When the boy gazed at all the Doe’s external organs and found no evident defect (even though the whole body had failed, with none of her organs spared), it occurred to him that the defect must have struck some organ invisible to the eye, hidden within the body, an organ whose function could not be replaced by any of these external ones. When that particular organ was struck, then the harm, the inability to act, became overmastering. If (he hoped) he could discover that organ, remove the defect that had overtaken it, then the organ would be restored to its normal state. The whole body would then benefit, and the functions would continue as before
He had noted before this, in the dead bodies of beasts and other creatures, that all the organs were solid, with no cavity, except in the skull, the chest, and the abdomen. Therefore, he concluded, an organ with the quality he sought was to be found in one of those three places only, the middle one of these three being the natural one, since all the other organs must surely be in need of it? Its abode must be in the center. When, moreover, he turned to examine his own body, he sensed such an organ to be in his chest, since it was the key to all his other organs, like the hand, the foot, the ear, the nose, the eye, and the head. He was conscious that these last were separate entities; and this meant, he thought, that he was somehow independent of them. He was conscious of a similar quality in his head; of this, too, he was independent. But when he reflected on what he felt in his chest, he did not think he could do without it for a moment. He had felt the same when fighting the beasts, taking special care to avoid attacks by their claws on his chest—being aware of the organ within it.
Having decided the impaired organ must be in the Doe’s chest, he resolved to search for it by exploring there, in the hope of finding the organ, spying the defect, and removing it. Might it not be, though, that his efforts would serve to make the impairment worse?
Then a further thought struck him. Had he ever seen other beasts restored to their former state, when brought to a condition like this? He could recall nothing of the kind. If he left her as she was, he reflected, there was no hope of her ever being so restored. If, though, he could find this organ and release it from its ailment, she might return to what she had been before. He thereupon decided to slit open her chest and explore what lay inside. He took some sharp pebbles, and some splinters of dry reed, which he used as knives, cutting through the ribs and the flesh till he came upon the diaphragm protecting the organs within. Something so strong, he felt, could only be serving to protect the organ he sought; if he could once pierce through it, then his goal would be reached. He strove to cut through, but his tools, mere pebbles and reeds, hampered his efforts. He sharpened the tools and went slowly through the diaphragm, which gave way at last, revealing a lung. For a while he thought this must be what he had been seeking, and he turned it around, looking for the place where the defect was.
Having first found one of the two lungs to one side, and seeing the lung so placed, when he had supposed the organ he sought to be squarely in the center of the body, he went on with his exploration, in the middle of the chest, till he found the heart, wrapped in the toughest of membranes, connected to the lung by tight ligaments on the side where he had begun his incision. “If,” he said to himself, “this organ should have the same conditions on the other side, then it is truly in the center, and this must be my goal, especially being set, as it is, in such a noble place, with such a comely form, with a firm grip and strong flesh, protected by a screen of the kind I have seen with none of the other organs.”
He explored the other side of the chest, seeking the diaphragm protecting the ribs, and he found a lung in a place similar to the one on the first side. Now, more than ever, he was certain this organ must be his goal. Bent on revealing it, he cut into its membrane, and with effort and perseverance, exhausting all his means, he contrived to win through.
Coming to the heart, he found it sealed on every side. He looked closely, searching for any visible defect, but found none. Then, pressing it, he felt a cavity. “It may be,” he thought, “that my final goal lies inside this organ, where I have not yet come.” So he cut through the heart to find two cavities, one on each side. The one on the right was filled with clots of congealed blood; the one on the left was quite empty. “My goal,” he then said, “can only lie in one of these two chambers. As for the one on the right, I see it contains only this congealed blood. It could hardly have congealed before the whole body reached its present state.” He had already observed how, when blood flows, it clots and congeals. “And this blood,” he reflected, “is like any other blood, which I might find in any other organ; it is not particular to one or the other. Clearly my goal does not lie here. It is linked to this place I find myself unable to do without for a single moment since the time I began my search. As for the blood, it is like the blood I have lost many times when wounded by beasts or stones. I was not truly harmed then, or impeded in any of my functions. Therefore, this chamber does not contain my goal. As for the left chamber, this I find quite empty; yet surely it cannot be so without reason. Each of these organs, I have seen, exists for its own special purpose. How can a place of such dignity exist to no purpose? I can only think that what I sought lay there, before it departed and fled its abode. Then this body lost its powers, lacking all perception and motion.”
When he found that the dweller in this abode had departed, before the place fell into ruin and was left to that state, it seemed to him unlikely that the dweller, after so much damage and destruction, would return. The whole body now became base and worthless in his eyes, compared to the thing he was sure must have dwelt there for a time before going on its way. Now he exerted himself to reflect on this thing: its identity and form; its connection with the body; its destination; the exits it had used when leaving the body; the cause of annoyance if it had left against its will; the reason why, if it had left willingly, it had found the body unpleasing and had resolved to depart.
All these things surged in his mind. He no longer had any care for the body before him. The mother who had nursed him so tenderly was, he now realized, not this disabled body but that departing thing, the source of all those actions. This whole body, therefore, was akin to a tool, or the club he used in fighting beasts. His interest moved from the body, for which he felt no more passion, to the possessor and mover of that body.
2. Hayy’s Vision of the Divine Light
After deep trance, utter loss of self, and true spiritual attainment, he witnessed the highest sphere, which had no physical body. He saw an essence, free of matter, which is neither the essence of the One, the Truth, nor the essence of the highest sphere, nor different from either. It appeared like the image of the sun reflected in a polished mirror. It was neither the sun, nor the mirror, nor different from either. He saw the essence of that immaterial sphere graced with a reflection, a splendor, a beauty too great to be described in spoken words, too delicate to be clothed in letters or sound. With the highest pleasure and joy, happiness and delight, he viewed the essence of Truth, Glory be to His Majesty.
He viewed, too, the sphere next to it, the sphere of the fixed stars, whose essence was likewise free of matter. It was like the image of the sun reflected in a mirror that bore the reflection of another mirror facing the sun. This essence, too, was graced with splendor, beauty, and delight, very much like the one he had witnessed in the highest sphere.
Next to this, in the sphere of Saturn, he witnessed an immaterial essence that was neither like the ones he had seen before nor different from them. It was like the image of the sun reflected in a mirror that bore the reflection of another mirror facing the sun. In this essence, he saw what he had seen in the ones before: splendor and delight. In each succeeding sphere, he witnessed an essence free of matter, which was neither like the essences he had seen before nor different from them, not unlike the image of the sun reflected from one mirror to another, in a regular sequence following that of the spheres. In each of these spheres he witnessed a beauty and glory, delight and
joy, the like of which no eye has seen, no ear heard, no heart known; until he came to the world of generation and corruption, which is all contained within the sphere of the moon. This he found to have an immaterial essence neither different from the essences he had seen before nor similar to them. This essence had seventy thousand faces, and each face had seventy thousand mouths, and each mouth had seventy thousand tongues, ceaselessly praising and glorifying the One, the Truth. In this essence, which he perceived to be multiple but was not, in fact, he saw the same perfection and delight as he had seen in those essences before. This essence appeared like the image of the sun reflected on the face of shimmering matter, a reflection from the last mirror to receive the reflection in the sequence before, beginning from that first mirror facing the sun itself. Then he saw a separate essence; were it possible for the essence of seventy thousand faces to break into parts, we would say this essence was a part. But this essence had come into being out of nonbeing. And, had it not been designated to his own body, when it came into being, we would have said it did not exist. Within this rank he saw essences like his own, belonging to bodies that had existed, then diminished, and to bodies that were still with him in existence. These were infinitely numerous (if it were possible to say so), or were all unified (if it were possible to say they were one). In his own essence, and in those essences of a rank akin to his own, he saw such beauty, splendor, and infinite delight as no eye has seen, no ear heard, no heart known; ineffable, unknowable for all but those who have attained true insight. He saw, too, many immaterial essences, which appeared like rusty mirrors, covered with dirt, turning their backs to the polished mirrors that reflected the image of the sun, looking away from them. In these essences he saw such ugliness and defect as he could never have imagined. They were, he saw, in never-ending pain, racked by unforgettable sighs, overwhelmed by a canopy of torture, burned by the fire of deprivation, and slit by jagged blades between allurement and vexation. Beside the tormented essences, he saw others that emerged then vanished, formed then dissolved. He looked closely and searchingly, and found a great calamity, a dreadful disaster, a constant creation, a supreme formation, a molding and inspiration, a creation and abrogation. When he had recovered a little, his senses returned to him, and he awoke from that trancelike state. He lost hold of his former state; the world of the senses loomed as the divine world receded. It was not possible for the two to meet. They were like two second wives: should you please the one, then you anger the other. You might observe: from your description of this vision, you appear to say that the immaterial essences are permanent where they belong to a permanent, nondecaying body, like the stars. If they belong to a decaying body, like that of a speaking animal, then they decay, shrink, and vanish. This may be understood from your analogy of the reflecting mirrors. Naturally, the image depends on the permanence of the mirror. If the mirror decays and vanishes, then the image vanishes with it. Then I would say to you: how quickly you have forgotten the agreement, breaking the terms we laid down. Did we not indicate that the scope of expression is limiting here, and that words, in every case, fall short of the truth? Your error was to place the real and the analogous on the same level, in every respect. This should not be done even in common speech; and how much less so in our case. Here, the sun and its light, its image and formation, the mirrors and the images reflected in them, are all matters dependent on bodies, without which they cannot exist. Therefore, their existence requires the existence of bodies; and, when the bodies are destroyed, those essences cease to be.
As for the divine essences and the lordly spirits, they are all free of bodies and the physical attributes of bodies, quite independent of them. These essences have no connection or relation to bodies, whose permanence or absence, being or not being, has no meaning for them, linked and connected as they are with the essence of the One, the Truth, the Being Whose existence is necessary. He is their First and their Initiator, their Cause and their Creator. He gives them permanence, provides them with eternity, with everlasting existence. They are in no need of bodies; rather, bodies are in need of them. Were it possible for these essences to perish, then bodies would perish, too; for these essences are the originator of bodies. Likewise, if it were possible for the One, the Truth, to perish—exalted and holy is He, and above such presumption, there is no God but He—then all essences would perish, too, and with all these essences bodies would perish; the whole world of the senses would perish, and not one being would remain, for everything is linked together. The world of sense, though depending on the divine world, is like its shadow. The divine world is dependent on nothing, free of the world of sense; yet it is impossible to presume the latter’s nonexistence, since, inevitably, it follows the divine world. The decay of the sensory world is witnessed in change, not in total destruction. This is the meaning of the Holy Book when it speaks of the change in the mountains, of their turning to tufts of carded wool; of people being scattered like moths; of the collapse of the sun and moon; of the explosion of seas and oceans; of the day when skies and earth are to be replaced by other skies and earth.
So much I am now able to tell you of what Hayy ibn Yaqzan witnessed in that exalted state. So, do not ask for further elaboration in words. Such a thing is plainly impossible.
3. The Arrival of Absal on Hayy’s Island
Absal had heard of the island where Hayy ibn Yaqzan was said to have been raised. He knew, too, of its fertility, natural benefits, and temperate climate; and that solitude was possible there for the one who sought it. He decided, accordingly, to travel to this island and live apart from others for the rest of his days. He gathered what money he had, used some to hire a boat to take him to the island, and then gave the rest to the poor. He bade farewell to his friend Salaman, and set sail. The sailors put him down on the shore of the island, then left him.
Absal remained on the island, worshipping the Almighty, glorifying Him, reflecting on His most beautiful Names and sublime attributes, enjoying peace of mind and a soul unperturbed. When he needed food, he found the means to satisfy his hunger from the island’s fruit and game. And so he continued for a time with his prayers to his Lord, in utter happiness and great contentment. Each day he witnessed his Lord’s grace and favors through the easing of his needs and provision of his sustenance, and this supported his faith and delighted his heart.
During all this time Hayy ibn Yaqzan remained in his rapturous state, leaving his cave just once each week to take any food found for him. And so Absal failed to come across him at first as he wandered through the various parts of the island, seeing no one, finding indeed no trace of any other person. At this his delight and peace of mind grew still further, for he was bent on utter seclusion and solitude. Then it happened, at a certain moment, that Hayy ibn Yaqzan came out in search of food when Absal was nearby, and each caught a glimpse of the other.
This person he had seen, Absal thought, was doubtless some religious devotee who had come to the island, as he himself had done, in search of solitude. And he feared that, if he approached this other, he would be unwelcome, as one coming between the worshipper and the goal to which he aspired. As for Hayy ibn Yaqzan, he had no notion of what this creature before him might be, a creature so unlike any of the beasts he had seen before. The black gown of hair and wool in which Absal was dressed was, Hayy supposed, some kind of natural coat. He stopped to marvel at Absal, who thereupon fled, fearful that Hayy might distract him from his concern. As for Hayy ibn Yaqzan, he pursued Absal, for it was in his nature to inquire about anything he might come across. When he saw Absal running ever faster, he hid himself for a time; whereupon Absal, supposing Hayy at a safe distance, and himself secure, resumed his prayer, weeping in devotion, till he lost all sense of things around him. Hayy now began, little by little, to draw closer, with Absal unaware of him, till he was close enough to hear Absal’s recitation and praise of God and to see his supplication and tears. He heard a soft voice and a pleasant utterance, of a kind he had never known among the beasts
. Then, looking more closely at Absal’s form and features, he saw them to be much like his own. He realized, too, that Absal’s gown was not after all a natural skin but clothing like his own. And, hearing Absal’s heartfelt supplication and pious weeping, he was left in no doubt that Absal was one of those souls aware of the truth. He wished to know more of Absal and to find out the reason for his weeping and supplication.
Hayy now drew still closer to Absal until Absal, sensing his presence, began to flee. Hayy ibn Yaqzan followed and caught him, for God had blessed him with the strongest powers of body and mind. Hayy then held on to Absal and would not release him. For his part, Absal gazed at Hayy— this man clothed in the hairy skins of beasts, his own natural hair so long that it covered most of his body. And, finding Hayy endowed with such swiftness of foot and strength of limb, he was overcome with terror. He began to speak softly to Hayy, who could not understand him but sensed nonetheless that Absal’s tone betrayed fear. And so he strove to calm Absal, using the sounds he had learned from certain beasts, stroking his head and arms, showing affection to Absal, making his friendly intentions clear. At that Absal grew calmer, convinced that Hayy meant him no harm. Having an interest in interpreting, Absal had learned several languages, becoming well versed in them. He began to address Hayy ibn Yaqzan in every language he knew, asking about his affairs, trying to make him understand, but all to no avail. As for Hayy, he stood there astonished at what he was hearing, having no notion of what it all meant, though he took care to make his own pleasure and approval clear. So it was that each marveled at the other.
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