Hayy ibn Yaqzan by Ibn Tufayl: its influence on European Thought and Literature

Literary/ Cultural Context Essay

Beatrice Durand (Freie Universität Berlin)
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“With the possible exception of the

Thousand and One Nights

, no work from the literary heritage of classical Islam has been published or translated as frequently as Ibn Tufayl’s

Hayy ibn Yaqzan

” (Conrad 1996, 267). Indeed, few works in world literature have been rewritten, imitated and plagiarised as many times as this philosophical novel, written in Arabic by an Andulusian philosopher around 1180. Ben Zaken (2011), Aravamundan (2014) and Ferlier and Gallien (2019) have described the circulation of the book between different languages and religious spheres as well as its reappropriation in theological and philosophical debates in Europe.

The novel is an important step in the history of isolated children narratives. The ‘isolated child’ thought-experiment had already been

4706 words

Citation: Durand, Beatrice. "Hayy ibn Yaqzan by Ibn Tufayl: its influence on European Thought and Literature". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 06 November 2019 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=19574, accessed 31 October 2024.]

19574 Hayy ibn Yaqzan by Ibn Tufayl: its influence on European Thought and Literature 2 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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