Toledo School of Translators
"Hayy ibn Yaqdhan", along with three poems, is all that remains of the writings of Ibn Tufail (c. 1105 – 1185), who lived under the Almohads and served Sultan Abu Yaqub Yusuf. The book was influential among medieval Jewish scholars at the Toledo School of Translators run by Raymond de Sauvetât, and its impact can be seen in the "The Guide for the Perplexed" of Maimonides. It was "discovered" in the West after Edward Pococke of Oxford, while visiting a market in Damascus, found a manuscript of "Hayy ibn Yaqdhan" made in Alexandria in 1303 containing commentary in Hebrew. His son, Edward Pococke Jr. published a Latin translation in 1671, subtitled "The Self-Taught Philosopher." George Keith the Quaker translated it into English in 1674, Baruch Spinoza called for a Dutch translation, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz championed the book in German circles, and a copy of the book went to the Sorbonne. Daniel Defoe (c. 1660 – 1731), author of "Robinson Crusoe", was heavily influenced by the work as well as by the memoir of the Scottish castaway Alexander Selkirk.