thing: When the gazelle finally dies, Hayy searches her for anything that could be wrong with her, to no avail. He decides that there must be something inside her whose malfunction causes her whole body to stop working, and cuts her open in the hopes of finding it and fixing it. He finds that one of the cavities in her heart is empty. Hayy concludes that this cavity contained what made the gazelle live, but now it was gone and would never return.
- The Discovery of Fire: A fire breaks out in the reeds. Hayy tries to grab some of it, but it burns his hand. Instead he sets part of a stick on fire and takes it back to his lodging, where he nurses and feeds the flames. He throws as many different things as he can find into the fire to see what effect it will have on them. He burns a fish and then tastes it, and likes the results so much that from then on he cooks all his fish and meat.
- Freakiness Shame: Hayy is ashamed of his lack of horns, fur, or feathers, his weakness and slowness compared to the gazelles, and the fact that his nether regions are more exposed than the other animals'. He makes clothes for himself, first out of leaves and later out of dead animals' skins, and makes a cudgel out of a branch to defend himself. Afterwards he stops being ashamed of his differences, because his hands can be used to make things, unlike the forefeet of any other creature.
- The Hermit: In middle age, Hayy changes from a hermit by circumstance to a religious hermit. He spends almost all his time meditating in a cell, leaving only once a week to gather food.
- In Harmony with Nature: As an adult, Hayy decides that killing animals and plants any more than necessary is wrong, because it prevents them from fulfilling the purposes that God created them for. He only eats as much as he needs to to stay healthy, only hunts the most abundant animals, tries to avoid eating unripe plants, and scatters the seeds in fertile soil. He also helps any animal that he sees in need, waters plants, and removes blockages in streams so more creatures can drink from them.
- The Last Man Heard a Knock...: Hayy is fifty when a man named Asal comes to his island to live as a hermit. It takes Hayy some days to realize that Asal is the same kind of creature as he is. One day he overhears Asal praising God and, although he doesn't understand the words, realizes that Asal must have the same knowledge of God that he does. Asal teaches Hayy to speak and tells him all the teachings of Islam, and the two finally leave the island so Hayy can share his knowledge with other people.
- Moses in the Bulrushes: The book offers two explanations for how Hayy came to be living on the island. One is that he was the Child of Forbidden Love between a princess and the man she married in secret. Her brother had forbidden her from marrying because he found no one worthy of her, so to hide her son from him, she put him in an ark and set him adrift, until he washed up on the island.
- Raised by Wolves: A gazelle who has recently lost her fawn hears the newborn Hayy crying. She nurses him and brings him fruits and nuts when he's old enough for solid food. He travels with her herd, and at first sees himself as one of the gazelles.
- Speaks Fluent Animal: Hayy learns to almost perfectly imitate the noises of all the creatures on the island, especially the gazelles. He can express himself with their sounds as fluently as they can.
- Spontaneous Generation: The other explanation of Hayy's origin is that the unusually powerful heat from the sun on the island, a specific combination of elements in a certain spot under the ground, and spirit infused by God combine to create life. Hayy gestates until the mud around him dries and cracks, revealing a fully-formed infant.
