Abstract
In a period of roughly thirty years, four versions of Ibn Tufayl’s Hayy Ibn Yaqdhan were published in English. In his translation of 1674, Scottish Quaker George Keith envisioned the text as a theological illustration of the “Inner Light” which was at the core of the Quaker doctrine. Rector George Ashwell, in his 1686 version, cut out most philosophical elements from the narrative to create an Orientalist easy-read. But by adding after the text a theological pamphlet entitled “The Book of Nature,” Ashwell also turned Ibn Tufayl’s discourse into a defence of “natural religion.” In 1696, bookseller George Conyers abridged Ashwell’s translation, stripping it of its religious concern to turn it into a pleasant winter entertainment. Finally, Simon Ockley, a specialist of Arabic studies, provided an English translation from the original Arabic in 1708, thus broadening the scope of its readership, while being careful to add an appendix in order to prevent misuses of the tale which would have been detrimental to the Anglican Church. In this chapter, the authors use the idea of literary negotiations in order to account for these theological and literary bargainings with the text, which resulted in its distortion and in the creation of an imaginary Orient. Hayy Ibn Yaqdhan therefore appears as a unique editorial phenomenon while also revealing the evolution of the status of Eastern texts on the British book market, from backdrop for theological controversies to fable of the East.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
Another partial text, Al-Urjuza Al-Tawila fi l-tibb, “Rajaz Poem on Medicine,” is kept in Fez, Ms. 3158, Al-Qarawiyyin Library, Fez, Morocco (Conrad 1996, Note 27, p. 8).
- 3.
On Ibn Tufayl’s definition of revelation and its relation to Ibn Sina’s, al-Kindi’s, al-Ghazali’s or al-Farabi’s theologies, see, Radtke, Bernd. “How can man reach the mystical union? Ibn Tufayl and the divine spark” (Conrad 1996, pp. 165–194).
- 4.
And so, not Edward Pococke the elder (1604–1691), as Ben-Zaken repeatedly asserts in Reading Hayy Ibn-Yaqzan. Ben-Zaken’s confusion may be explained by the fact that it was the father and not the son who was the driving force behind the project. Still, the translation was the work of the son and Pococke the elder prepared and sent copies to various eminent orientalist scholars in France in order to introduce his son and secure the Laudian chair of Arabic in Oxford for him. As it turned out, Pococke the younger never proved as dedicated and as gifted as his father and it was Thomas Hyde who was chosen to replace Pococke the elder, when the latter died in 1691.
- 5.
The Dutch translation was published in 1672 by Johan Bouwmeester. As discussed in (Israel 2006, pp. 628–631), the work was commissioned by the literary society Nil Volentibus Arduum, rather than Spinoza directly as had been conjectured by some studies on the basis of the second translation attributed to S. D. B. (Conrad 1996, p. 276; Russell 1993, Note 16, p. 255). The impact of Ibn Tufayl’s philosophy on the circle around Spinoza, Pierre Bayle, John Locke and Jean Le Clerc remains regardless a fascinating topic deserving further study.
- 6.
The main secondary sources on the circulation of the tale in Europe are Attar (2007, pp. 20, 37, 40, and 99) and Ben Zaken (2011, pp. 10 and 119–120). Attar treats of the translators in a particularly cavalier way, even misidentifying Ashwell as “the Catholic vicar of Banbury” (37). They also leave out Conyers’s edition, which is mentioned in the full list included in (Hassan 1980, pp. 4–10).
- 7.
We must remember that the first translation of the Qur’an in English (most certainly completed, as Noel Malcolm argued, by Hugh Ross and not Alexander Ross) dated from 1649. It was not a work of scholarship but was based on Du Ryer’s French translation of 1647. Despite the development of orientalist studies in Protestant countries in the seventeenth century and the high level of exchanges between Dutch and English orientalist scholars, and between Protestant and Catholic orientalisms, the perception of Islam was still largely depreciative and it was used as a foil in quarrels opposing Catholics and Protestants (Holt 1957; Weitzman 1965; Hamilton and Richard 2004; Malcolm 2012).
- 8.
On Ibn Tufayl’s vision of nature, see Kruk, “Ibn Tufayl: A Medieval Scholar’s View on Nature,” in 1996, pp. 69–89.
- 9.
As Laurence Conrad sums up: “In the generation preceding Ibn Tufayl, Ibn Bajja compares the philosopher in Spain to the odd weed that here and there sprouts among the crops –unsown, uncultivated, unwelcome, and isolated, and subject to the ruler’s dictum that the crop must not be allowed to suffer for the sake of the weeds” (Conrad 1996, p. 13).
- 10.
The long title reads: The History of Hai Eb’n Yockdan , an Indian Prince: or, the Self-Taught Philosopher. Written Originally in the Arabick Tongue, by Abi Jaafar Eb’n Tophail, a Philosopher by Profession and A Mahometan by Religion. Wherein is demonstrated, by what Steps and Degrees, Human Reason, improved by diligent Observation and Experience, may arrive to the Knowledge of natural things, and from thence to the Discovery of Supernaturals; more especially of God, and the Concernments of the other World. Set forth not long ago in the Original Arabick, with the Latin Version by Edw. Pocock M.A. and Student of Christ-Church.
- 11.
- 12.
“Commercium Epistolicum Knorrianum,” MS Cod. Guelph Extrav. 30.4, f. 16. Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel.
- 13.
- 14.
We would concur with Parveen Hasanali, who argued in her 1995 doctoral dissertation “Texts, Translators, Transmission: ‘Hayy Ibn Yaqzan’ and its reception in Muslim, Judaic and Christian Milieux” that this insistence on the narrative announces Kirkby’s or Defoe’s approaches to the tale.
- 15.
The original title was: Pandosto, the Triumph of Time.
- 16.
- 17.
For the distinction between the two, see Said (1978, pp. 201–207).
- 18.
Risālah Ḥayy ibn Yaqzān, MS Pococke 263, ff. 23–71, Pococke Collection, Bodleian Library, Oxford. Pococke’s Latin translation, Philosophus autodidactus , first published in Oxford in 1671 went through a second edition in 1700. Even though Edward Pococke the younger appears as the nominal translator of the Arabic philosophical tale, it was noted by G. J. Toomer that it was in fact his father who had conceived of the project and who had largely executed it (“Pococke, Edward [bap. 1648, d. 1726]”).
- 19.
The Copy Right Act of 1709 did not extend to Ireland. Thus, the market of books greatly developed in Dublin, where printers did not have to pay a licence and could re-print London issues without additional fees. Dublin printers would normally choose editorial successes and print cheaper and smaller versions. This was the case for the 1731 Dublin edition of Hayy, which was published in a duo-decimo format, while the previous versions were in-octavo. Furthermore, it only contained one illustration of low quality. The fact that Hayy was re-printed in Dublin testifies to its popularity (Pollard 1989; Kennedy 2005).
- 20.
In the “Eighteenth-Century Collections Online” database, only 8 occurrences of Ockley’s Hayy are to be found in catalogues of books for sale, usually after the death of their proprietors, namely, in 1733, in the catalogue of Charles Bruce, Earl of Ailesbury, in 1742, in the catalogue of “a late eminent Serjeant of Law,” Dr. Edmund Halley, in 1756, in the catalogue of the President of the Royal Society, Martin Folkes, lately deceased, in 1763, in the catalogue of “an eminent counselor of the law,” in 1784, in a catalogue, including the collection of the late Mr. John Millan, a Capital Law Library, in 1786 in the catalogue of John Lewis Pettit’s collection of books (apparently a physician), in 1786 again, in the catalogue of books to be sold by auction, by Samuel Paterson, and, finally, in 1792, in Lackington’s catalogue of second-hand books for sale.
- 21.
A New and General Biographical Dictionary, vol. 9, pp. 14–15.
- 22.
Out of 31 footnotes, 18 belong to the introduction (23 p.) and 13 to the rest of the book (137 p.), and most of the footnotes placed in the body of the text are actually used for referencing and not explaining or commenting the main text.
- 23.
A New and General Biographical Dictionary, vol. 9, pp. 14–15.
- 24.
See Note 22.
- 25.
Kirkby, John. The life and surprizing adventures of Don Juliani de Trezz : who was educated and lived forty-five years in an island of Malpa, an uninhabited island in the East-Indies. Translated from the Portuguese. The London edition is dated 1725, but the pirated Dublin edition dates from 1722, which would indicate that a first edition would have been published in London prior to 1722 and may have disappeared.
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Ferlier, L., Gallien, C. (2019). “Enthusiastick” Uses of an Oriental Tale: The English Translations of Ibn Tufayl’s Hayy Ibn Yaqdhan in the Eighteenth Century. In: Gallien, C., Niayesh, L. (eds) Eastern Resonances in Early Modern England. New Transculturalisms, 1400–1800. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22925-2_6
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