About this text: The Recital of Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān

رسالة حي بن يقظان

Ibn Sīnā (370–428/980–1037)

The sage who is 'Alive, son of Awake' shows the soul the way out of the world, with Ibn Zayla's commentary.

On the Platonic Current: Avicenna

Synthesis of the readings

The arc

The chapter opens with the narrator and his companions meeting a radiant, undecaying old man who names himself Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān and whom both sources take as the active intellect. After a display of firāsa that diagnoses the narrator's pliant nature, the guide describes the narrator's inseparable companions: imagination in front, anger on the right, and desire on the left. He counsels the narrator to govern them until death separates soul from body. The narrator confirms this account by his own examination and learns that until then his journey with the guide can only be interrupted. Ḥayy then lays out the three bounds of the world. Logic gives access to the hidden western and eastern bounds, which the sources read as matter and form. The western tour climbs from prime matter through the celestial spheres to the starless outermost sphere, and then back up through elements, minerals, plants and animals to the human world. The eastern tour maps the soul's faculties, passing from the senses and inner faculties through the disciplined faculties and the rational souls to the celestial souls and the separate intellects. The chapter closes on the King, the First, who is beyond description and hidden by the very excess of his manifestness.

Key moves

The guide is introduced as living, wakeful intellect. He is ageless, belongs to the hallowed intellectual world, and receives his knowledge from a higher 'father'.¶ 2
The guide reads the narrator's nature as receptive and open both to purification and to error. This sets up the need for guidance and self-governance.¶ 3
The companions who never leave the narrator are identified as the bodily faculties: imagination as a lying but indispensable scout, anger as an unstoppable force, and desire as base appetite.¶ 4, 5, 6, 7
Until the soul's exile from the body, reason must rule the faculties. It sets anger and desire against each other and admits imagination's reports only under a guarantee that sorts true from false.¶ 8, 9
The narrator verifies the guide's account for himself and learns that full union with the guide awaits death. Until then his intellectual journey alternates with a return to the faculties.¶ 10, 11
The world has three bounds. The hidden bounds of West and East, matter and form, can be reached only by an acquired strength, which both sources identify with logic.¶ 12
The western journey moves through unstable prime matter, the fixed heavens up to the starless sphere from which Command and Decree descend, and the cumulative ladder of elements, minerals, plants and animals that ends in the human world.¶ 13, 14, 15, 16
The eastern journey maps the soul's perceptive and appetitive faculties, their reformed members, the rational souls, the celestial souls and the separate intellects. It ends with the King, whom no description reaches and whose light veils him.¶ 17, 18, 19, 20, 21

Where the sources agree

The narrative is an allegory of Avicennan psychology and cosmology. The guide is the active intellect, and the King is the First or Necessary Existent.
AI translationIbn Zayla
The companions stand for the soul's bodily faculties, chiefly imagination, the irascible faculty and the concupiscent faculty. They cling to the soul only during its embodied life.
AI translationIbn Zayla
The right relation to the faculties is governance by reason until the soul's separation from the body. That separation is the true exile and release, and it comes only with death.
AI translationIbn Zayla
The western climes map an ordered cosmos. Unstable prime matter receives forms, the heavens are fixed and incorruptible, and the sublunary kinds form a cumulative ladder up to the human being.
AI translationIbn Zayla
The higher orders are the celestial souls moving the spheres and the separate intellects, each with a fixed rank. The first intellect, the 'father', mediates the King's emanation to the rest.
AI translationIbn Zayla

Live divergences

How far the allegory is to be read in logical and epistemic terms, as opposed to cosmological or physiological terms.
- Ibn Zayla He repeatedly finds logic and the process of cognition in the imagery. Firāsa is logic, the pledge from God may be logic's rules, and the passage beyond the angelic clime is a progression of inquiry from sensory to intellectual perception.¶ 3, 9, 19
- AI translation It takes firāsa literally as physiognomy and the pledge as a guarantee from above. It reads the climes as tiers of existence that the soul ascends through, although it too identifies the spring of passage 12 with logic.¶ 3, 9, 12, 19
Whether the soul's protection and guidance come from above or are acquired by the soul itself.
- AI translation It links the protection and divine assistance to help from the active intellect, and it links the pledge to intellect or veridical inspiration.¶ 4, 5, 9
- Ibn Zayla He treats the protection as a newly acquired power of theoretical and practical wisdom. He treats the pledge as a rule the reader lays down and must be strong enough to master.¶ 4, 9
Whether the lower faculties are to be moderated or subdued.
- AI translation It reads reason's work through the ethical mean. The faculties are kept in balanced proportion, each checking the other.¶ 8
- Ibn Zayla He speaks of desire being used to nullify anger so that it yields wholly to reason. He reads the reformed jinn and ḥinn as faculties restrained from irascible and concupiscent acts.¶ 8, 18
Whether the beings of the eastern climes are cosmic spirits or powers within the human being.
- AI translation It takes the benign groups as subtle spiritual beings of the sublunary borderlands. It takes the earthly angels of passage 18 as lower angelic powers governing the sublunary world.¶ 18
- Ibn Zayla He reads jinn and ḥinn as the apprehending and conative faculties, and the earthly angels as rational human souls. This keeps the eastern journey inside the human soul up to the celestial orders.¶ 18, 19
How the guide's knowledge relates to the imagery of travel and time.
- AI translation It renders the guide's travelling as the means by which he came to encompass the regions of existence in knowledge.¶ 2
- Ibn Zayla The guide knows all existents at once, without temporal wandering. He reads 'most ancient' as priority in essence and causality, with no temporal sense.¶ 2, 20

Left open

The sources leave unexplained how reason actually sifts imagination's reports, and by what criterion.
If release from the faculties comes only with death, it is unclear how the soul 'takes charge' of its release, and whether any lasting detachment is possible before then.
Many images are left without a reading. These include the polar darkness, Mount Qāf, the strangers in the celestial waste, the warring factions of the West, and the rare emigrants who return unwillingly from the King.
The sources do not settle how the placements on right and left (anger and desire, knowing and working ranks, the western heavens) relate to one another or ground any ranking.

AI synthesis (Claude), built from the syntheses of each passage and the commentators' introductions to the chapter; every point names its sources. Public sources only. Each passage's own synthesis is under its translation in the reader.

In the reader

22 passages · ~25 min · audio · commentaries · 2 Quran quotations

2,296 words

Audio: Arabic and English
Commentaries: aligned on 20 passages
Published translation: none (the English is AI, marked as such)
Quran quotations: 2

Read it →Grammar practice Study sheet (print)

Difficulty

much rare vocabulary

Lexical difficulty, from the words themselves: how many roots fall outside the 1,000 most frequent in the Quran, how long the words are, and how much of the vowelling had to be supplied by AI. It says how unfamiliar the vocabulary is, not how deep the ideas are.

Rare roots 17% · mean word length 4.4 letters · AI vowelling on 99% of words

Themes & resonances AI

What the text is about, and what it connects to across the history of thought. Every connection says what kind of claim it is: a documented lineage, a shared source, a resonance with no influence claimed, or a contrast. Mapped by AI; references are shown only once checked. Across the library

Themes

The ageless sage who is the active intellectحيّ بن يقظانḤayy ibn Yaqẓānroot حيي
The three companions: imagination, anger and desireرفقاءrufaqāʾroot رفق
Exile as the only release from the facultiesغربةghurbaroot غرب
The interrupted journey and the Spring of Lifeسياحةsiyāḥaroot سيح
The climes of the West and the Eastإقليمiqlīmκλίμαklima
The King veiled by his own manifestnessظهورẓuhūrroot ظهر
The father of the intellects and the chain of rankأبabroot أبو

What each theme is here

The ageless sage who is the active intellect. The narrator meets a radiant elder, 'Alive, son of Awake', who does not decay with age, reads his nature by physiognomy, and offers to lead him; the commentary identifies him with the active intellect.
The three companions: imagination, anger and desire. The companions who never leave the narrator's side are the bodily faculties, which reason must govern by setting anger and desire against each other and by testing the reports of imagination until death parts soul from body.
Exile as the only release from the faculties. Only an exile to lands the companions have never trodden will free the soul, and the West is the dark, muddy clime of matter where forms settle and collapse.
The interrupted journey and the Spring of Life. Ḥayy's occupation is travelling through the worlds, and the narrator may join him only for spells, while the crossing to the hidden bounds needs a strength won by bathing in the spring beside the Spring of Life, which the commentary reads as logic.
The climes of the West and the East. The western climes map prime matter, the planetary kingdoms and the starless sphere from which the Command descends, and the eastern climes map the ladder of elements, minerals, plants, animals, faculties, souls and separate intellects.
The King veiled by his own manifestness. The King's beauty is the veil of his beauty and his manifestness the cause of his hiddenness, as the sun is hidden by the excess of its own light.
The father of the intellects and the chain of rank. Nearest the King stands a 'father' through whom the King's address issues to his children and grandchildren, each with a fixed rank, an allegory of the first intellect and the emanated intellects.

Connections

Lineage 5

Documented transmission: a chain of reading, teaching, translation or citation, grounded in a verified reference or in the later text itself.

Ibn Ṭufayl, Ḥayy ibn YaqẓānFalsafa (Arabic philosophy) · firm
Ibn Ṭufayl takes the name Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān from Ibn Sīnā and says so, but he turns the figure around: Ibn Sīnā's Ḥayy is a guide who teaches, while Ibn Ṭufayl's Ḥayy is a child with no teacher who reasons his way to God alone.
Carried byحيّ بن يقظانḤayy ibn Yaqẓānroot حيي“the name Ḥayy”
In the library:Ḥayy (Ibn Ṭufayl)Ḥayy (Ibn Ṭufayl) ¶19
- Lenn Evan Goodman, Ibn Tufayl's Hayy Ibn Yaqzan: A Philosophical Tale (1972): Translation and introduction that set out Ibn Ṭufayl's borrowing of Avicenna's names and his debt to Avicenna.
Suhrawardī, The Occidental Exile (Qiṣṣat al-ghurba al-gharbiyya)Ishraqi philosophy · firm
Suhrawardī wrote his recital as a continuation of Ibn Sīnā's Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān, taking up the western exile and carrying the journey to the Sinai of the soul, where a chain of ancestors ends at the One, much as Ḥayy's 'father' leads up to the King.
Carried byغربةghurbaroot غرب“exile in the West”
In the library:al-Ghurba al-gharbiyya ¶0 al-Ghurba al-gharbiyya ¶43 Path: The fall and the return of the soul
- Henry Corbin, Avicenne et le récit visionnaire (1954): Studies Avicenna's visionary recitals and Suhrawardī's Recital of Occidental Exile as their continuation.
Ibn Sīnā, The Recital of the Bird and the Ode on the SoulFalsafa (Arabic philosophy) · firm
The same author tells the soul's captivity and release again as birds caught in a net who cross eight mountains to the King, and as a dove that fell from the highest place; the three works form one cycle of allegories.
Carried byملكmalikroot ملك“the King at the end of the journey”
In the library:Risālat al-Ṭayr ¶12 Risālat al-Ṭayr ¶13 al-ʿAyniyya ¶10
- Peter Heath, Allegory and Philosophy in Avicenna (Ibn Sînâ) (1992): Reads Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān, the Recital of the Bird and the Miʿrāj-nāma together as Avicenna's philosophical allegories.
- Henry Corbin, Avicenne et le récit visionnaire (1954): Treats Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān and the Recital of the Bird as a single cycle of recitals.
al-Fārābī, doctrine of the active intellect (al-ʿaql al-faʿʿāl)Falsafa (Arabic philosophy) · firm
The allegory of a living, wakeful guide who belongs to a hierarchy of separate intellects rests on the theory of the active intellect and the emanated intellects that Ibn Sīnā developed from al-Fārābī.
Carried byالعقل الفعّالal-ʿaql al-faʿʿālroot عقل“active intellect”
In the library:Hayākil al-nūr ¶19
- Herbert A. Davidson, Alfarabi, Avicenna, and Averroes, on Intellect (1992): Documents the development of the active intellect and the emanation of intellects from al-Fārābī to Avicenna.
al-Ghazālī, The Niche of Lights: God hidden by the intensity of His manifestnessSufism · probable
Ḥayy's King, whose manifestness is the cause of his hiddenness, returns in al-Ghazālī's argument that the divine light is hidden because it is too manifest and never absent; scholars have traced the Avicennan foundations of al-Ghazālī's account of mystical knowledge.
Carried byظهورẓuhūrroot ظهر“hidden by manifestness”
In the library:Mishkāt al-anwār ¶13 Mishkāt al-anwār ¶68 Mishkāt al-anwār ¶70 Path: Light and its veils
- Alexander Treiger, Inspired Knowledge in Islamic Thought: Al-Ghazālī's Theory of Mystical Cognition and Its Avicennian Foundation (2012): Documents al-Ghazālī's reliance on Avicenna in his account of mystical knowledge, including the Mishkāt.

Resonance, not influence 8

Resonance, not influence: a structural or thematic likeness. No influence is claimed.

Plato, Phaedrus 246a–254e: the charioteer and the two horsesPlatonism · probable
Plato pictures the soul as a charioteer with a spirited horse and an unruly appetitive horse, and Ḥayy tells the narrator to ride his reckless and gluttonous companions and use one against the other; the Arabic text is a tale of companions on a road, with imagination as a third, lying scout.
Carried byθυμόςthumos“anger and desire as mounts to be ridden”
Plato, Symposium 202e: Love as the daimōn who ferries between gods and mortalsPlatonism · probable
Diotima's Love carries messages between the divine and the human, and Ḥayy draws near to the King by addressing and rousing the narrator; both are intermediaries whose work is to lead the human upward.
Carried byδαίμωνdaimōn“the intermediary”
In the library:Symposium 202e Symposium 203a
Plotinus, Ennead VI.9: the One beyond knowledge and descriptionNeoplatonism · probable
Plotinus says we grasp the One by a presence that goes beyond knowledge, and Ḥayy says the King passes beyond the describers' power and that all similitudes turn aside from his path.
Carried byἕνhen“beyond description”
In the library:Ennead VI.9, ch. 4 Ennead VI.9, ch. 9
Ibn ʿArabī, Meccan Openings, introduction: the youth met at the KaʿbaAkbarian tradition (after Ibn Arabi) · probable
Ibn ʿArabī meets at the Kaʿba a youth who stands outside ordinary time and tells him to read the details of his form; like Ḥayy's ageless elder, he is a figure whom the visitor must learn to read.
Carried byفتىfatāroot فتي“the ageless guide”
In the library:al-Futūḥāt al-makkiyya ¶81 al-Futūḥāt al-makkiyya ¶84 Path: The Beloved's face at the House
Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy: Lady PhilosophyEarly Christianity and the Fathers · probable
Boethius's prisoner is visited by a woman whose age cannot be fixed, full of vigour yet ancient, who diagnoses his condition and leads him up toward the highest good; Ḥayy is likewise old in years and untouched by decay, and he too begins by reading his listener's nature.
Carried by“the unaging personified guide”
Dante Alighieri, Paradiso: the ascent through the planetary heavensMedieval Latin philosophy · suggestive
The western climes of the Recital are the planetary spheres in order, each kingdom with the character of its planet, and Dante's pilgrim climbs through the same heavens under a guide; no transmission between the two texts is claimed here.
Carried by“planetary spheres as realms”
Buddhism: the three poisons (greed, hatred, delusion)Buddhism · probable
Buddhist teaching names desire, hatred and delusion as the three roots of harm, and Ḥayy's three companions are desire, anger and a lying imagination; the Buddhist aim is to uproot them, while Ḥayy asks that they be governed until death releases the soul.
Carried by“three inner companions”
Sigmund Freud, New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis (1933): the ego as rider of the idPsychoanalysis and depth psychology · suggestive
Freud likens the ego to a rider who must guide a stronger horse, and Ḥayy tells the narrator that if he stands firm he will ride his companions and they will not ride him; each is a picture of reason managing forces it cannot remove.
Carried by“the rider and the mount”

Contrast 1

An instructive opposite: the difference teaches something about both.

Ibn Ṭufayl, Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān: the solitary child who learns from a gazelle's bodyFalsafa (Arabic philosophy) · probable
Ibn Sīnā's narrator learns from a sage who hands him the map of the worlds, while Ibn Ṭufayl's Ḥayy has no teacher and learns what the soul is by opening the heart of his dead foster mother.
Carried byقلبqalbroot قلب“teacher and self-teaching”
In the library:Ḥayy (Ibn Ṭufayl) ¶77 Ḥayy (Ibn Ṭufayl) ¶80

Claude (opus) via Claude Code, headless, no web access, 2026-09-28. A reference with a check was found and checked with a web search.

Versions

18 layers, each with its licence

The original

Mehren's edition (Leiden 1889)A. F. Mehren · 1889Public domain

By: A. F. Mehren (editor) · 1889
Source:: A. F. Mehren (ed.), Traités mystiques d'Abou Alî al-Hosain b. Abdallah b. Sînâ ou d'Avicenne, fasc. I: L'allégorie mystique Hay ben Yaqzân (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1889), Arabic text pp. 1–22 (lithographed, with Ibn Zayla's Arabic commentary below the text) and the 'Variantes et annotations', pp. 21–24 of the French part. Google scan of the Stanford copy · link ↗
In the reader:: In full, through our transcription: 22 sections, 2,296 words
Licence:: Public domain (1889; Mehren d. 1907); archive.org flags it NOT_IN_COPYRIGHT
Notes: The only critical edition of the Arabic, from three MSS: L = Leiden (Cat. codd. or. Bibl. Lugd. Bat. III, pp. 328–29), B = London, British Museum (Cat. codd. or. Mus. Brit. II, p. 448, no. 978,2), O = Oxford, Bodleian (Uri I, no. 456). The scan's Arabic pages are bound in reverse order, and printed pp. 7 and 10 are upside down and swapped. Witnesses surveyed but not used: Jāmiʿ al-badāʾiʿ (Cairo 1335/1917, not located), Amīn (Cairo 1952, a reprint of Mehren), Corbin's chapter texts (Tehran/Paris 1952–54, not on disk), Zaydān (©).

Our edition

Our transcription of Mehren's ArabicClaude (AI), Claude (AI) · 2026-09-28AIOur work

By: Claude (AI) (first reading of the page images (matn and Ibn Zayla's commentary)); Claude (AI) (second, independent reading of the matn) · 2026-09-28
Source:: data/sources/hayy-mehren.json (transcription), data/sources/hayy-mehren-proof.json (second reading); scripts/recitals/hayy_assemble.py, hayy_apply_proof.py
In the reader:: In full; every change of the print listed
Licence:: Ours
Made by:: Claude (Opus; exact version not recorded), 2026-09-28 (AI reading of page images; first commit of data/sources/hayy-mehren.json)
Notes: Read letter by letter from 220-dpi page images, keeping the print's spelling (dotless final ى, ة/ه and hamza as printed) and only the vowel marks the print has; Mehren's sign over alif transcribed as آ. Second reading: 2,294 words compared, 2,255 agree, 39 differ, each settled at up to 600 dpi; the second reader saw part of the first transcription by accident (pp. 1–3, 6–10), so agreement there is weaker evidence. 70 changes listed in the data (19 proofreading, 9 doubts resolved, 2 emendations noted, 40 mechanical), 21 uncertain readings. Not yet checked by a person.

Published translations

Mehren's French explanationA. F. Mehren · 1889Public domain

By: A. F. Mehren (translator) · 1889
Source:: Mehren, Traités mystiques I (Leiden 1889), French part · link ↗
In the reader:: Not shown
Licence:: Public domain (1889; Mehren d. 1907)
Notes: A French summary and explanation, not a full translation.

Corbin's translation (Trask's English)Henry Corbin, W. R. Trask · 1952–54; English 1960Copyrighted: cited only

By: Henry Corbin (translator (French, 1952–54)); W. R. Trask (English translator (1960)) · 1952–54; English 1960
Source:: Henry Corbin, Avicenne et le récit visionnaire, 3 vols (Tehran/Paris 1952–54); English: Avicenna and the Visionary Recital, tr. W. R. Trask (New York: Pantheon, Bollingen 66, 1960; Princeton 1990), Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān pp. 137–150, and the old Persian commentary on Ḥayy (Part II) · link ↗
In the reader:: Not shown; none of its wording is reproduced
Licence:: In copyright; cited only
Notes: Our AI translation was checked against Trask's English privately (an AI comparison decided from the Arabic), and corrected from the Arabic in two places (§§16, 18). Corbin's French volumes, with the Arabic chapter by chapter and the anonymous Persian translation-commentary, are not on disk.

Goichon's FrenchA.-M. Goichon · 1959Copyrighted: cited only

By: A.-M. Goichon (translator) · 1959
Source:: A.-M. Goichon, Le récit de Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān commenté par des textes d'Avicenne (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1959)
In the reader:: Not shown; not consulted
Licence:: In copyright; cited only

Heath, Allegory and Philosophy in AvicennaPeter Heath · 1992Copyrighted: cited only

By: Peter Heath (author) · 1992
Source:: Peter Heath, Allegory and Philosophy in Avicenna (Ibn Sînâ) (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992): translates the Miʿrāj-nāma and discusses Ḥayy; whether it also translates it: UNVERIFIED
In the reader:: Not shown; not consulted
Licence:: In copyright; cited only
UNVERIFIED:: Whether Heath 1992 also translates Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān is not verified.

AI layers

Vowelling (supplied vowels)Claude (AI) · 2026-09-28AIOur work

By: Claude (AI) (vowelling) · 2026-09-28
In the reader:: The vowel marks the AI supplied are shown in amber (per-character mask: 't' from the source, 'a' from AI)
Licence:: Ours; marked AI
Made by:: Claude (Opus; exact version not recorded), 2026-09-28 (first commit of app/src/data/hayy.json (scripts/recitals/prepare.py hayy: headless Claude Code, Opus; letters verified unchanged))
Notes: Mehren vowels sparingly; prepare.py supplied full tashkīl where the print is bare, keeping the printed marks, with the letters verified unchanged. The model could rewrite Mehren's sign over alif as a connecting alif (ٱ/ا); each case is logged as a mechanical change. 123 words with two defensible vowellings listed.

English translation, passage by passageClaude (AI) · 2026-09-28AIOur work

By: Claude (AI) (translator) · 2026-09-28
In the reader:: Under each passage
Licence:: Ours; marked AI
Made by:: Claude (Opus; exact version not recorded), 2026-09-28 (first commit of app/src/content/ai/hayy.json (scripts/recitals/translate.py hayy opus: headless Claude Code, minimal context))
Notes: Written for this reader from the Arabic (our vowelled text), with the glossary in data/sources/hayy-meta.json; the model was told not to reproduce or imitate published translations (Corbin/Trask, Goichon, Heath) and was given none. Corrected from the Arabic on 2026-09-28 in §§16 and 18 (grammar of agreement, lexis) after a private comparison with a published translation (Corbin/Trask).

Word glossesClaude (AI) · 2026-09-28AIOur work

By: Claude (AI) (glosses) · 2026-09-28
In the reader:: One gloss per word, in the sense the passage gives it (word panel, and under the words on request)
Licence:: Ours; marked AI
Made by:: Claude (Opus; exact version not recorded), 2026-09-28 (first commit of app/src/content/ai/hayy.json (scripts/recitals/translate.py hayy opus: headless Claude Code, minimal context))
Notes: Contextual glosses (1–5 words) for every word id, from the same run as the translation.

Term notesClaude (AI) · 2026-09-28AIOur work

By: Claude (AI) (notes) · 2026-09-28
In the reader:: Up to six technical terms per passage, each with a one-sentence note, on the word
Licence:: Ours; marked AI
Made by:: Claude (Opus; exact version not recorded), 2026-09-28 (first commit of app/src/content/ai/hayy.json (scripts/recitals/translate.py hayy opus: headless Claude Code, minimal context))
Notes: From the same run as the translation, with an Avicennan glossary (scripts/recitals/hayy_translate.py; data/sources/hayy-meta.json).

English of Ibn Zayla's commentaryClaude (AI) · 2026-09-28AIOur work

By: Claude (AI) (translator) · 2026-09-28
In the reader:: Under each comment
Licence:: Ours; marked AI
Made by:: Claude (Opus; exact version not recorded), 2026-09-28 (first commit of app/public/data/commentaries/hayy.json (scripts/recitals/hayy_translate.py, headless))
Notes: Technical terms kept in italic transliteration after the English.

Synthesis of the readingsClaude (AI) · 2026-09-28AIOur work

By: Claude (AI) (synthesis) · 2026-09-28
In the reader:: On the About page and per passage (20 passages)
Licence:: Ours; marked AI
Made by:: Claude (Opus; exact version not recorded), 2026-09-28 (generatedOn of content/synthesis/hayy.json (Claude Code))
Notes: From public sources only: our AI translation and Ibn Zayla's commentary (with our AI English). No copyrighted translation was given to the model.

Resonances: themes and connectionsClaude (AI) · 2026-09-28AIOur work

By: Claude (AI) (map of themes and connections, by docs/RESONANCES-METHOD.md) · 2026-09-28
In the reader:: For the whole text: themes and 14 connections, on the About page
Licence:: Ours; marked AI
Made by:: Claude (Opus; exact version not recorded), 2026-09-28 (generatedOn of content/resonances/hayy.json (Claude Code, headless, no web access))
Notes: Every connection states its kind; parallels are resonances, not claims of influence. External references were proposed by the model without web access and are shown only after an agent verified them with a web search.

Automatic analysis

Word analysis (CAMeL Tools)CAMeL Tools 1.6 (NYU Abu Dhabi) · 2026-09-28Our work

By: CAMeL Tools 1.6 (NYU Abu Dhabi) (analyser: calima-msa-r13 + MLE, constrained by the text's vowelling) · 2026-09-28
Source:: scripts/fusus/analyze.py → data/sources/hayy-analysis.json · link ↗
In the reader:: Lemma, root, part of speech, clitics and pattern, in the word panel
Licence:: Our analysis layer, made offline with CAMeL Tools (code MIT; calima-msa-r13 database GPL v2, not redistributed)
Notes: Constrained by the text's vowelling (data/sources/hayy-analysis.json). Automatic and non-generative; date = first commit of the analysis file.

Quran quotations found automaticallyscripts/quran_refs.py · 2026-09-28Our work

By: scripts/quran_refs.py (skeleton matcher against the Tanzil Uthmani text) · 2026-09-28
Source:: app/src/data/quran-refs/hayy.json
In the reader:: 2 matches, on the words they cover
Licence:: Ours
Notes: Quotations verified when the text was established, plus an automatic match on the consonantal skeleton (vowels, Quranic marks, alif spellings and hamza seats ignored): a run of four or more words, or three words of at least 12 letters. No AI. The basmala (1:1) and «وما توفيقي إلا بالله» (11:88), both in the opening formula.

Commentaries

Ibn Zayla's commentaryIbn Zayla (al-Ḥusayn b. Ṭāhir b. Zayla al-Iṣfahānī, d. 440/1048), A. F. Mehren · d. 440/1048; printed 1889Public domain

By: Ibn Zayla (al-Ḥusayn b. Ṭāhir b. Zayla al-Iṣfahānī, d. 440/1048) (commentator, Ibn Sīnā's pupil); A. F. Mehren (editor) · d. 440/1048; printed 1889
Source:: Ibn Zayla, Sharḥ Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān (Arabic), printed almost complete in Mehren, Traités mystiques I (Leiden 1889), below the text; transcribed from the page images · link ↗
In the reader:: On 20 sections, each comment aligned to the words it glosses, with an AI English translation
Licence:: Public domain (via Mehren 1889)
Notes: An Arabic commentary glossing clause by clause with ay / yaʿnī. Transcribed in the same first AI pass as the matn; the second reading counted only the matn. Other commentaries (the anonymous Persian commentary, al-Munāwī, Mīr Dāmād) are not aligned.

Audio

Arabic read aloud (machine voice)ar-SA-HamedNeural (Azure AI Speech) · 2026-09-28AIOur work

By: ar-SA-HamedNeural (Azure AI Speech) (machine voice) · 2026-09-28
In the reader:: Each passage, word by word highlighted
Licence:: Ours; generated on Azure's paid tier, whose terms allow the audio output to be published
Made by:: ar-SA-HamedNeural (Azure AI Speech), 2026-09-28 (first commit of app/src/data/hayy-audio.json)
Notes: Machine voice reading the vowelled text (including the AI vowels); a reading aid, not a recitation.

English read aloud (machine voice)en-GB-RyanNeural (Azure AI Speech) · 2026-09-28AIOur work

By: en-GB-RyanNeural (Azure AI Speech) (machine voice) · 2026-09-28
In the reader:: Each passage, word by word highlighted
Licence:: Ours; generated on Azure's paid tier, whose terms allow the audio output to be published
Made by:: en-GB-RyanNeural (Azure AI Speech), 2026-09-28 (first commit of app/src/data/hayy-audio-en.json)
Notes: Machine voice reading the AI English translation; a reading aid.

✦ marks AI that no person has reviewed yet; ✧ marks AI reviewed by a named person. Copyrighted works are cited, never shown. All sources · How texts are established

The text record

Our working notes on this edition: status, witnesses, the decisions taken and why, and what AI supplied. This is a working edition, not an authority.Show the notes

Work / author / dates	Risālat Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān (رسالة حي بن يقظان) · Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥusayn b. ʿAbd Allāh Ibn Sīnā (370–428 AH / 980–1037 CE). Written during his four-month detention in the fortress of Fardajān near Hamadan (c. 414/1023), per his disciple al-Jūzjānī.
Part added	Whole text (short: prologue + recital; the Persian commentator divides it into 25 chapters, which Corbin follows)
Reader route	`/read/hayy` · apparatus `/read/hayy/notes` (proposed)
Status	witness survey done (step 2, 28 Sept 2026) · no text established yet · reviewed by: —

Structure: prologue (wa-baʿdu, fa-inna iṣrārakum maʿshar ikhwānī…: some MSS omit it and begin at the recital), the narrator's walk near his city, the meeting with the radiant old-young sage Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān, the three bad companions (imagination, irascibility, concupiscence), the geography of the cosmos (the West of matter, the East of forms, the spheres and intelligences, the terrestrial and celestial angels), the King, and the closing invitation "If you will, follow me toward Him." Its last lines ("perhaps individuals among men have emigrated to Him…") are the starting point of Suhrawardī's Ghurba (see suhrawardi-ghurba.md). Later text: Risālat al-Ṭayr (the third recital of the Avicennan cycle): see §12.

1. Witnesses

Independence: M (Mehren 1889) is the only critical edition of the Arabic, from three MSS (London, Oxford, Leiden). K (Cairo 1917) and A (Amīn 1952) are reprints that depend on M (Amīn says so). Co (Corbin 1952) re-prints the Arabic chapter by chapter from Persian-commentary MSS that carry the Arabic, collated with M and a Tehran MS of Ibn Zayla: an independent partial witness. Z (Ibn Zayla) and P (Persian commentary) are early commentators whose lemmata are witnesses. Order of weight for this text: M → Co (for its MS readings) → Z / P lemmata → A / K → digital.

Siglum	Witness	Kind	Vowelled?	Licence	Location / text layer
M	A. F. Mehren (ed.), Traités mystiques d'Abou Alî al-Hosain b. Abdallah b. Sînâ ou d'Avicenne, fasc. I: L'allégorie mystique Hay ben Yaqzân, Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1889. Arabic text with Ibn Zayla's Arabic commentary printed almost complete in the margin, and French explanation. MSS (Mehren's preface): London, British Museum (Cat. codd. or. Mus. Brit. II p. 448, no. 978,2); Oxford, Bodleian (Uri I, no. 456); Leiden (Cat. codd. or. Bibl. Lugd. Bat. III p. 328). Fasc. II (1891) = last three namaṭs of the Ishārāt + Risālat al-Ṭayr; III (1894) = short treatises; IV (1899) = Risāla fī l-qadar.	critical ed.	lightly (typeset Arabic, few vowels)	Public domain (1889; Mehren d. 1907). Archive.org flags "NOT_IN_COPYRIGHT".	archive.org `traitsmystiques00avicgoog` (Stanford copy scanned by Google; bound set; fasc. I begins ≈ line 11,619 of the djvu text: "1er FASCICULE. L'Allégorie mystique Hay ben Yaqzân. Leyde, E. J. Brill, 1889"). No fasc. I in `traitsmystique02avic` (= fasc. II) or `traitsmystique04avic` (= fasc. IV); `traitsmystique01avic` and `…03avic` do not exist.
K	Jāmiʿ al-badāʾiʿ, ed. Muḥyī al-Dīn Ṣabrī al-Kurdī, Cairo: Maṭbaʿat al-Saʿāda, 1335/1917 (a collection of short treatises; reprints the Ḥayy). Amīn: "then it was printed in Egypt with a group of treatises by Muḥyī al-Dīn al-Kurdī". Probably from M.	reprint	?	PD (1917)	not located; check archive.org / HathiTrust
A	Aḥmad Amīn (ed.), Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān li-Ibn Sīnā wa-Ibn Ṭufayl wa-l-Suhrawardī, Cairo: Dār al-Maʿārif, 1952 (Dhakhāʾir al-ʿArab 8), written for the Avicenna millenary. Amīn states he used Mehren's Leiden text (misdated "1881"), "from whose commentary we quoted much". His notes paraphrase Ibn Zayla via Mehren.	reprint of M with notes	lightly	Amīn d. 1954: PD in Egypt; US status uncertain. The archive.org item is a later free-with-newspaper reprint (Dār al-Madā, Damascus/Baghdad, for al-Ittiḥād).	archive.org `quran99yaai_gmail_201710` (djvu text layer). Text layer is good Arabic OCR, e.g. the incipit: `انه قد تيسرت لي حبن مقاميا ببلادي (برزة) برفقائي الى بعض المتنزهات المكتنفة لتلك البقعة فبينما نحن نتطاوف إذ عن لنا شيح بهي قد أوغل في السن` (errors: حبن for حين, مقاميا for مقامي, شيح for شيخ; "(برزة)" appears to be Amīn's insertion). ~90% of words correct.
Co	Henry Corbin, Avicenne et le récit visionnaire, 3 vols, Tehran: Société des Monuments Nationaux / Paris: Adrien-Maisonneuve, 1952–54 (Édition du Millénaire). Vol. II: the Arabic text of each of the 25 chapters followed by the anonymous Persian translation and commentary. Persian MSS: A = Istanbul, Ayasofya 2458 (7th/13th c.; no Arabic); M = Tehran, Malek Library (11th/17th c.; collation note 1078 AH; margins carry readings from Mehren); S = Tehran, Sipahsālār 1216 (1110–1150 AH). Arabic collated with E = Mehren and F = Tehran, Ferdowsi National Library Arabic MS 884 (Ḥayy with Ibn Zayla's commentary, copied 1275 AH). Corbin explicitly did not make a new critical edition of the Arabic. Persian part also as Le Récit d'Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān (UNESCO, 1953). English: Avicenna and the Visionary Recital, tr. W. R. Trask, New York: Pantheon (Bollingen 66), 1960; Princeton 1990 (on disk; source of the above).	independent partial witness (Arabic by chapter) + commentary	?	©	Trask translation: a private copy. French/Persian volumes NOT on disk.
Z	Ibn Zayla (al-Ḥusayn b. Ṭāhir b. Zayla al-Iṣfahānī, d. 440/1048), Avicenna's pupil: Arabic commentary (not Persian), glossing clause by clause with ay / yaʿnī. Printed almost complete in M's margin; MS Tehran, Ferdowsi Ar. 884 (1275 AH). A Hebrew translation of text + Ibn Zayla exists (Mehren pp. 8–9).	commentary (Arabic), lemma witness	—	PD via M	via M (archive.org)
P	Anonymous Persian translation and commentary, made for ʿAlāʾ al-Dawla of Isfahan within five years of Avicenna's death; Corbin attributes it (probably) to al-Jūzjānī. 25 chapters, each: tafsīr (translation) then sharḥ.	commentary (Persian), lemma witness	—	© (Corbin ed.)	Corbin vol. II (not on disk); English in Trask Part II (on disk)
—	Other commentaries: ʿAbd al-Raʾūf al-Munāwī (d. 1031/1621), Arabic, abridged lemmata ("qawluhu … ilā"); MSS scarce (two private Tehran collections, per Corbin). Mīr Dāmād (d. 1631), letter on the symbols (Majlis, Ṭabāṭabāʾī coll. 1284). Brockelmann GAL I 593, S I 817 no. 26; Anawati, Essai de bibliographie avicennienne no. 249 (census of MSS). MS Ahmet III 3447 has an unidentified commentary. NB MS ʿĀshir 441, catalogued as Ḥayy, is Suhrawardī's Ghurba.	commentaries			not on disk
—	Translations (cite only): Mehren (French summary, 1889); Corbin (French 1952, English Trask 1960); A.-M. Goichon, Le récit de Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān commenté par des textes d'Avicenne, Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1959; Peter Heath, Allegory and Philosophy in Avicenna (Ibn Sînâ), Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 1992 (translates the Miʿrāj-nāma; discusses Ḥayy; verify whether it also translates it).	translation		©	Corbin/Trask on disk only
D	Digital: Yūsuf Zaydān, Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān: al-nuṣūṣ al-arbaʿa wa-mubdiʿūhā (Cairo: Dār al-Shurūq; the four texts of Ibn Sīnā, Ibn Ṭufayl, Suhrawardī, Ibn al-Nafīs), ©, reading copy only. Hindawi has Ibn Ṭufayl and Kaylānī, not Ibn Sīnā. OpenITI RELEASE: none. Shamela: a .bok "Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān" exists (archive.org `alfirdwsiy2018_gmail_4280`) but is almost certainly Ibn Ṭufayl; not checked further.	digital		© / unknown	see §12

Quality of the text layers

M on archive.org is not usable as text. The Google/Stanford scan's djvu layer is French-only OCR; the Arabic pages come out as Latin noise, e.g. ^ij^ t^ i^*» o{,*£ u jjgv oy gji ^^juL, û, >«JI, M» JtHJ'i «A M5. The Arabic must be OCR'd afresh from page images (Kraken/eScriptorium or Tesseract ara) or typed from A and checked against M's images.
The DLI copy in.ernet.dli.2015.323235 (fasc. II–IV, Hyderabad) does have usable Arabic OCR for Risālat al-Ṭayr, e.g. هل لأحد من أخوانى ى أن يهب لى من سيعد قدّر ما ألقى اليد طرفا من أشجائى عساه أن يتحيل عنى بالشركة بعض أعدائها (noisy but usable, ~75%).
A (Amīn) has a good Arabic layer (above), but it is a reprint of M with Amīn's changes; it is a typing aid, not an authority.

2. Base and why

Recommendation: base = M (Mehren 1889), public domain, read from the page images of traitsmystiques00avicgoog; use A's OCR as the typing layer, then correct every word against M's images (A departs from M in places, e.g. the inserted "(برزة)"). Record M's line/page for every passage. Compare against Co (Corbin's chapter texts) for readings from the Persian-commentary MSS and F; collect Z's lemmata from M's margin (same scan, public domain) and P's from Corbin/Trask. Why: the only openly usable scholarly text; Corbin, the other authority, did not re-edit the Arabic and is ©.

3. Collation

TODO (step 4). Plan: A OCR → corrected against M images → collated with Co (when acquired) and Z's lemmata.

4. Decisions (substantive)

TODO. Known issue to adjudicate: ch. 4, "his face always turned toward his father": the name repeated as Ḥayy in most MSS vs. Yaqẓān in Ayasofya 2458 (Persian), which Corbin adopts in translation.

5. Quotations verified

TODO (few or no Quran quotations expected; check).

6. Vowelling

TODO. M is lightly vowelled; AI vowelling will be needed.

7. Segmentation and word IDs

Proposed: the Persian commentator's 25 chapters (used by Corbin; a traditional teaching division), with the prologue as §0. Word IDs hy:<ch>:<token>. TODO.

8. Analysis layer

TODO

9. Commentaries aligned

TODO. Ibn Zayla (Arabic, PD via M's margin): first priority. Persian commentary (P) via Corbin: private layer. al-Munāwī: acquire if possible.

10. Translation

TODO. AI from the Arabic with a fixed Avicennan glossary; Mehren's French (PD) may be shown; Corbin, Goichon, Heath private only.

11. Rights and private layers

M and Ibn Zayla (in M): public domain, may be published and hosted. A: treat as private working copy (US status uncertain). Corbin/Trask, Goichon, Heath, Zaydān: private layer.

12. Open questions / to review

Download of M's page images for fasc. I is needed to establish the text (PDF of traitsmystiques00avicgoog, not fetched in this survey): ask before downloading.
Acquire Corbin, Avicenne et le récit visionnaire vol. II (Arabic + Persian), or the 1953 UNESCO Le Récit de Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān.
Optional: Goichon 1959; Heath 1992; al-Munāwī's commentary (MS); Jāmiʿ al-badāʾiʿ 1917.
Locate the three Mehren MSS in modern catalogues (British Library Or./Add. no.; Bodleian Uri 456 → current shelfmark; Leiden Or. no.) and check for digitised images.
Risālat al-Ṭayr (for later): Mehren fasc. II (Leiden 1891), PD; archive.org traitsmystique02avic (Ottawa scan) and the DLI copy in.ernet.dli.2015.323235 (Arabic OCR usable, from ≈ line 1,717 of its djvu text). Corbin translates it in the Visionary Recital; Suhrawardī made a Persian version (Risāla-yi Ṭayr, Thackston Treatise I, on disk).

13. Change log

2026-09-28: record created; witness survey (step 2).
2026-09-28: M transcribed from page images (the Mehren scan, pdf pp. 256–277 = Arabic pp. 1–22, reverse order; pdf 268 = p. 7 and pdf 271 = p. 10 are upside down and swapped) → data/sources/hayy-mehren.json: 22 sense-sections, matn + Ibn Zayla commentary + Mehren's Variantes (sigla L/B/O). First pass, not yet proofread; ~16 ⟨?⟩ readings listed under uncertain.