Part 7

THE AWAKENING OF THE SOUL

A PHILOSOPHICAL ROMANCE.

Different Accounts of the Birth of Hayy Ibn Yokdhan.

Our good Forbears--may God be gracious unto them--report: there is an Island amongst the Indian Islands (in the Indian Ocean), situated under the Equinoctial, where men spring into being without father or mother. There is also planted a tree that produces women, and they are those whom al-Mas`udi calleth the Wakwak Damsels.

The Island is so blessed with the influence of light and sun as to be the most temperate and perfect of places; an opinion, however, that does not agree with that of the greatest philosophers and most famous physicians, who hold that there is nothing more temperate in the world than the fourth climate. According to them Hayy Ibn Yokdhan belonged to the number of those that are born without father or mother. Others, however, relate the story in a different manner. They tell us:

Hayy Ibn Yokdhan, son of a Princess.

Not far from this Island there lay another Island of great tract and large compass, abounding in fruits and well peopled. It was then governed by a Prince of haughty, fierce, and jealous disposition: he had a sister, graced with matchless beauty. He kept her in close custody and would not permit her to marry; for among her suitors there was not one he declared worthy of her.

Yet in spite of his watchfulness, his near kinsman, named Yokdhan, succeeded in winning her affections, and married her clandestinely according to the rites commonly known in those times. And before long she was with child and delivered of a son.

Hayy is exposed by his Mother.

Being in fear lest the matter should be discovered and her secret disclosed, she put him into a little ark and closed it firmly after having suckled the babe. Accompanied by her most trusted servants, she carried it to the seashore early in the night, her heart burning and distracted with love and fear, and then (tenderly kissing him with tearful eyes) she took her last leave of him, sending up this prayer to God:--

"O God! thou didst create this little child, when as yet it was nothing; thou didst cherish and nourish him while he lay confined within the dark closet of my womb; thou didst take great care of him until he formed into perfection and harmony. I, trembling before the haughty, unjust, and violent Prince, commend him unto thy goodness and pray that thou who surpasseth all in mercy wilt be bountiful unto him. Be thou, I pray thee, a guide and assistance unto him; forsake him not, and never leave him destitute of thy care."

Hayy is driven by the tide to another Island.

With these words she committed the little ark with the child into the sea, and the waters swelling with the tide carried it in the same night to the shore of another Island whereof we have just made mention.

It so happened that there was such a powerful current of the high water--as it does happen there once a year--that the ark was carried right to the shore, and by its force cast into a shady grove, thick set with trees,--a very pleasant place, well sheltered from wind and rain, and secured from the sun, which at its rising and setting receded from it.

Then when the waters subsided, the ark wherein the infant peacefully slumbered was left stranded, banked up by sands, safely aground, sheltered from blustering wind or in-coming tide. For when the wind blew, the sands were heaped together and obstructed the passage to the grove, and thus prevented the coming of any water into it so that the flood could not reach it.

Hayy is found by a Roe, which takes care of him.

Now it came to pass that the nails of the ark and its joints became loosened by the violence of the waves. The child, feeling hungry, began to cry bitterly, seeking relief and moving about in the ark. Fortunately it so happened that its cry was heard by a roe that was wandering about in search of her fawn, which, having ventured out of its den, had been carried off by an eagle.

When she heard the cry, she at first took it to be the cry of her fawn; so she followed it quickly up, until she came to the ark. She at once started to break it open with her hoofs, and, aided by the struggling child within, she at last forced a board covering the upper part of the ark.

Whereupon, beholding the dear child, she took pity on him, and being moved with tender affection towards him, she suckled him. Thus she fully satisfied him with milk, and, while he was weak and helpless, did come and guard him, defending him from evil and keeping him from all harm. And this is the tale that is told by those who refuse to believe that a man can come into the world without parents. But we shall explain later on how it grew and how it progressed until it reached unto great perfection.

Spontaneous Generation.

Those, however, who think he was born out of the earth, without father or mother, say that, in a low piece of ground in that Island, it happened that in the course of years a certain mass of clay so fermented that the four qualities heat and cold, moisture and dryness, agreed in equal mixture and in equal strength; and there was a great bulk of this clay in which some parts excelled the others, being more equally tempered and therefore fitter for the generation (of a mixed body); the middle portion of the clay being of the most perfect temper, and most closely approaching the human temper. The matter being in a state of fermentation, bubblings arose by reason of its great clamminess; and it came to pass that there was some clammy thing in the midst of it with a small bubbling, being divided with a thin partition into two parts, full of a spirituous and airy body, of the most equal temper. Thereupon, at the command of the most high God, a spirit was infused into it and joined so closely thereto that it could scarcely be separated therefrom either by sense or thought; this spirit constantly flowing out from God, as is manifest in the light of the sun which constantly influenceth the world . . . and creates.

Hayy grows up nursed by the Roe.

According to the other account (which we follow) the infant developed and grew, being nourished with the roe's milk, until he was two years old. By this time he began to walk by degrees and grow his foreteeth. He always followed the roe, who guarded him with most tender affection, and led him into places where there grew trees full of fruit, and fed him with ripe and sweet fruits that fell from the tree, breaking those that had a hard shell with her teeth.

She suckled the babe whenever he pleased. When he thirsted for water, she led him thereto; when the beams of the sun were in any way troublesome to him, she shaded him. When he suffered from the cold, she cherished and warmed him. And when the night approached, she brought him home to his former abode and covered him with her own body and partly with feathers such as remained of those wherewith the ark was stuffed when he was first put into it. When they went forth in the morning or came home of an evening, they were always accompanied by a herd of deer that lay together with them, in the same place.

Hayy learns to imitate animals' voices.

In this way the boy keeping company with them also learned their voice, which he imitated so exactly that scarcely any difference could be perceived between them. In like manner, whatever other voice he heard, whether of bird or beast, he came very near it by virtue of a very apprehensive faculty wherewith he was endowed. But of all the voices he imitated, he made most use of the deer's when they cried out for help or called their fellow-deer, when they wanted them nearer by or farther off. For as you know, those creatures have diverse voices according to their various ends and uses. Thus the child kept company with the deer, and they were not in the least afraid of one another.

Hayy begins to take a careful view of things.

Now when the images of things, after being removed out of sight, became fixed in his mind, it affected him so that he took a fancy to some things, whilst he had a distaste for others. In the meanwhile he took a careful view of all the beasts. He saw them covered with wool, hair, and different kinds of plumes; he beheld their great swiftness and strength and the weapons they were armed with for protection and defence, viz. horns, teeth, hoofs, spurs, nails, and the like. Then he viewed himself and found he was naked, destitute of weapons, slow and weak. For whenever they contended with him about the fruits they were to feed on, he generally got the worst of it; they pulled the fruit from him, keeping it for themselves, and he could not beat them off or flee from them.