The Vital Roots of European Enlightenment

The Vital Roots of European Enlightenment is a collection of essays dealing with the influence of Ibn Tufayl, a 12th-century Arab philosopher from Spain, on major European thinkers. Had Edward Said known about the impact of Hayy Ibn Yaqzan on Europe throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, he might have reached different conclusions in his book Orientalism.

The Vital Roots of European Enlightenment is a collection of essays which deal with the influence of Ibn Tufayl, a 12th-century Arab philosopher from Spain, on major European thinkers. His philosophical novel, Hayy Ibn Yaqzan, could be considered one of the most important books that heralded the Scientific Revolution. Its thoughts are found in different variations and to different degrees in the books of Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Isaac Newton, and Kant. But if Ibn Tufayl's fundamental values, such as equality, freedom and toleration, which the thinkers of the European Enlightenment had adopted as theirs, paved the way to the French Revolution, they certainly marked the end of the age of reason in southern Spain and the rest of the Islamic world. Ibn Tufayl's philosophy was appropriated, subverted, or reinvented for many centuries. But the memory of the man who wrote such an influential book was buried in the dust of history. The Vital Roots of European Enlightenment reexamines Ibn Tufayl's momentous book and its continued influence over contemporary philosophy. This intriguing book will appeal to those interested in comparative literature and religion.

Chapter 1 Introduction: Buried in the Dust of History: A Forgotten Arab Mentor of Modern European Thinkers
Chapter 2 Serving God or Mammon? : Echoes fromHayy Ibn Yaqzan and Sinbad the Sailor inRobinson Crusoe
Chapter 3 The Man of Reason: Hayy Ibn Yaqzan and His Impact on Modern European Thought
Chapter 4 Beyond Family, History, Religion, and Language: The Construction of a Cosmopolitan Identity in a Twelfth-Century Arabic Philosophical Novel
Chapter 5 The Book that Launched a Thousand Books
Chapter 6 The Extraordinary Voyage
Chapter 7 A Philosophical Letter, An Allegorical Voyage, or an Autobiography?:Hayy Ibn Yaqzan as a Model in Modern European Literature
Chapter 8 Conclusion: A Humanist Thesis Subverted?