Hayy Ibn Yaqzan and the Quest for Personal Growth

### Introduction

Hayy Ibn Yaqzan was written by Ibn Tufayl in 12th century Muslim ruled Spain. It is a philosophical novel about a man born with no parents, save for a doe, who grows up away from other humans and discovers the secrets of God and the universe entirely on hi sown. This text is popular all over the world and was used to justify Enlightenment thinking. We proposed a common question that we can explore individually: how does the story of Hayy Ibn Yaqzan demonstrate an individual’s personal growth? We’ve chosen to divide this question into three categories: modern relevance, psychological relevance, and the pursuit of change. This will help anyone who is interested in philosophical stories have a more relatable and profound understanding of Ibn Tufayl’s story.

### The quest for spirituality in the 21st century

              Possibly the most obvious and important journey that takes place in *Hayy Ibn Yaqzan* is his quest to find God. Hayy lives his entire life on an isolated island, away from any form of human civilization. He relies on his mother, the doe, to survive his early years into his adolescence. He learns everything he knows by observation of other animals, plants, or the functions of the world around him. He spends most of his life in this way, without meeting another human or even knowing they existed, and despite never being told, he discovers the existence of God. His understanding and knowing of God is pure and a natural result of Hayy’s observations of the universe, and yet entirely separate from the doctrine of traditional religious teachings. He is neither Muslim, nor Christian, nor Jewish, and yet he still comes to know God. One of the most interesting points in the story happens when he meets other humans. The first human that he meets, Absal, is very open to Hayy’s thoughts on the universe, but when they travel to the human-inhabited island to spread his knowledge, they are met with resistance. No one wants to believe what Hayy has come to know through intellect since it does not mesh with the written teachings of Islam. Though Hayy has undoubtedly come to know the same God that these people believe in, they reject his view because of the set beliefs and structure of their organized religion. The story goes to show that there is not one set path to God, that alternative ways of connecting with the Divine and living spiritually exist. Sebastian Guenther, the chair of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Goettingen, in his article titled *Ibn Tufayl on Learning and Spirituality without Prophets and Scriptures,* writes that “One major objective of Ibn Tufayl’s narrative is the depiction of an intellect-oriented pathway to knowledge. This rational approach to learning is presented in the novel as equivalent and alternative to a purely empirical and tradition-centered process.”

#### Religion in the 21st century

Today, many people seem to be turning away from organized religion towards other forms of spirituality. Whether this is a trickle-down effect where non-religious parents don’t involve their children in religion, and in turn their children’s children, or due to religious trauma, or perhaps due to the rise of scientific thought, with ”science providing tools to understand and shape the world,” as BBC article *Tomorrow’s Gods: What is the future of religion?* suggests, involvement in organized religion seems to be on the decline. This trend seems prevalent in the modernized world and is seen throughout places like the United States of America and Britain, however other parts of the world seem to show the opposite, where organized religion is on the rise compared to the past. The article points out that certain types of spiritualities might be beneficial to different types of societies depending on their circumstances. For example, in a small community that must depend on nature to provide for their needs, spiritualities like animism may be more beneficial as they provide a deeper intrinsic understanding and respect for nature, like animals, plants, forests, or sources of water, in which the survival of the community is dependent on. In larger societies, however, where large numbers of strangers must depend on each other for survival, having one unifying Being can help to create uniform moral codes so that they coexist peacefully. Sumit Paul-Choudhury, the author of the article, writes “The knowledge that Big God is watching makes sure we behave ourselves”. So, living in a society where Secularism is on the rise and large numbers of people are ditching the traditions of organized religion, where does that leave us?

#### From religion to spirituality

              In the story, Hayy lives almost his entire life in isolation from human civilization. Considering he has no need to find common ground with the other humans living in his society, of which there are none, why would he submit himself to the doctrine of organized religion? Yet despite lacking religion, his life is entirely defined by spirituality. In her recent Ted Talk, Archana Vijai Kumar makes a distinction between religion and spirituality. She says, “Following your religion simply means you are following the messenger, but following spirituality is that you are following the message”. I think this is what is shown through Hayy’s journey. No one tells him what is real, what is good, or even what is God. Yet, by observing the universe and using the power of his intellect, he nonetheless comes to realize the existence of God. As the world becomes more globalized and modern societies become more individualized, perhaps a new shift in spiritual belief is afoot. People have more access to more different ideas and beliefs than ever before. People in highly modernized societies are also becoming more independent, where they don’t need to rely on others in a direct way as they might have in the past. As the focus has shifted from the community to the individual, people are beginning to shift from faiths that emphasize the community to those that emphasize the individual. An example of a spirituality which shows this trend is yoga and mediation. Like Hayy’s journey, yoga emphasizes observation of the universe and the self in order to make connection with the Divine. It is believed in yoga that all things of the material world, prakrti, are illusion. This includes all matter as well as the body and the mind. The only real thing we know is purusa, the soul. Through the practice of yoga, one learns how to halt the material worlds disturbances, vrtti, on the mind so that the soul can see itself clearly, and realize it’s true nature. In his translation of *The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali*, a foundational text of yogic philosophy, Edwin F. Bryant writes “By stilling all thought, meditation removes all objects of awareness. Awareness can therefore now be aware only of itself. It can now bypass or transcend all objects of thought, disassociate from even the pure sattvic citta, and become aware of its own source, the actual soul itself, purusa.” (pg. lvii). It is in this state of self-realization that a yogi is able to realize the existence of the Divine. This knowing of God does not come from being told by scripture, but rather through the actual practice of yoga, which is refining the body and mind to be unphased by the influences of the material, and illusory, world. Just as Hayy is able to come to the realization of God through observing the world with his intellect, those who practice yoga work to realize God through disciplined practice in observing the world. Deborah Adele goes further into this concept in her book *The Yamas and Niyamas*, which explores the first two limbs or steps of Patanjali’s 8-fold path, Astanga Yoga, from the ­­*Yoga Sutras*. One of the Niyamas is called svadhyaya, which means “study”. By practicing svadhyaya, the yogi learns to peel back the layers of the ego to identify the true self within. Adele uses the metaphor of being packed into many different boxes, like a Russian nesting doll. Each box is an experience, conditioning, or belief system, which we use to define ourselves, or rather define the ego. She writes “The ability to shift our identification from our ego self, to the witness, and finally to our true identity as Divinity itself, is the joy of this jewel of self-study”. (pg. 150). According to this ideology, the people of Absal and Salman’s island have packaged themselves in boxes according to their beliefs, which stop them from understanding the truth of Hayy’s revelations. Hayy, free of any cultural identification of religious indoctrination, is able to see clearly into the universe and himself and thus is able to realize God himself, on a personal and experiential level. As our society grows more isolated, perhaps turning the inner eye towards ourself and our boxes is the next step in the quest for spirituality.

### The Psychology and Relatability of *Hayy Ibn Yaqzan*

#### **Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs**

In order to understand the psychology behind Hayy Ibn Yaqzan’s spiritual journey, we first need to analyze Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. This triangular structure has five categories labeling the needs of each person in order to become mentally stable and successful. The first, starting at the base, are physiological needs. These include eating, drinking water, finding shelter, sleeping, and so on. The second layer is safety and security, which includes being healthy and finding property. The third layer is love and belonging, meaning finding friendship, family, and an intimate connection. The first three layers of Maslow’s triangle is exhibited while Hayy is taken care of by his mother doe. He finds comfort and care under her watchful eye and begins to develop as a being due to this connection. The next and fourth layer of Maslow’s triangle is self-esteem, which means having confidence, achievement, and respect. Hayy does this by imitating the nature around him, soon becoming one with his environment and neighboring species. The final layer of Maslow’s triangle sits at the peak and represents self-actualization. This layer represents the acknowledgment of fullest potential that an individual will find. Hayy exhibits this after the death of his mother doe, dissecting her body and realizing that he can become more than a corporeal body. Through following Maslow’s hierarchy of needs at such a young age and coming to the realization that he is capable of becoming much more than a simple human, Hayy is able to reach the next step in his philosophical pursuit: practicing theurgy.

#### **Theurgy**

Theurgy is the practice of perfecting the soul and personality to become more akin to deities. Theurgy mostly derives from the practice of transhumanism, which is the idea that humans can become more than what they label themselves to be. In Hayy Ibn Yaqzan’s case, he decides that he is destined to become a celestial, or a deity. A deity, in essence, is more an idea than a physical concept. The idea of a deity relies heavily on one’s cognitive perception of what it means to be divine. For many, divinity implies worship. However, for a select few (this being practicers of theurgy), divinity simply means perfecting the soul and mind. Herein lies the philosophy of Hayy Ibn Yaqzan’s journey. As he pursues becoming a celestial body, he is practicing the most pertinent rule of theurgy. This includes becoming more in tune with the forces that promote cognizance, as opposed to becoming in tune with cognizance itself. It takes the practice of self-improvement to another meta level by breaking through what we can see and becoming one with what we cannot. Despite *Hayy Ibn Yaqzan* being written a long time ago, these ideals are still being practiced today. Two golden examples of theurgists include some of the most bizarre people in the world: comic book writers.

#### **Alan Moore and Grant Morrison**

Both Alan Moore and Grant Morrison are esteemed master of their craft. Moore is responsible for creating award winning stories such as *Watchmen*, *Batman: The Killing Joke,* and *V for Vendetta*. Morrison is equally as guilty of creating masterpieces such as *All Star Superman* and timeless comic book runs like *Doom Patrol*, *JLA* and *Animal Man*. To the modern eye, their stories are masterful and contemporary works that may exist for eternity. Their philosophies, however, make them nothing short of crazy. Moore deems himself a real world wizard while Morrison deems himself a god (no, not the God of Christianity, simply a deity without any demand for worship). Just as much as they believe themselves to be of a higher power, however, they also believe that everyone else is capable of such power through one outlet: imagination. To them, reality is merely a perception of the mind that derives from its own imagination. When senses hit our body, our brain creates an image according to what it perceives. In this same right, both Moore and Morrison believe that the same principle can be applied to life itself. This is also an element of transhumanism, that being the warp of reality through perception. If Alan Moore partakes in rituals and conjures what he believes to be demons all the while deeming himself a wizard, then he is a wizard. If someone looks at Alan Moore and says to themselves that he is not a wizard, then to them, he is not a wizard. If Grant Morrison creates characters and bends them to his will in the right of a god, all the while deeming himself a god, then he is a god. If someone looks at Grant Morrison and say to themselves that he is not a god, then, to them, he is not a god. The power of perception applies to every individual’s conscience, and at thus is subjective to every individual’s conscience. Following this theory, if Hayy Ibn Yaqzan deems himself a celestial body that transcends the corporeal world, at thus, he becomes such. As displayed through Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, and Hayy Ibn Yaqzan, all three have reached a point in their pursuit of self improvement where they can actualize their own beings and subsequently take control of them, which is one of the largest steps in becoming the type of person they want to be. The same principle can apply for any individual pursing self improvement.

### **The quest for personal growth**

One of the most important aspects in the story of *Hayy Ibn Yaqzan* is the titular character’s own growth as a person, both in the venture for knowledge of the world and developing his own spiritual path. Over the course of the story we see our main character start of as an infant of mysterious origins "nourished by its mother-doe's milk" (109) into an adult with vast philosophical and intellectual insight. Hayy goes through so much growth through out his tale and it's relation to the literary trope of the Hero's Journey.

#### Learning about the World

We first meet Hayy Ibn Yaqzan as this blank slate, a child who, in his early life, is raised by a doe who he follows every where and she nurtures with much kindness and gentleness. After the doe's death, he is left alone and he soon begins his intellectual ventures initially srtating out by dissecting dead animals (beginning with his deceased adopted mother), by first crafting the necessary tools and performs his experiments, ultimately coming to the conclusion that it. was "plain to him that each animal, although many in respect of its parts, its various senses and types of motion, was nonetheless one in terms of that spirit which stems from a single fixed place and diffuses from there to all the organs All parts of the body are simply its servants or agents" (117). Hayy begins to adapt to the island and soon his gaze turns to the sky, learning much about astronomy and begins to question the nature of the universe. In the same article written by Sebastian Guenther, titled *Ibn Tufayl on Learning and Spirituality without Prophets and Scriptures,* he writes that Hayy now "observes the cosmos and the stars purposefully and devotes his attention to questions about the composition and finite nature of space. His contemplations on the structure of the cosmos and on astronomical questions bring him to fundamental metaphysical queries, which lead him to the insight that the universe must have an omnipotent source—a Creator whom to know and adore becomes a passion for him." Eventually Hayy comes to learn human speech from his new human friend Absal "at first by pointing at some basic objects and pronouncing their names over and over, making him pronounce them too and pronounce them while pointing, until he had taught him nouns. Then he progressed with him, little by little and step by step, until in no time Hayy could speak" (160).

#### Spiritual Growth

Another important aspect in Hayy's growth in a spiritual sense. According to an article titled "Hayy Ibn Yaqzan and its Qur’anic References" by Assistant Professor Gurbuz Deniz from the *Journal of Islamic Research*, published by the Islamic University of Europa Hayy's story is to "show the capacity of the human intelligence. It is capable not only of discovering the sciences and the existence of the soul, but also of seeing God, beyond the corruptible world, and of attaching itself uniquely to Him when He has been found" (34). To continue where the previous section left off and expand upon it, Hayy, after reaching what might be described as the pinnacle of human intelligence, Hayy begins to have his spiritual and reigous awakening awakening. As was stated before, Hayy is neither Muslim, Christian, or Jewish, and yet he still comes to know God, whom he calls the "Necessary Existant Being" (144). Hayy's awakening is divided into three steps: The first step concerns material things and the task of securing bare survival. The second step involves the awareness that there are perceptible forms beyond those in the immediate environment, and that events in this life have connections with another world. The result of this learning process is the conclusion that everything must have been created and animated by a higher, divine force. This leads Hayy to develop a kind of contextual or social behavior, which encompasses the veneration of God. Eventually, the third step relates to a meditative approach to the dispositions of the Creator. After all is Hayy is able to lay aside all worldly activities and dedicate himself wholly to God. When Absal comes to the island, Hayy exchanges knowledge with the human and begins to come to understand religion more and Hayy accepts "the Prophet as having been truthful in his characterization of the cosmos and realizes there are two means to the ultimate truth; his own way of discovery is the first; the symbolism of revealed religion as used by the Prophet is the second." Hayy comes with Absal to teach his ultimate truths only for the people to consider his ideas dangerous and the common people reject his teachings in favor of the religion established long ago. Hayy and Absal then return to island and continue to find enlightenment. "Thus they served God on the island until man's certain fate overtook them" (165).

### Conclusion

The story of *Hayy Ibn Yaqzan* is one of the most fascinating story on philosophy in the world. One that continues to influence and be analyzed today and hopfully for many more years to come.

1. ↑ *Muhammad Ali painting 1610*. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://picryl.com/media/muhammad-ali-1610-4e1430.
2. ↑ “Ibn Tufayl on Learning and Spirituality without Prophets and Scriptures - Ideas | Institute for Advanced Study.” *Www.ias.edu*, 1 June 2018, www.ias.edu/ideas/2018/guenther-mysteries.
3. ↑ Finished by al-Hasan bin Arabshah. Prayer Niche (Mihrab) from Maidan-Mosque [Mihrab (Gebetsnische der Moschee)]. 1226. Artstor, library.artstor.org/asset/BERLIN\_DB\_10313749598
4. ↑ Sumit Paul-Choudhury. “Tomorrow’s Gods: What Is the Future of Religion?” *Bbc.com*, BBC Future, 2019, www.bbc.com/future/article/20190801-tomorrows-gods-what-is-the-future-of-religion.
5. ↑ Finished by al-Hasan bin Arabshah. Prayer Niche (Mihrab) from Maidan-Mosque [Mihrab (Gebetsnische der Moschee)]. 1226. Artstor, library.artstor.org/asset/BERLIN\_DB\_10313749598
6. ↑ “Spirituality in the 21st Century | Archana Vijai Kumar | TEDxUUM.” *Www.youtube.com*, www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCgF8HngUj0. Accessed 3 May 2023.
7. ↑ ‌ Bryant, Edwin F. *The Yoga Sutras of Patañjali*. North Point Press, 27 Jan. 2015.
8. ↑ ‌ Adele, Deborah. *The Yamas & Niyamas : Exploring Yoga’s Ethical Practice*. Duluth, Mn, On-Word Bound Books, 2009.

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