Ibn Tufayl's Hayy ibn Yaqzān

The Arabic philosophical fable Hayy Ibn Yaqzan is a classic of medieval Islamic philosophy. Ibn Tufayl (d. 1185), the Andalusian philosopher, tells of a child raised by a doe on an equatorial island who grows up to discover the truth about the world and his own place in it, unaided -- but also unimpeded -- by society, language, or tradition. Hayy<U+2019>s discoveries about God, nature, and man challenge the values of the culture in which the tale was written as well as those of every contemporary society. Goodman<U+2019>s commentary places Hayy Ibn Yaqzan in its historical and philosophical context.