Then, when he came to consider the divine essences and heroic spirits, he found them to be free from body and all its adherents, and removed from them at the utmost distance, having no connection or dependence upon them ; their sole connection and dependence being that One True Necessary Self-existent Being who is the beginning and the cause of their existence.

Now, though the sensible world follows the divine world as a shadow does the body, and the divine world stands in no need of it and is independent of it; yet, it is absurd to suppose a possibility of its being annihilated, because it follows the divine world : but the corruption of this world consists in its being changed, not annihilated. And that glorious book (the Koran) spoke, where is no mention made of "moving the Mountains and making them like the world, and men like fire-flies, and darkening the Sun and Moon; and eruption of the Sea in that day when the earth shall be changed into another earth and the heavens likewise."

This is the substance of what Hayy saw when in his glorious state of ecstasy.

When Hayy, after his digression into the higher world, returned to the sensible world, he began to loathe the troubles of this mortal life on earth, and became very anxious to return to the same state he had been in before. - And by dint of continued exercise and strenuous endeavour he was at last able to attain to that state whenever his desire drove him to do so. While in this state he wished that God might detach him altogether from his body and bodily desires and necessities, so that he might give himself up for ever to his delight, and be freed from all grief and pain.

In the meantime he had passed the Seventh Septenary, and had attained to the age of fifty. And then came suddenly the great metamorphosis in his life, viz. his connection and acquaintanceship with another human being, called A sal.

This came about in the following way:

Not very far from the Island where Hayy passed his days, there was another Island to which had retired one of those pious sects which abounded then in that part of the world. Among its votaries were the most zealous and devoted members, two men, named Asal and Salaman. Though both were constant in performing those ceremonies prescribed by the law of this sect, they greatly differed in their character and in their propensities.

Asal, being of a contemplative and meditative disposition, affected retirement from the world and a solitary life as the best means to attain to happiness and salvation. Salaman, on the other hand, with his natural aversion to contemplation, and subtle inquiries into the higher world of things, preferred conversation, human society, and company, as the best means to drive away evil thoughts. Though they were the best of friends, this disparity in their views caused them in the end to separate.

A sal, advised of the fertility and health-giving atmosphere of that Island wherein Hayy Ibn Yokdhan dwelled, decided to go thither. After having sold his goods, and having distributed part thereof among the poor, he hired a ship and was transported into Hayy's Island.

As Hayy, being wholly taken up in sublime speculations, scarcely ever stirred out of his cave, Asal did pot at first light upon him. One day, however, when Hayy was stepping out of his cell to look out for some food, he spied Asal - and the following episode forms one of the most charming chapters of the story in its description of how Hayy brings Asal to book, and how they try to make themselves understood to one another.

Hayy, who is taken by Asal to be one of those religious persons given to solitude, like himself, who had retired to that Island to give himself up to contemplation and prayers, stands, on his part, in wonder and amazement at the appearance of Asal. He could not imagine what it was. For of all the creatures he had ever beheld in his life, there was none that in the least resembled him. And in the end he came to the conclusion that he must be one of the essences, that had the knowledge of the True One. He is anxious to get into closer contact with him; and therefore, when he sees Asal making off with all might and in great haste, he follows him, and, being endowed with great bodily vigour, overtakes him, seizes him, and holds him fast so that he could not get off again.

When Asal looked upon him, and beheld him clothed with the skins of wild beasts, and his own hair so long that it covered part of his body, he felt great fear of him and tried to pacify him by stroking him. Hayy, on the other hand, when he perceived those tokens of his fear, endeavoured to allay it with such vocal expressions as he had learned from some animals, and furthermore by stroking, with great gentleness, his hand, his head, his neck, until he succeeded, by the expression of great kindness and joy, in allaying Asal's fears.

Then Asal, being a great expert in languages, began to question him concerning his doings and ways of life in all the languages he was master of. But Hayy did not understand anything of all that was said to him ; and so they stood for a long time, wrapped up in wonder, looking at one another.

Asal, however, did not lose hope that it should come to pass that he should teach him languages, knowledge, and religion; and by dint of patience and application, he at last succeeded in teaching him the rudiments of language ; and then he very quickly advanced him so far that he could converse with him any length of time.

Thereupon, he began to question him about his past and about his manner of living, and Hayy described to him the progress he had made in knowledge until he had attained to that degree of union with God, and told him of those essences that are separated from the sensible world ; and of that essence, the True One, the Almighty and Glorious, with all his glorious attributes.

When Asal heard of all this, the eyes of his heart were opened and his mind enlightened, and he realised that all those rules and precepts he had been taught himself in his law, regarding the Almighty and Glorious God, his Angels and Books, his Messengers and the Day of Judgment, Paradise and Hell, were, in fact, resemblances of what Hayy had seen, and that his religion and Hayy's philosophy were only two different forms of the One Eternal Truth.

Now, when Hayy heard from A sal, in the course of their further conversations and discussions, of the sad state of the inner life which the people on Asal's Island lived in, he was greatly affected with pity towards them, and a resolution entered into his mind of going over to them in the hope and desire to become an instrument in their salvation. A sal quickly fell in with this plan. So they took the first ship that passed the shore of their Island and repaired to the opposite Island.

When they arrived there, Asal's friends gathered round him, anxious to hear of his adventures; and when they heard his account of Hayy Ibn Yokdhan, they flocked together from all sides, surrounding him with all tokens of reverence and admiration.

However, in his presence, making a great show of kindness Hayy soon found out that it was hopeless to reform these people, whose only God was their lusts and appetites, blinded and captivated as they were by the trifles and vanities of this world, tossed up and down until they tottered to their graves. He saw that God had sealed up their hearts and ears, a thick mist being before their eyes and sore punishment abiding them.

When Hayy saw how things stood - that there was no salvation for this weak, tractable, and defective sort of men, he craved pardon for the things he had spoken and desisted from further efforts in that direction.

Greatly disappointed at being unable to regenerate Salaman's subjects, he bade him farewell and returned with Asal to his Island. There they continued to devote themselves to contemplation and the search after the Eternal Truth, and did not cease worshipping God until death laid his hands upon them.

These Are The Outlines Of The Story Of Hayy Ibn Yokdhan

Both Myth and History are the parents of many of its most touching and tender motives.

Stranded, or rather exposed on an Island by his mother, a Princess - who is not reminded of the same motive in a biblical story? - nursed by a Roe - another favourite motive of semi-mythical periods.

Later on, wholly left to his own resources, yet nothing daunted, by sheer pluck and energy he builds himself up a material existence, then by the sharpness of his wit, the originality and penetration of his thought, the incisiveness of his intuition, he rapidly builds up a spiritual structure of Nature, Heaven, and its Mover and Ruler, God, until, at the age of fifty, he has attained to that highest stage of Sufic evolution, the Ecstasy, the complete immersion in, and absorption by, the One Essence, the True One, that Eternal Being : Ecstasy, the same state which is so beautifully described by that famous Arabian philosopher, Avicenna, when he says: - "Then when a man's desires are raised to a high pitch, and he is sufficiently well exercised in that way, there will appear to him some small glimmerings of the Truth, as it were flashes of lightning, very delightful, which just shine upon him and then go out. Then the more he exercises himself, the more often he'll perceive them ... till through frequent exercise he at last attains to a perfect tranquillity: and that which used to appear to him only by fits and starts, becomes habitual; and that which was only a glimmering before, a constant light."

To detach and deliver the soul - if only for a few hours - from the withering despotism of everyday life and strife, grey and monotonous with its eternal round of toil, worry, and trouble; to bathe the soul in the full sunshine of sublime wisdom, depicted and represented in this simple romance, with its exquisite charm and captivating grace, clear as crystal yet pregnant with ideas that have moved the world - this was the idea which guided me in embarking upon this work.

If I have succeeded in this task, even only in a small degree, by resuscitating this gem of Arabian philosophical literature - then I consider myself richly repaid for the labour I have bestowed on this little book, which has, indeed, been a labour of love.

Paul Bronnle.

25th April 1904.