The Journey of little Hayy

''Mysticism and Rational Quest in Hayy Ibn Yaqzan by Ibn Tufayl''
 In this paper I shall try to explore the text of Ibn Tufail’s, highlighting the key points and factors that have been described in the readings.
According to the definition of Mysticism, “the belief that direct knowledge of God, spiritual truth, or ultimate reality can be attained through subjective experience (as intuition or insight),” and according to my understanding it is the real truth, reality or attaining direct connection to the divine, such that the finder in its search of the divinity become one with divine. The term Rational quest means "a piece of work, a strategy (hikmat), or observation that is completely based on logic and reasoning through natural ways ". Over all the phrase of the topic says to ''discover the spirituality or the divine by using thoughtful hypothesis, and careful observation to confirm those hypothesis by using your intellectual (aqal)''.
Ibn Tufayl in his chapter of Hayy Ibn Yaqzan, presented his philosophical thoughts by colorizing his philosophical thoughts with a beautiful tale of a child, named Hayy Ibn Yaqzan means “Alive, son of the Awake, the Vigilant". Hayy was brought up by a doe, who had just lost her son, she provides her protection from other wild beings of the forest. At the age of seven he lost her mother doe, and in this way he is kept alone. From then on, he learns from other animals, the way to live in nature. He uses the same language of animals for communication, but one thing that makes him frustrated that, he was different from others, as he was living in a place, where there was no human being, and because of this reason he could not interact with the a being like him.
He observes that others are different from him in a sense that, they have got feathers or a proper skin, and he also observes that the animals have got greater potential as regarding to their physical abilities, and that they can run really fast, actively, and for a longer period of time, while he cannot perform those activities with such a great potential, but soon he realizes that he owns many other features that other animals don't, like the hands that can hold things, a better body structure and with that the most important thing that is intellectual(aqal) which makes him better than other creatures .
He discover the concept of soul by the curiosity to find the reason behind the death of her mother. For this reason he kills an animal and picked his heart out from the body and notices that, something flew away from one of the two parts of the heart of that animal. From this reason he concludes that it was the same entity that his mother had lost, and therefore she died, the body of a living thing is worthless without the soul. His journey of exploring the nature did not stop here, and the curiosity to get to know about nature grew more and more intense with the every single step, he took towards the path of truth.
Thus after that he discovers and enjoys the distinguish nature of fire, and observes that it moves in upward direction. He came to know the different things like, water, plants, celestial objects, and their contribution in making the system of universe in a stable form.
After experiencing these lower realities, Hayy reaches to a next level where he started questioning about the whole physical world and started thinking about the one who is responsible for its existence. He thinks in a way that every event occurs because of some reason or action that takes place and makes it possible. One by one he went over the forms he had known before and saw that all of them had come to be and all must have a cause, if the water or air flows, or if the sun rises, shines, and sets, if a weight falls, if a plant grows and becomes a tree, and if the weather changes, and brings variations in the environment, all those things happen because there is a cause. In addition to that this cause is not the part of the system that is facing change, but it is purely a different being. Water, for example, has propensity to rise when strongly heated. This propensity is due to the form, for there is nothing there but body and qualities and ways of moving, and a cause who creates them. This idea in the words of prophet is,
         "I am the ears He hears by and the sights He sees by".
The same idea in according to Quran is given as,
         "It was not you but God who killed them; and when you
                   shot, it was not you who shot, but God"
Collecting a great amount of knowledge, he now meets up with a burning desire of knowing himself more. He asks himself a question, whether he is one or more? He makes careful observation of all the physical things and finds that all of them develop, and destroy. For example fire can destroy water, chill can destroy air, which shows that no physical thing can really exist. So he left these things and start observing the heavenly bodies, he reaches to this stage at the age of 28.
By making remarkable assumptions, and deep observation, about the geometry of lines, he sets up postulates about them. Once getting such a brilliant mind he now wishes to discover heaven He starts with the sun, moon ,stars, and notices how they move in orbits, and if so, then they must come closer and farther after some interval of time. He keeps up noticing the behavior of celestial objects, and soon after become able to grasp over what comes in astronomy. He perceives that, heaven and earth must be condensed in such system, of spheres and there existence in this whole system, shows the oneness. After considering the whole universe as one, he now raises question about the nothingness of anything.
He puts himself in the dilemmas of questions, answers, and reasons, and faces great trouble in setting them up. There were so many questions he had in his mind like is universe originated from nothingness, or it was always existed. He concludes the argument by considering that universe originates from nothingness, and that is possible if time and universe starts from the same point, and if time and universe have same origin, there must be someone who is responsible for this event of the beginning of time and universe. Hayy proceeds the observation and assumes that there must a maker of universe and time, because every event has a cause. If this cause is a material body than it will also has a cause, and with that the other cause of the previous and so on, which is impossible. So, that means, this cause does not belong to this whole world, and is not a physical entity, and he thinks that five senses are not enough to know him because they are only for the physical things. Moreover, he surmise that the maker of the universe must have tremendous power, and abilities, his will power can be understood in a way that, when He desires a thing is simple to tell it ‘Be!’ and it is. In addition to that, he adds, “His essence is necessarily existence, Who gives being to all that it? There is no existence but Him. He is goodness, beauty, power, and knowledge. He is He”

Hayy’s final goal of life was to meet with the divine, who is necessarily Existent Being. He thinks that if he just die without meeting with meeting with the divine, he would be just like an animal, who comes in the world, always strive for food, born babies and departure from this world. But, he does not want to die before having mystical experience, for this reason, he practiced hard, and makes himself able to reach to the level where he could have such experiences. He keep himself away from all the agitations of the world and follow all the rules that he setup by himself. Thus, by strictly following his rules, Hayy reaches to his final destination.
 Hayy ultimately comes in contact with civilization and religion when he meets a human being named Absal. He determines that following a religion, namely imagery and dependence on material goods, are necessary for the multitude in order that they might have decent lives. However, imagery and material goods are distractions from the truth and ought to be abandoned by those whose reason recognizes that they are mere distractions.
In reading the text Hayy seems to be a person who is very innocent and a man of positive intensions, that is the reason why he was able to meet with the God, and succeed to get ultimate truth. If comparing him with a man of this materialistic, and greedy world, he was far better than him. God only give his love, and revelation to someone who possess no negativity in their heart, and who solely, and truly wanted to attain it.
“You will seek me and me when you seek me with all your heart” (Jer.29:13)