Ibn Tufayl

Ibn Tufayl
Imaginary sketch representing Ibn Tufayl (1961)
Title	Ibn Tufayl Abubacer Aben Tofail Abu Jaafar Ebn Tophail Avetophail
Personal
Born	1105 Guadix, Andalusia, Almoravid dynasty
Died	1185 (aged 79–80) Marrakesh, Almohad Caliphate
Religion	Islam
Era	Islamic Golden Age
Region	Al-Andalus
Creed	Avicennism
Main interest(s)	Early Islamic philosophy, literature, kalam, Islamic medicine
Notable idea(s)	Wrote the first philosophical novel, which was also the first novel to depict desert island, feral child and coming of age plots, and introduced the concepts of autodidacticism and tabula rasa
Notable work(s)	Hayy ibn Yaqdhan (Philosophus Autodidactus)
Occupation	Muslim scholar
Muslim leader
Influenced by Plato, Aristotle, Al-Farabi, Avicenna, Avicennism, Ibn Tumart, Ibn Bajjah, Abu Yaqub Yusuf, Muhammad
Influenced Averroes, Alpetragius, Ibn al-Nafis

Ibn Ṭufayl (full Arabic name: أبو بكر محمد بن عبد الملك بن محمد بن طفيل القيسي الأندلسي ʾAbū Bakr Muḥammad bin ʿAbd al-Malik bin Muḥammad bin Ṭufayl al-Qaysiyy al-ʾAndalusiyy; Latinized form: Abubacer Aben Tofail; Anglicized form: Abubekar or Abu Jaafar Ebn Tophail; c. 1105 – 1185) was an Arab Andalusian Muslim polymath: a writer, Islamic philosopher, Islamic theologian, physician, astronomer, and vizier.^[1]

As a philosopher and novelist, he is most famous for writing the first philosophical novel, Hayy ibn Yaqdhan (The Living Son of the Vigilant), considered a major work of Arabic literature emerging from Al-Andalus.^[2] As a physician, he was an early supporter of dissection and autopsy, which was expressed in his novel.^[3]