Ibn Tufail
From Freepedia
Ibn Tufail (c.1105–1185) full name: Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Abd al-Malik ibn Muhammad ibn Tufail al-Qaisi al-Andalusi أبو بكر محمد بن عبد الملك بن محمد بن طفيل القيسي الأندلسي (Latinised form: Abubacer). Andalusian Arab Muslim philosopher, physician, and court official.
Born in Guadix near Granada, he was educated by Ibn Bajjah (Avempace). He served as a secretary for the ruler of Granada, and later as vizier and physician for Abu Yaqub Yusuf, ruler of Islamic Spain (Al Andalus) under the Almohad dynasty, to whom he recommended Averroës as his own successor when he retired in 1182. He died in Morocco.
Ibn Tufail was the author of Hayy ibn Yaqthan حي بن يقظان a philosophical romance and allegorical tale of a man who lives alone on an island and who, without contact with other human beings, discovers the truth by reasonable thinking, and then his shock upon contact with human society's dogmatism and other ills.
Ibn Tufail drew the idea of the tale and most of its characters from an earlier work by ibn Sina, also called Hayy ibn Yaqthan; ibn Tufail's book was neither a commentary on nor a mere retelling of ibn Sina's work, however, but a new and innovative work in its own right.
The astronomer Nur Ed-Din Al Betrugi was a disciple of Ibn Tufail.
Works
References
- P. Brönnle, The Awakening of the Soul (London, 1905)
This article incorporates text from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, which is in the public domain.
Categories: 1911 Britannica | Muslim philosophers | 1105 births | 1185 deaths | 12th century philosophers | Muslim Scientists | Philosopher stubs
