Before science: the invention of the friars' natural philosophy

impact on Ibn Tufayl's forerunners, especially Avicenna, whom Ibn Tufayl quotes expressly. Salim Kemal's 'Justifications of poetic validity' gives a very condensed summary of his monograph The poetics ofAlfarabi and Avicenna (Leiden, 1991). But I doubt whether Ibn Tufayl's novel kind of thought experiment can be grasped in terms of Avicenna's poetology. The medieval Latin translators did not concern themselves with this text, but Moshe Narboni wrote a Hebrew commentary, which is discussed by Larry B Miller (pp. 229-37). This contains allusions to persecutions and many hardships endured by Narboni, who died in 1362. He deemed the mystical conjunction with the upper world impossible in his generation, due to the lack of calm. In his epilogue Conrad takes up the principal question: what was Ibn Tufayl's real aim? In our century two tendencies have emerged. Leon Gauthier saw the harmony of philosophy and religion as Ibn Tufayl's main concern. This seems to be the theme especially of an appendix of the tale, where HIayy, having reached perfection, meets Absal, who comes from a neighbouring island with an established religion very similar to Islam. Hayy imparts his wisdom to him, and they find that the beliefs of Absal's countrymen coincide basically with it, but that they lack an ascetic lifestyle and adhere to a primitive understanding of scripture. H.ayy and Absal decide to convert the inhabitants. The attempt fails and they both return to their lonely island. Gauthier's interpretation was challenged by George F Hourani who saw in Hayy's biography only the model of the philosophus autodidactus who reaches perfection without the assistance of a revealed religion. Conrad comes nearer to Gauthier but sees the attempt to reform the religion of the islanders as reflecting Ibn Tufayl's own social aspirations. Burgel, in his paper, gives more weight to the failure of their mission (p. 132) and I see in the ultimate departure for Hayy's island an outright allegoric symbol for the "inner emigration" of the enlightened intellectual in Almohad society. The volume concludes with a rich bibliography composed by Conrad, and a "General Index". To the list of Russian translations I would add: Ibn Tufejl', Povest' o Khaje syne Jakzana, translation, introduction, and commentary by A V Sagadeev, Moscow, 1988, who mentions three reprints of the older translation by I P Kuz'min, and also a second edition in 1700 of the English translation of 1671.