The Awakening of the SoulIbn Tufayl, Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Malik
ReligionIslamic
The Awakening of the Soul
Ibn Tufayl, Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Malik
Islamic philosophy -- Early works to 1800; Philosophy, Arab -- Early works to 1800
Then his mind was perplexed with a variety of thoughts as to its
substance and subsistence, the reason of its departure, etc. After much
deliberation, at last he found that from that part of the heart which
had departed proceeded all those actions by which the roe had shown her
care of him and her affection,--that the body was only as an instrument
or tool, like his cudgel with which he used to fight with the wild
beasts. Thus all his regard for the body was over and transferred to
that by which the body is governed, and by whose power it moves. So he
decides in the end to bury the body.
After its burial, the impression of his loneliness and of his dependence
upon himself being deepened, he quickly develops his faculties. In a
short time he becomes an expert in different sports, as hunting and
fishing. He makes himself clothes and shoes of the skins of wild beasts.
By the observations he made upon the swallows' nests, being taught the
art of building, he builds with his hands a room for his own use, a
store-house, and a pantry. Then he contrives to make some wild horses so
tractable that he can use them for riding, which is a great help to him
in his expeditions and excursions.
His material existence thus once firmly established and secured, he
begins to indulge in his speculations on all sorts of bodies,--on the
different kinds of animals, plants, minerals and different sorts of
stones, earth, water, exhalations and vapours, ice, snow, hail, smoke,
fire, etc.
By the time he attains to the age of twenty-eight (fourth Septenary),
his mind starts to ponder over astronomical problems--over heaven and
stars, sun and moon; and in the end comes to the conclusion that the
body of heaven is finite and is of a spherical figure.
At last his mind finds itself occupied with the great problem of
Creation and Creator. With admirable skill the author delineates here
the gradual development of Hayy's reasonings on the Creator and Mover of
the world, and concludes with the panegyric words of the Koran: _He is
the Existence, He is the Absoluteness, He is the Perfection, He is the
Beauty, He is the Glory, He is the Power, He is the Knowledge, He is He,
and all Things perish beside Him._
All his thoughts were henceforward confined to the contemplation of this
necessarily self-existent Being. In order to do this, he removed all his
affections from sensible things, shut his eyes, stopped his ears, and
refrained himself as much as possible from following his imagination,
endeavouring to the utmost to think of nothing besides him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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