Twelfth International Conference on Religion & Spirituality in Society

Abstract

This study discusses the Neo-Latin text and translation of Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān whose narrative was authored by the Andalusian Muslim philosopher Ibn Tufayl, and which is commonly attributed to the pioneer of Italian humanism Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola in the 15th century. This philosophical classic is considered to be in the genre of an allegorical novel which represents the Avicennean metaphysics in a fabulous and fictional story of a boy and his adventures on a desolate isle where he was born. The narrative basically recounts that on losing his assumed mother “the deer” who raised him, the boy sets out for a journey to heal her but instead discovers the ontological and epistemological reality of his own self and the universe after a painstaking rational discourse, culminating in the embrace of the divine guidance. The Neo-Latin translation which is arguably dated to 1492 was undertaken by the Hebrew teacher, translator and the Spanish kabbalist Isaac ben Jacob ha-Koheat in the Platonic academy of Florence. After briefly reviewing the controversies and textual transmission problems in the modern scholarship, the study reflects on the newly founded data in the Neo-Latin translation that corresponds to the ecstatic statements (shaṭaḥāt) of the sūfis which were rendered in a remarkably different interpretation from its original Arabic text, then investigates the cultural motivations of the translation, offering an Arabic reconstruction for a comparative analysis including the exploration of the marginal notes on the manuscript as well as the use of the kabalistic motifs.