Ibn Tufail, Abu Ja'afar. The Improvement of Human Reason, Exhibited in the Life of Hai Ebn Yokdhan. Translated from the original Arabic by Simon Ockley

A MEDIEVAL ARABIC ROBINSON CRUSOE This masterly philosophical novel is the story of a man who in infancy is cast away on a lonely island and raised by a gazelle. His search for truth brings him to the highest levels of spiritual realization. When, in old age, exposed to the pettiness of human society, he concludes that it is only in solitude that man may reach spiritual perfection. The author, Ibn Tufail was born in Cadiz, Spain about 1100 and died in Morocco in 1185. His novel was extremely popular among the Jews of Spain. See Israel Zinberg, A History of Jewish Literature, Vol. III (1973), p. 5. Hai Ibn Yaktan was translated into several European languages. Simon Ockley, Vicar of Swavesey, a master of Oriental languages, was the first to translate the novel into English from the Arabic original. A prolific author, he also translated Venetian Rabbi Leon Modena's History of the Jews from Italian