Samira Khawaldeh

Ibn Tufayl, the author of Hayy bin Yaqthan, is an Andalucian philosopher who helped, through this book, to simplify a theme many earlier philosophers struggled with: the theme of Reason-Revelation incompatibility. He states that the simple language he uses if for the benefit of the public so as they may conceive the solution to the schism between science and empirical thinking on one side and faith and revelation on the other. Ibn Tufayl anticipates many of modern scientific paradigms and theories such as Darwin’s theory of evolution, which, in the narrative’s context does not create an oppositional binary of Nature v. God. A must read with this short novella is Samar Attar’s The Vital Roots of European Enlightenment: Ibn Tufayl’s Influence on Modern Western Thought.